Huh, just lost 20 mins of writing because Prune's version of IB does not auto save a Draft.
Gist was, cilia get damaged, frequency-specific brain cells turn themselves flat out trying to interpret the 'noise' generated by the associated cells.
This suggests you might be just as lightly to survive further loud noise as a normal person but I'm not convinced about that. Perhaps one is predisposed to have the cilia fail, or maybe there's partial damage to the cilia. Personally I wouldn't gamble on being as robust as a person without tinnitus.
Several hypotheses suggest other reasons for the noise. Significantly, the notion that the brain generates the tinnitus and even cutting the main nerve, causing total deafness, can still leave the patient with the noise. Nasty.
I was distressed for a while but it soon became the norm. I had to stop diving as it always caused a few days of increased tinnitus but flying had no effect.
As one that's had a sudden increase in noise due to cochlea hydrops, I'm all too aware of the distress it causes. I'd just had two carpel tunnel ops to play the piano again and now my ears perceive sound at different frequencies. But looking on the bright side, it'll save me the cost of a piano.