Interesting reading in this thread and it makes me wonder.

So when I have a pure tone sound suddenly in one ear it is a hair cell dying off. That happens to me once every couple of years.

Ringing in the "head" rather than the ears - is that actual tinnitus or does tinnitus feel like it is coming from the ears, or is that something else? I've had very high frequency sound, pink noise, in my head all my life, gets louder when I am ill.

I did have my hearing tested a few years ago and was found to have a "notch" in my hearing range, probably caused by being too close to a cymbal regularly at gigs.

Do some people or even most people have actual silence when there is no noise around?

Robin