My friend, Bill, an engineer at Olmstead Studios in NYC, almost lost his hearing as a result of his terrible experience at a midnight recording session at the huge three-floor recording facility.
Jimi started the session at midnight and finally at 2am, he decided on a musical riff which got them going into a song. When Jimi finally got something he liked, he climbed up the stairs (two stories) to the engineer’s booth and asked Bill to raise the level of the speakers in the booth. (Jimi Hendrix was used to loud, powerful on-stage speaker systems)
About an hour later, an ambulance was called and carried Bill out of the booth, in a stretcher, to a nearby hospital, with his ears bleeding.
This story is 100% true. I had recorded in that same studio only days before this terrible ordeal took place.