Pete Townshend has warned music lovers that listening to excessively loud music on your headphones may cause hearing loss.

The Who rocker believes that his hearing problems weren’t caused by live concerts but by using headphones in the recording studio.

The guitar smashing 60-year-old says his hearing is getting so bad that it may force him into retirement.

He said in a post on his website: “I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf.”

Moving on to iPod and other portable music system users, he said: “My intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead. The downside [to downloading] . . . may be that we use earphones at almost every stage of interaction with sound.”

In his final warning he added: “Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. Music is a calling for life. You can write it when you’re deaf, but you can’t hear it or perform it.”