CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

stefuel · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 12:23 pm Post subject: A little OT but HT related

Anyone here consider themselves audiophiles but now find themselves requireing hearing aids? I have known for many years that I'm missing some high frequency sound in my left ear. I also suffer with Tinnitus. Recently I had a appointment with the ENT to talk about the Tinnitus issue. That led to a hearing test. Yikes, mu hearing really $ucks now. I am pushing 60 but I had no idea it had gone this bad until the test AND the more then occasional "Dad, please turn the TV down"
If you have a inexpensive over the ear pair of headphones try this www.MyHearingtest.net and check your self out. It's not to be a clinical test but claims to be 90% accurate. Give it a try and see how it works. Perhaps even post the results Shocked

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 2:45 pm Post subject:

Definitely my high end is dropping off. In my teens and 20s and even 30s, I had no problem hearing the whine of the CRT flyback transformer, which is 15.75Khz. Now it's a stretch, I saw a CRT monitor the other day.

barclay66 · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:07 pm Post subject:

CIR Engineering · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:11 pm Post subject: Re: A little OT but HT related

stefuel · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 6:53 pm Post subject:

If you take this test and see "across the board" hearing loss then simple amplification can help. But when you test like me with perfect hearing on some tones and almost completely missing others, then programmable hearing aids are required.
I came across this site while searching out "user programmable" hearing aids. The pair my Dr's office is trying to sell me is $6K. I have found found UP's on line with software and interface for just under $2K

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yeah, my hearing has sucked for years. Probably too many hours on loud tractors in my teens, and too many uber-loud concerts in my misspent youth. I don't suffer as badly as Craig, thank God. But I definitely have to crank the HT louder than other people would prefer, and I have to ask people to repeat themselves more often than I'd prefer. Plus I've had tinnitus for decades, don't remember when that started -- maybe teens?

It's not to the point where I need hearing aids, though my teenagers might disagree. But I'm "only" 57. It's just a matter of time.

stefuel · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 7:19 pm Post subject:

I wrote down the results when I tested my self

right ear 30 30 0 0 60 50
left ear 10 15 10 30 80 70

I was really shocked to see those two 0's in the right ear. That is perfect for those tones. I have always known I had problems with the left side. I could never hear a clock tic with the left. On the right side I could hear it from the other side of the room.

I recently ran in to a old girlfriend who remembered I have bad hearing on the left. I sat next to her so that she was sitting on the right. She started venting about something so I got up and changed my seat so she was now sitting on my left. She said FU and got up and moved back to the right Laughing

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

I tried it with a set of in-ear music earbuds. Should be somewhat accurate.

Left: 15 15 10 10 50 40
Right: 20 10 10 30 60 40

You can see my hearing drops off dramatically in both ears at 4k & 8k -- though not as dramatically as yours, Chip! In the right it's not great at 2k. Odd that 4k is worse than 8k but you saw the same thing. Unfortunately that's an important speech area. You should have values in the 20-30 range to reliably distinguish f, s, th, etc.

I'd probably benefit greatly from a hearing aid with an amplification hump in the 2k-8k range. I don't know if that's a pretty-common frequency-response curve for "cheap" hearing aids, or if you have to go with programmable ones to get it.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

This could make a nice low-risk experiment: http://earzin.com/

An engineer went to the audiologist for hearing loss, and didn't like the hearing-aid options. He knew he could design a device to do the job. He developed a product that uses a different approach -- more like an iPod (with earbuds and mics in an external case) than an in-the-ear hearing aid. The frequency response peaks in the 6k range, unlike many hearing aids:

That's actually a fairly good match for me, according to the hearing test. Except it would be loud in the 1-2k range, esp. in the left ear.

For $400 you can try it. If you don't like it, send it back in 30 days. You just lose shipping and a $35 restocking fee. I'm tempted to give it a try -- for watching movies if nothing else. Don't really want to wear earbuds all the time, though...

stefuel · Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 9:52 pm Post subject:

I am probably going this option www.hearsource.com for my user programmable needs.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Hm, programmability is very good. I wish the EarZin had that. But a pair of those hearing aids costs 5x more than the EarZin. The EarZin is practically free to try, and only $400 if you decide to keep it. The iPod/earbud model might not be as good for full-time wear as a regular hearing aid, though.

Let us know how that works out for you!

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

OK. I found a pair of craptastic on-the-ear headphones with mike. They do reduce the external noises, though "calibrating" the level you hear swishing your hands with them off, vs. the same sound with them on, is shaky, to say the least.

Anyway, I reran the tests, and 250/500 were unchanged. My 1k sensitivity increased by a whopping 25dB! 2k and 8k didn't differ much, but 4k decreased (worsened) by 15dB.

Like I said, I'm not sure what I'm testing here are actually my ears.

When I get back to my studio, I'll see if I can find any of my decent headphones (Technics, Sennheiser, Koss, Pioneer, etc.). But I moved recently, and none of that stuff has been unpacked yet.

(I do have a moderately expensive calibrated reference mic I can use to check my speakers with, but that doesn't help with headphones.)

This seems vaguely reminiscent of the "Hey, look how great my projected image looks, based on this photo I took with my camera off the screen!" Too damn many variables to glean anything useful.

stefuel · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 9:14 am Post subject:

I gues that's why they claim only 90% accurate. First off, what's calibrated for you is not the same as for someone else. You are adjusting the "swishing" in front of your face which will not be the same as for someone else and you are only matching the calibration tone manually. I have done this a couple of times and have had different results BUT if you connect the dots on the graph, it follows the same path just higher or lower. I have the audiogram from my last visit and I am within 10%.

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

stefuel · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 9:49 am Post subject:

Finding this on line test has given me food for thought. As I said (or think I did) I suffer with Tinnitus. I hear more then just one sound in my ears 24/7. I hear what could be descibed as ocean or wind noise at a lower DB range. What bothers me the most is the high frequency noise I here. What I hear sounds just like the test tones I am listening for in the 4-8K range. This is the same area of hearing loss. My percieved tinnitus noise level is in the 40-60 db range. So how could someone be expected to hear the same tone at less then the percieved sound in my head. So the question is, am I not hearing the test tones OR are they simply masked by the louder Tinnitus tones I hear 24/7. I tried explaining my theory to the audiologist who does not have Tinnitus and got the impression that it went right over her head.

stefuel · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:01 am Post subject:

Try doing the test a couple of more times but stick with the same headphones. Only increase and decrease the volume level to the headphones. You obvioussly will get different results but the graph plot will stay the same. It's not intended to be a clinical test but does get right in your face what the problem is.

At this point I have assumed that the only accurate test for hearing would be after the tinnitus is gone.

VideoGrabber · Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 933 Location: Michigan

stefuel · Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:37 am Post subject:

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Tim, I would expect even semi-decent headphones would be better than using computer speakers. Using more accurate headphones will be even better. But you're absolutely right that the performance of the headphones is a major factor in this test. I wonder if my results would look better with good headphones than they did with the earbuds I used?

Chip, my tinnitus is also in the high-frequency ranges. It does make it hard to hear simple test tones in that range. This audio test uses warbling tones and I can hear those pretty well even in the range of my tinnitus. I'm not sure if that makes it an accurate test, or if the warbling tone makes it "too easy" to hear those frequencies and it makes it appear that my hearing is better in that range than it really is.