Listen Up!

The European Commission is calling for a suggested maximum volume to be set on MP3 players, to protect users' hearing.

The commission wants all MP3 players sold in the EU, including iPods, to share the same volume limits.

This follows a report last year warning that up to 10m people in the EU face permanent hearing loss from listening to loud music for prolonged periods.

EU experts want the default maximum setting to be 85 decibels, according to BBC One's Politics Show.

Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top limit of 100 decibels.

Some personal players examined in testing facilities have been found to reach 120 decibels, the equivalent of a jet taking off, and no safety default level currently applies, although manufacturers are obliged to print information about risks in the instruction manuals.

Dr Robin Yeoh, an audiology consultant at the Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust, said: "More and more young people are referred to me by their GPs with tinnitus or hearing loss as a direct result to exposure to loud music.

"It's the sort of damage that in the old days would have come from industrial noise.