Originally Posted by
KraneXL
Couldn't disagree more. For the mere fact that listener to obnoxious can be irritating but can be ignored after a while. Listening to people talk about their lives, on the other hand, can be far more irritation especially when they stand next to you and grating voices and the worst English this side of the Atlantic -- which people that talk loud always do. I cringe just thinking about those instances. Between the two, I'd take the obnoxious music any day.
In the gyms I've been to, ambient music has never stopped the "I'm gonna share waaaaay too much" talkers from talking on their phone or into their earbuds.
This reminds me of a conversation that I had with an owner of a franchise gym that offers 24/hr access to members via key cards. I asked her if she ever considered not playing any music (her gym's genre was top hip hop) and let people use headphones as we are discussing here. She said that one day the music player crapped out and no staff were working to be able to reset it. She got a phone call at her home at 5AM from a patron reporting the music outage. Yes, you read that correctly. I was like, "Really?!?! How did the woman get your home phone number?". The gym owner says, "I have no idea, Carleton. No idea. The woman really wanted to hear the music as she walked on the treadmill."