Photo: © 2010 AFP/AAP/KHALIL MAZRAAWI

Many club sound systems are pumping at 100 decibels all night, which is way beyond the acceptable levels in most industrial workplaces.

At such high levels, just fifteen minutes can do irreversible hearing loss and a 30-year-old club-rat is likely to have the hearing of a 60-year-old.

"Most people were getting almost no noise until they went out on the weekend, and then they were getting up to three weeks' worth of noise in one night," Professor Harvey Dillon, author of the Hearing Health Report, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

But the damage isn't just being done in the clubs – headphones and booming car stereos are also damaging young years irreparably.