Great topic, guys, and one that I have mentioned more than once on my podcast.
I got into radio as a commercial and promo producer in '87.
In '91, the station I was working for gave me free tickets to go and see The Angels (Aussie hard rock band) supported by Cheap Trick (this was in Hobart, in Tasmania).
It was a Friday night, I was 23 and still believed myself "10 foot tall and bullet proof" as the saying goes.
On Monday morning, trying to mix a promo, I had to "guess" the eq based on looking at the settings on the desk, and had to go and get another guy with 'ears' to come and confirm that it sounded ok.
My high frequency response was shot.
By Tuesday, it was pretty much back to normal... but that was 4 days after the event!!
That was my wake up call.
I realised that if I wanted to continue a career where my ears were my income, I would have to look after them. Up to that point, I was always monitoring notoriously loud in the studio, too.
It was at that point that I made a conscious descision to monitor at lower levels.
It took a while (read: weeks) to get used to the lower levels, but I'm sure glad I took that step when I did.
I haven't spent much time in headphones over the course of my career, but I have lost track of the number of on-air "jocks" I've met who have to have their headphones turned up to the point of feedback in order to hear themselves when they're on-air!
Scary stuff.
And those same guys tend to be a nightmare when you want them to read an ad or a promo, because again, they want their cans absolutely crankin'.
And when you're using a nice condensor in the production studio, you get that lovely "on-the-verge-of-feedback" 'ting' on every syllable.
It's frightening how many people in the (on-air side of the) radio industry are at that point.
So yeah, the more we can do to spread the word, the better.
The unfortunate thing is, right here at PSW, we're preaching to the converted (a lot of the time).