Noise exposure and hearing loss was assessed in different instrument groups of a professional ballet
orchestra. Those instrument groups experiencing the highest levels of exposure also had the highest pure
tone thresholds. Critically, we found that thresholds were not uniform across instrument groups.
The
greatest difference in thresholds was observed at test frequencies above 2000 Hz, peaking at 4000 Hz
where the average difference between groups was as high as 15 dB.