After hearing from Marjorie, we decided to see for ourselves whether movies at area theaters are sometimes too loud and, if so, whether that could eventually hurt your hearing.

During our unscientific testing, we put a professional-grade decibel meter which measures sound levels in a handbag and sent our tester to a variety of movies playing at different theaters chosen at random.

We saw kids' movies like The Game Plan, Harry Potter and Bee Movie. We also checked out action movies like American Gangster.

After recording the levels of those five movies we plugged our decibel meter into a computer and the machine's computer program graphed the results.

Here's what we found:

For the most part, they all averaged well within safe levels as described by the National Institutes of Health.

But, each movie peaked above the safe level, 85 decibels, multiple times. The NIH says those higher levels could damage your hearing after long or repeated exposure.

Those were the results for regular theaters. But what about I-MAX theaters?

We watched Transformers at the I-MAX in the Marbles Children's Museum in downtown Raleigh. This time the movie averaged more than 80 decibels. That's just below what's considered safe. It also peaked at nearly one hundred decibels.

"Oh, wow... That's really bad," said Marjorie Hopkins after we showed her our findings.

"The majority of the whole movie, the whole time they were sitting there their ears were being bombarded by noise," said Hopkins.

"That's too loud," says Dr. Edith Ferris. She's an audiologist with Carolina Hearing Group in Raleigh. We took her our measurements so she could check them out.

"Today's audience wants to feel more involved in the action so there is more noise, there is more music, and certainly we're playing our movies quite loudly," says Dr. Ferris.

Dr. Ferris says the decibel readings we found at Bee Movie and Transformers could damage hearing over time. OSHA has a standard suggesting people shouldn't be exposed to sounds registering above 85 decibels for more than eight hours at a time.

Dr Ferris says if movies are that loud regular movie goers should consider taking hearing protection to the theater.

Dr. Ferris says she and other doctors are seeing a lot of children with some degree of Noise Induced Hearing Loss. She says she and other doctors see NIHL in as many as 12.5% of her child patients. She says while one exposure to a loud movie might not damage your hearing; the damage to your ears from repeated exposure to movies that peak above 85 decibels can lead to permanent hearing problems.

"We really just don't need it that loud," said Dr. Ferris. "We need to ask ourselves, is it so important that we feel that thrilled with the movie that we turn things up so loud that we create something that can cumulatively build up and give us a hearing loss over time?" continued Dr. Ferris.

That's what Marjorie Hopkins is afraid of and that's why she and her grandkids always have 'ear plugs' on hand.

"I think it's something very worth while to look into, not just in theaters but in certain concerts, productions, just an awareness, make people aware of what they're doing," said Hopkins.

A theater manager tells Eyewitness News the volume level for each movie is encoded in the movie itself by the Holly wood studio. The film canister also contains playback instructions. The manager says sometimes those instruction tell the theater to increase the volume because the movie director wants his movie to be louder than normal.

The theater manager at the I-MAX in Raleigh also tells us the studios preset the volume level for movies. He says the I-MAX theater is tested quarterly to make sure it stays within safe volume levels. He also says the staff monitors every movie and if they receive complaints they'll check it out and sometimes turn down the volume if it appears to be too loud.

We didn't single out any particular theater, chain, or even movie for the unscientific testing. We just wanted to see if Marjorie was on to something. It seems like she may have been. We thank Marjorie for the tip and if you have something you'd like us to investigate just click here to send us a message.

http://abclocal.go.com:80/wtvd/story?section=investigative&id=5787902