Limit the volume on portable music devices to protect hearing

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Don’t risk mild hearing loss just because you like to listen to music on a portable device. You have new solutions out there in the marketplace.

One obvious solution would be to have a volume control on MP3 players, smart phones, and the like. Unfortunately, that’s not a popular solution here at home, but the nanny state of Europe does have volume limiters on many of its portable music players.

The problem with loud sounds is that you acclimate to them and continually need to bump the volume up. Not too long ago, I got in the car after my eldest daughter drove it, started up the engine, and suddenly there was ear-piercing volume coming from the radio. And that’s a normal listening level to her.

Apple products have a noise-limiting ability as an optional setting. Look for it under music settings.

USA Today reports you can also buy noise-limiting headphones geared to kids. KidzGear Volume Limit Headphones sells for $29 and are available at Apple.com. Crayola MyPhones are another option for $25 at Griffin.com.

Meanwhile, in the tech news world, Apple’s iPhone 5 sold at twice the speed of the 4S. They sold out all 2 million preorders in something like 18 hours.

So the question I keep getting again and again is should you buy Apple stock? Today, Apple is the most valuable company in the world based on a stock market value of $655 billion.

But the danger anytime you buy a hot stock is you are what’s called a momentum investor. Apple has had such a run-up in value that it’s likely greater the company’s stock will tread water or go down from here than go up.

Still, it’s not like Apple is a wildly inflated dot com. The company’s stock is still reasonably priced. Yet there’s the ever-present danger anytime you try to buy the best current hit stock in the technology field. Think about BlackBerry. They were riding high just three years ago and now there’s concern if they can even survive.

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