The ringing in your ears after rocking out at a show isn't a badge of honor. It's a sign that you've temporarily harmed your hearing, a condition that hearing specialists say could become permanent with prolonged exposure to loud noise or music -- in your car, at home or at one of the many summer concerts planned for this season.

That's especially true for baby boomers who still want to rock, or are simply stuck with their kids at an Avril Lavigne concert. Hearing loss is natural as people age, but it can be accelerated if damage is sustained earlier in life, local hearing specialists say.

"If you go to a concert and your ears are ringing after, that means your ears have had a traumatic experience that can become irreversible," said John Angerosa, chief of otolaryngology at Schenectady's Ellis Hospital. "Kids think it's cool, but it's just the opposite. It's the worst thing in the world."

"Noise-induced hearing loss is the most preventable kind of hearing loss," said Lisa Artino, an audiologist at University Ear, Nose & Throat in Albany. "The bottom line is to avoid loud sound. If you can't, wear hearing protection."

That goes for hard rock or light jazz. It's not so much the style of music as it is how loud the music is being amplified, Artino said.

How loud

Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers, or HEAR, a San Francisco-based ear-protection advocacy group for musicians, reports that 86 percent of musicians and music fans experience ringing of the ears after a concert.

"The orchestra that you're listening to can still be loud," Artino said. How loud depends on where you're listening. Amplified music in clubs and smaller venues can be more damaging to the ears than sitting halfway back in a large arena. The sound in smaller venues tends to be more concentrated, while it bounces -- and eventually weakens -- in larger rooms, hearing experts said.

Listening to music outdoors is easier on the ears because it tends to diffuse, unless you're sitting or standing in front of or near the speakers, which experts said can be a very bad place to be because your ears will take a pounding of between 120 and 140 decibels during a two-hour show, levels that can permanently alter hearing with prolonged exposure. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends exposing unprotected ears to no more than 15 minutes of sound per day measured at 115 decibels.

"Our ears are designed to hear a whisper in a forest," said Angerosa. "If you take that blast of air pressure and concentrate it in the ear, it's the worst thing you can do for your hearing."

How it works

Sound is gathered by the outer ear and funneled into the middle ear, where it causes the eardrum to vibrate. The sound is amplified into the inner ear, where fine hairs (called cilia) read the impulses and pass them to nerve endings connected to the brain. A form of short-term hearing loss -- called temporary threshold shift -- happens when the cilia are bent or swollen by loud sound vibrations. That causes ringing in the ears or sounds to sound muffled; hearing usually returns to normal over a period of hours or days. Permanent hearing damage can occur over a period of years, or happen immediately. Of the more than 28 million Americans with hearing loss, about 40 percent are younger than 65, according to the Hearing Alliance of America.

With teenagers listening to high-powered stereos in their car or cranking iPods at full volume, hearing specialists such as Angerosa expect that age threshold to drop sharply over the next few decades.

"By the time these young people are 40 or 45, wearing a hearing aid is going to be as common as it is to wear glasses," Angerosa said. "If somebody can hear your iPod while you're listening to it, it is too loud," said Kathy Peck, executive director and co-founder of Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers.

The best way to protect your hearing is to avoid loud sounds altogether, audiologists agreed. That's not an option for most music fans, so earplugs are the next best bet. Hard-core music fans who value sound quality as much as sound protection can buy custom-fitted earplugs, which run about $150 a pair, said Artino. The molded silicone earplugs come with a replaceable filter that blocks certain frequencies and lets others through, providing more of the music's brilliance.

Simple sound protection comes much cheaper; earplugs made of sponge or waxy putty cost as little as $3 at most drug and music stores. And forget about using cotton or tissue; HEAR says they are useless, reducing sound by less than 7 decibels -- softer than a ticking watch.

Sponge and putty earplugs block about 20 decibels of sound, leaving mostly lower frequencies that make music sound muddy, said Angerosa. That's why some local musicians, such as Sirsy lead singer Melanie Krahmer and Hair Of The Dog bass player Rick Bedrosian go without earplugs on stage. Instead, Krahmer said she wears ear monitors -- small wired devices in her ears that let her adjust the volume of the band's stage sound mix.

"Before I started wearing an ear monitor, I was screaming over the stagevolume and at the end of the night I'd end up losing my voice and my earswould be ringing. I could hear that 'eeeeeeee' ringing in my ears and Iwould hear that at night when I was trying to sleep."

Michael Lisi, a local freelance writer, is a regular contributor to the Times Union.

Check your hearing with these easy steps

At concerts, just how loud is too loud? The Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers has an easy way to tell:

Before the show, turn on your car radio and turn it down to where you can just hear the words. Try a talk show; those usually work best.

After the concert, tune the radio to the same station, at the same volume setting. If you can't hear or understand the words, you've experienced short-term hearing loss. Those symptoms include ringing in the ears -- referred to as tinnitus -- a muted, plugged-up sensation or pain.

Your hearing will return to normal over a period of hours or even days. But temporary hearing loss can become permanent if the ears are excessively exposed to excessive sound, according to John Angerosa, chief of otolaryngology at Schenectady's Ellis Hospital.

You should have your hearing checked if you answer yes to three of these questions:

* Do you have a problem hearing over the telephone?

* Do you have trouble following the conversation when two or more people are talking at the same time?

* Do people complain that you turn the TV volume up too high?

* Do you have to strain to understand conversation?

* Do you have trouble hearing in a noisy background?

* Do you find yourself asking people to repeat themselves?

* Do many people you talk to seem to mumble or not speak clearly?

* Do you misunderstand what others are saying and respond inappropriately?

* Do you have trouble understanding the speech of women and children?

* Do people get annoyed because you misunderstand what they say?

Source: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

HOW LOUD IS LOUD?

The following is a list of the loudness of sounds, measured in decibels:

* 20 decibels: A ticking watch

* 30 decibels: A quiet whisper

* 50 decibels: Rainfall

* 60-70 decibels: Normal conversation, at a distance of between 3 and 5 feet

* 75-85 decibels: Chamber music in a small auditorium

* 80 decibels: A telephone dial tone

* 84-103 decibels: A violin

* 90 decibels: A train whistle at 500 feet

* 90-106 decibels: A French horn

* 94 decibels: An average Walkman set at half its peak volume

* 95 decibels: A subway train at 200 feet

* 107 decibels: A power mower

* 110 decibels: A screaming child

* 120-140 decibels: Amplified rock music at a rock concert, at a distance between 4 and 6 feet

* 140 decibels: A jet engine

Source: This information was culled from statistics compiled by the American Tinnitus Association; Hearing Education, Awareness for Rockers; and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.