Another survey: Which music genre is most likely to leave you with ringing ears? (Hint: It’s not rock.)

Let’s be clear from the outset: Ringing in the ears after exposure to loud music is not any kind of badge of honour. It’s a sign that you’re destroying the delicate hairs in your inner ear called stereocilia. Their job is to convert kinetic/acoustic energy into the electronic signals that are perceived by the brain as sound. Loud music knocks them over, making them unable to do their job.

While these tiny hairs are resilient, they can only take so much before they fall and can’t get up. That’s when you experience hearing damage. And those little hairs ain’t coming back. It starts with tinnitus and goes downhill from there.

A company called Alpine Hearing Protection has earplugs that turn listening to live loud music into a more safe experience. They commissioned a study into what genres of music are likely to result in ringing in the ears.

It’s not just volume that matters, either. If your ears are asked to process complex sounds over a long period of time, everything gets fatigued. Along with perceived loudness (LUFS), sound pressure levels (RMS, in this case), average dynamic range (the difference between loud and quiet bits), and the average treble-to-bass ratio (higher, sharper songs can be really hard on the ears.)

Here’s what they found. Beware, K-pop fans.

You can read more here.