Hey- I know this may sound like a virgin adolescent kind of question... but seriously, I've been using a small 8w 2.1 creative monitors for the past decade or so; I like to keep earbud volume low; I wear earplugs in noisy environments (work and concerts- not so many these days) - basically,  I've made an effort to not have my hearing damaged most of my life because I really love music.
So, today I bought a pair of powered yamaha 8in monitors- I bought them to get a fuller range of sound than I was getting- and I hooked them up, and listened perhaps an hour of some beats at what I felt was a fairly reasonable volume, perhaps just beyond normal conversational level, nothing uncomfortable for my sensitivity - but when I turned them off and left the room I noticed my ears were ringing a bit- not good. Can anyone explain to me why my ears would be ringing ? Were my senses fooled into believing the sound was not as loud as it was, or, the lower lows and higher ranges can be more damaging than mid-range at a "normal" volume ?
 
TIA  

I find that the cleaner your sound is, the louder you can stand it. For instance, I've noticed that with a very high quality hi-fi system, you can listen at much higher volumes and still have intelligible conversations whereas with a lower quality sound system, it sounds more fatiguing and masks other sounds at a much lower volume level. So I can imagine that higher levels of clarity might fool the ears into thinking that the volume is actually lower than it is. 
 
Another possibility is that your ears are sensitive to the extended frequency range of your new speakers. I can't be sure but I've always suspected that certain frequencies aggravate my tinnitus more than others. Bass frequencies may be the cause. The ears are less sensitive to them and so we tend not to reach for the volume control when they're in excess, unlike mid and high frequencies which cause more obvious discomfort at high volumes. But bass frequencies can definitely cause as much damage. 
 
I doubt whether you've damaged your hearing - the ears tend to bounce back from mild damage (although it's certainly possible to cause catastrophic damage to hearing in just a few seconds if the volume is loud enough), it's only when we do it over prolonged periods that hearing loss results. So I wouldn't worry too much, maybe turn it down a bit. You're definitely safer than you would be with headphones on. If you're really worried about your hearing (and it sounds like you've been pretty aware of it) then take a good dose of a high quality magnesium supplement before working with audio as this has been shown to protect the hearing from loud noise. 

I noticed the ringing was fairly slight, so I wasn't so worried about long term- but as I use my daw about every day, this exposure will have to be reconciled. I was wise enough to set everything at min volume and slowly brought things up to listen.
 
Thanks again

Hi. I am just taking a shot in the dark here, but could it be that your room amplifies the higher frequencies? Do you have the possibility to defuse some of the higher frequencies (in one way or the other? I sit in a terrible room bass wise, and cannot play at any substantial volume, before my ears get "fried" / loses its ability to hear differences I make.
Anyway, best of luck.

Great question, got me thinking...
 
I'd always assumed it was high frequencies that did the damage, based on the ideas that a) those are what are most likely to be physically painful at a loud concert, and b) that it's the high end you lose first as hearing degrades from long-term damage.
 
But sharke's comment got me thinking. Low frequencies represent far more energy than highs, perhaps 10,000 times more sound pressure at the lowest end of the spectrum. When the OP upgraded his speakers, what was  he now hearing that he couldn't hear before? The sub-100 Hz range.
 
I recently joined a band and have begun using musicians' earplugs, something I'd never done before. They definitely help, but since they're off-the-shelf rather than custom-molded they do little to attenuate low frequencies. Now I'm wondering if they're protecting me as well as I'd hoped they would.
 
I do agree with the assessment that minimal damage is probably being done, as the OP is monitoring at sensible volume. But the fact remains that, statistically, audio professionals lose their hearing faster than the general population. I'm sure George Martin was not in the habit of listening to loud music, but even he had to retire due to hearing loss.

these monitors are 60w rated 38hz- 30khz; certainly the range is considerably greater than I've experienced at home- but we go to movies a few times a year, and I wear my industrial earplugs with 20-30 db, I dare say the volume is more at a theater even with the protection, the length of exposure: 2 1/2 hrs compared to about 1 hr yesterday- and range, I am certain would be comparable- but I walk out of the movie after that without the ringing I had.  
They're set up a bit over 1 m, or say, 4 or 5 ft  from where I play- and the room has enough clutter around the walls that I think the sound is being diffused than say reflected or amplified.
My hearing is a fair bit more sensitive than my wife's- who never went out much before, no concerts and few movies.
So, this remains a bit of a conundrum for me. 

There is some evidence that hearing damage can occur with exposure to sound that is itself outside of the audible frequency range (both ultrasonic and infrasonic). In other words what you can't hear can damage your hearing.
 
High end loss due to noise exposure is characteristic of noise damage regardless of the frequency of the sound that causes the damage. In other words too much bass can leave your hearing for high pitches damaged more than your low pitch acuity. Most industrial and combat noise damage is from low frequencies, but the characteristic high end loss is still common. 
 
Although tinnitus is a symptom of both short term and long term noise injury, and from either brief exposure or chronic exposure it is  a "symptom" of many other things as well. Pressure changes in the fluid in the cochlea is a well known cause and when associated with vertigo is called Meniere's syndrome. It can be a symptom of tumors like acoustic neuroma as well and a host of other things. Focusing your attention on tinnitus makes it seem much louder than usual, and conversely distracting activity makes it seem to diminish or disappear. Almost everyone with a working neural audio system will notice high pitched tinnitus if listening in a quiet enough place, so in that sense a low level may be normal. In other words tinnitus is masked by external noise, and anything that reduces hearing from outside (like ear canal blockage) can "cause" tinnitus by that mechanism. It is common in age related hearing loss even in those with limited noise exposure. Almost everyone has experienced noticeable, if not frankly annoying, high pitched ringing pitched tinnitus at some point in life without any obvious pathology. 
 
Listening to speakers at normal levels would not be expected to deliver much more energy in the audible frequencies than using headphones at the same subjective level. It is remotely possible that if one transducer were delivering more energy in inaudible frequencies than another there would be more damage but I doubt that is what is happening.

Considering those monitors appear to go into "dog" territory (i.e., above the supposed 22 kHz that humans can hear), maybe you should add a low pass filter and try again?  Depending on your age, you could put it around 18 kHz and still hear all that you could.

One possibility is there is a lot of mid in the sound. I have left-ear tinnitus of the "humming" variety as the result of a viral infection a few years ago. Most of the time my brain switches it out, but exposure to a lot of mid-range sound pressure can trigger it even at relatively low volume levels (sub 85dB). A hum in my left ear is a sure sign I need to take a look at the eq.

I never get problems from concerts by the way, Not even after seeing Phil Cambell's All Stars and Hawkwind immediately after each other. Neither being what you'd call quiet.

It's not just the sheer volume level, but also factors how long you are exposed to that level.
 
Levels as low as 85dB can damage hearing and are considered to be dangerous when the exposure is prolonged.  It's not a linear scale, it's a log scale.
 
85dB  requires 8hs
90dB drops to 2.5 hrs
100dB drops to 15 minutes
 
So you could have been listening to 90dB to 95dB and not realized it.... and ended up with some ringing of the ears as a result.

Use a weighted dB meter so you know what the actual levels are.   To those who have not damaged their ears and hearing..... I would say, be very protective of your hearing.  I used to shoot guns and play in loud bands, all without using ear plugs. Big mistake..... too late now. My ears ring constantly. There's no drugs to use, no cure and no fix.