by James Wallace Harris, 5/20/24
My cats usually freak out over sounds. If the yard guys come and start mowing outside, they run and hide. If they hear a tiny noise, they will run around until they find it. But if I play my loud rock music, they don’t even wake up.
I worry my music will hurt their ears. At times, I’ve thrown them out of the room and shut the door to protect them, but then they beg to get in. They are very insistent, scratching furiously at the door until I open it. They want to sleep on me while I listen to rock music at 85 decibels.
I just read this report, and it says 120 decibels will damage their ears, and long exposures at 95 decibels will cause harm. I’ve read that I can safely listen to loud music at 85 decibels for eight hours, and at 88 decibels for four hours, and 91 decibels for 2 hours. Well, I listen one to two hours a day, and try to keep it under 85 decibels, although it sometimes peaks at 90. (I have an app on my phone that measures loudness.)
I guess we’re okay. But why do the cats just completely ignore my music? It doesn’t even faze them. Even when I first turn it on, or when a new song plays. They never jump or startle at the stereo.
How do your cats react to music?
Maybe my cats are like me. Music puts me into a meditative state, even kinetic rock music. So, we all rock-out to the tunes for an hour with our eyes closed.
If you’re curious what kind of music we listen to, here’s my standard playlist.
That’s Ozzy above and Lily below.
By the way, Ozzy and Lily don’t seem to have any musical preferences.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
I think one of the reasons I largely stopped listening to music was the perception that the cats wouldn’t like it because of their more sensitive hearing.
You can enjoy your music peacefully 😊. Thank you for your list. For the past many days I have been listening to Pavarotti.