Biology question—older people and turning music down?

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Why do older people like music quieter? You would think since they have diminished hearing they would like music louder.

Younger people are more likely to think they are indestructible and damage their hearing by having it too loud.
When you have suffered impairment you are more likely to consider the consequences of what you do.

The ability to separate people's voices from background music quite often gets worse as we age, so in part, it may be so that it is easier to have a conversation while the music is playing.

In terms of the biology, what happens is that as you age, you can't hear very high pitched sounds so well because high pitches use parts of the ear that are much more delicate, so they age faster. The bits of the music that you can still hear OK happen to match up with the frequencies that are in our voices. So the music and voices get mixed up more easily than when you're younger.

And yes, those delicate parts do get damaged by listening to very loud music as well as just age, us older folks aren't just saying that because we don't like youngster's taste in music!

Maybe cuz of their hearing aids. I've heard that lots of people who wear them find background noises are almost as loud as the noises they are trying to hear.

Big issue with me! And quite complicated. I like music loud when I am happy, and get upset if my wife comes in and turns it down, it's like she wants me UNhappy so I take it as a way of trying to manipulate me. If I am listening to something quiet and someone comes in I turn it up if it's something good or tell them to shut up. I might also just turn the thing off if it look like a huge topic being brought up. I don't like music being loud if it's something i don't like, I need time to get used to it and might even turn it up again. I hate hearing it from headphones or gadgets. I've got off buses before my stop if there's too much music being played.

I listen to way too much music—obsessively, because of my Asperger’s! A non-Aspie would never get so obsessed with music. I wonder if listening to too much music is bad for your hearing, even if it’s not that loud?

In addition to what others have said above, without the high frequency parts of the music to balance them out, the low frequency things (like drum beats) quickly become rather irritating.