It's music to your ears but harmful to hearing.

Byline: THE HEALTH FILES By Tim Christie The Register-Guard

"It's very special, because, as you can see - the numbers all go to 11. Right across the board."

- Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel, describing the band's

extra-loud amplifiers.

After introducing the band Rascal Flatts at this summer's Lane County Fair, Tracy Berry, one of the morning DJs on New Country 93, listened to most of the show, then ducked out to meet her husband at Civic Stadium for the end of an Emeralds' game.

When she got out of her car at the ballpark, about a mile west of the fairgrounds, it was as if she never left.

"I could clearly hear the lyrics to `Praying for Daylight,' ' one of the band's hit songs, she said, and then the lead singer telling the crowd: "Thanks so much, Eugene, we had a great time. We're Rascal Flatts."

Which is why Berry, a seasoned concertgoer, always carries earplugs when she goes to live shows.

"When I mention it, people look at me like I'm crazy," she said. "I have people tell me it's not a good concert if your ears don't ring."

For music lovers, nothing beats the thrill and spectacle of a concert and the physical sensation of live music well-played. But when bands and their sound engineers crank up the volume - if not to 11, then to 10 - the audience can suffer, even if they don't realize it right away.

Billy Martin knows. He has noise-induced hearing loss in both ears, giving him the hearing of a 75-year-old at age 50. He blames listening to loud music, racing motorcycles and shooting guns for his condition.

Now Martin studies hearing loss at the Oregon Hearing Research Center, part of Oregon Health & Science University, where he serves as director of the Tinnitus Clinic. Tinnitus - a chronic ringing of the ears - is one of the consequences of exposure to loud, long noise.

Martin is involved with a statewide public health campaign called Dangerous Decibels, sponsored by OHSU and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Its aim is to reduce hearing loss, and its advice for people confronted with loud noise is simple: Turn it down, move away or protect your ears.

Martin offers a simple rule of thumb: If you're in a setting where you have to raise your voice to be understood, you're probably damaging your hearing.

It's not just boomers like Martin developing hearing problems. About 5.2 million young Americans, aged 6 to 19, have hearing loss directly related to noise exposure, according to a 2001 study published in the journal Pediatrics.

The study's authors concluded that American children are "being exposed to excessive amounts of hazardous levels of noise, and children's hearing is vulnerable to these exposures."

Loud music can affect us both physically and psychologically, he said. That means a song or noise you hate may drive you crazy even at low volumes, though it won't hurt your hearing. And hearing your favorite song cranked up loud may feel good - while causing permanent hearing damage.

"At most concerts people are trying to get as much sound out of their equipment as possible," Martin said. "Many bands pride themselves on getting up to 124, 126 decibels. They think that's exciting."

And so do the people who are hearing - and feeling - the music, he said.

But like Berry, Martin packs foam earplugs to concerts and finds that it does not diminish his enjoyment of the show.

"It is so incredibly loud that foam earplugs really just put a dent in it," he said.

At this summer's fair, Lane County Fair officials for the first time hired somebody to measure the volume of their concerts. More and more fairs are documenting sound both to be good neighbors and to protect audiences, said Warren Wong, the fair's managing director.

Fair officials are thinking of instituting a system similar to what other fairs have used, in which a band will get three warnings if they're exceeding agreed-upon sound levels, and then they'd be fined.

"We're trying to find that range where we're not getting (complaint) calls but where concertgoers feel like they attended a concert," said Jane Holloway, one of the fair's marketing managers.

A sound engineer stationed at the sound board checked the decibel levels every three minutes.

Lone Star averaged around 100 decibels, and people there said they sounded good and not too loud. Sixpence None the Richer opened at 107 decibels, but quieted to about 101 after fair officials talked to their people. The Beach Boys averaged about 103 decibels, and Heart was around 100.

Rascal Flatts was consistently the loudest band, with decibel levels averaging about 106. The fair received about four complaints concerning the noise, Holloway said.

"Some bands play the way they want to play," she said.

But none of the bands approached the din of the infamous U2 concert at Autzen Stadium in 1997. The Irish rock band didn't take the stage until about 9:30 p.m., then proceeded to blast their 30,000 fans - as well as people all over the city - through a bank of 149 speakers suspended at the top of a 100-foot arch.

Residents who lived more than five miles from the stadium were disturbed by the noise, and police fielded nearly 150 formal noise complaints.

Berry, the DJ, thinks it's the sound engineers who travel with the bands who are to blame for excessively loud concerts.

"They just don't realize how loud or distorted it might be," she said. "Our theory is all the sound engineers have gone deaf."

Tim Christie can be reached at 338-2572 or tchristie @guardnet.com.