Audiophile hearing loss and hearing aids

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by ghost rider, Jan 12, 2017.

  1. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    They have people who are allowed to administer hearing tests. I guess they're accredited. Never had one there, but since my last full workup was over 2 years ago, I'm going to have to sit through another one, might as well do it there, and find out.*sigh*

    "Raise your hand when you hear something...."
    *beep*...*beep*...*beep*...*beep*...
    *boop*...*boop*...*boop*...*boop*...
    "Okay now, here's a tricky one..."
    *beep*...*beep*... ... ... *beep* :rolleyes: ... ... ... *beep*...


    Yeah, I've kinda got those memorized...
     
    timind likes this.
  2. riddlemay

    riddlemay Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Thanks!
     
  3. hesson11

    hesson11 Forum Resident

    I'm sure it varies from store to store, but the one we have locally seems to be quite good. He's the only guy my otolaryngologist recommends.
    -Bob
     
  4. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    Would anyone be willing to share the dB increase their hearing aids are providing at different frequencies? I'm mostly interested in the higher frequencies.
     
  5. bxbluesman

    bxbluesman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bronx, NY
    I went the three stop route. Appointment with ENT Specialist who examined my ears and referred me for a hearing test, then to the audiologist who recommended hearing aids and programmed them according to the results of the hearing test. All three steps were on the same floor in the same building. I'm hearing music better now than I have in decades. Not perfectly, but a huge improvement. I think that, with a little tweaking, we may get them sounding better yet. The high end is still a little exaggerated, but I compensate by knocking the treble down a bit on my receiver.
    I have Unitron Moxifit 7oos with a music setting.
     
  6. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    No audiophile hearing aids per se. A good ENT and audiologist are critical.
     
    bxbluesman likes this.
  7. riddlemay

    riddlemay Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I'm trying out some Phonak hearing aids that are certainly expensive enough to be good, but they're producing a really weird artifact on the notes of my piano starting at middle C and going up an octave-and-a-half from there. Namely, certain notes in this range sound as if they've been deliberately detuned to approximate the sound of a "honky tonk" piano! These notes sound absolutely clean and in-tune without the hearing aids. Obviously an unacceptable situation; just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar.
     
  8. billnunan

    billnunan Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Yes.
     
  9. Encore

    Encore Forum Resident

    Break-in of hearing aids? :laugh: Glad you mentioned it. Otherwise I might not have been aware of it, once my time comes ;)

    It seems that some have touched on it, but wouldn't DSP in your hifi be a better route to go? If the DSP does the same frequency correction as your hearing aid, it seems to me that this would save you from listening through another layer of electronics. Of course, provided that you're listening alone. And maybe also provided that you are staying within the limits of your gear's capabilities, but the limitations here are usually in the bass, I would think (unless you're listening at very high levels).
     
  10. AcidPunk15

    AcidPunk15 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Brunswick, NJ
    Replacing damaged ‘hair’ cells may help treat hearing loss

    Stem Cell baby it just got developed (rolled out) a couple of months ago. I have Tinitus from a noise rock show. Im not worried. I also used BIo PQ10 and Colloidal Silver
     
  11. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    From Web MD: "Colloidal silver is a mineral. Despite promoters’ claims, silver has no known function in the body and is not an essential mineral supplement. Colloidal silver products were once available as over-the-counter drug products, but in 1999, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled that these colloidal silver products were not considered safe or effective. Colloidal silver products marketed for medical purposes or promoted for unproven uses are now considered “misbranded” under the law without appropriate FDA approval as a new drug. There are currently no FDA-approved over-the-counter or prescription drugs containing silver that are taken by mouth. However, there are still colloidal silver products being sold as homeopathic remedies and dietary supplements. Colloidal silver actually can kill certain germs by binding to and destroying proteins."

    Basically, colloidal silver is potentially dangerous at worst, completely inconsequential at best.
     
    MultiMan, Dan C and SandAndGlass like this.
  12. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    Exactly! But the amount of correction needed from a DSP or parametric equalizer may overwhelm the tweeters or amp. Plus, it could damage the hearing of other people in the room. I'm looking at the DSP/equalizer plus headphone route.
     
  13. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Well, I can see using your own settings for private and headphone listening, but using it when other people are listening sounds rude to me, imposing your personal listening needs on others.

    Also, no I don't see listening to music and entertainment as being the same thing as listening socially at all. These devices are for totally different purposes. This is why you don't have a blowtorch sitting handily on the kitchen counter in case you need to open a can of soup.

    I just tried out my first pair of aids at Costco. The thing I didn't consider, is one hears their own voice differently as well, as if chatting to people in the room, only with a cellphone to your head. "Oh we can adjust that...", they say, but obviously it can't be rid of completely. And for an audiophile, having an anamoly you're not going to be able to fix, may just be a bridge too far (and yeah, I could just yank them out for listening to music, but then music will sound different than the way my hearing will have adjusted for conversation :shrug: ).
     
  14. TimB

    TimB Pop, Rock and Blues for me!

    Location:
    Colorado
    I am 59, with a bit of uneven hearing lose. My right ear is worse than my left ear, but not by much. A few years back, I went with my wife to miracle ear, and they ran tests on both of us. Her right ear was worse, but they said both of my ears were in good shape, even tho I have tinnitus in both. For the last t 2 years, I almost do all my listening with headphones, and really I enjoy it as much as listening to speakers. I do miss the 3d sound stage that speakers give me, and the bass has more impact on speakers. That being said, my headphones, Koss ESP-950 electrostatics are killer on detail and smoothness. Not bright but a lot of low level detail, and very even across the frequency. Another advantage, I can take my music with me with my Koss PortaPro or Auvio iem earphones.
    That being said, I have a nice advantage with my regular stereo that is in our basement and when playing loud levels you can hardly hear it outside our house.
     
  15. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    The reality is that everyone does this to some extent. We choose speakers, cartridges, eq, electronics, speaker placement, etc, etc, and impose it on others. There isn't nobody who doesn't impose their listening needs on others. But, yep, there should be reasonable limits.
     
  16. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    I think the "reasonable limits" amounts to, "you wanna adjust your hearing? keep it in your hearing aid".
     
  17. wgriel

    wgriel Forum Resident

    Location:
    bc, canada
    A brief blog and link to a video on hearing aids and high end audio from Paul McGowan of PS Audio may be of interest to some here.
     
    MikeMusic likes this.
  18. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    I don't know. I bet there are a lot of folks that are attracted to bright cartridges, bright speakers, and some treble boost, because unknown to them, they have age-relate high frequency hearing loss. Is that wrong or selfish?
     
  19. AcidPunk15

    AcidPunk15 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Brunswick, NJ
    thats big pharma propaganda. People have been silver based remedies for millennia. The medical establishment also said that cannabis has no medical value and is in the same class as heroin.
     
  20. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Misguided. And those are pretty specific circumstances just to prove bad behavior can be excused by fate, Ever heard, "the exception proves the rule"?
     
  21. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    What a lot of people fail to realize is that the FDA doesn't just remove harmful products from formulations, they also prohibit what they have decided, were "worthless" drugs, or formulations that might contain a "worthless" drug on their list of ingredients.

    There are many "worthless" "health oriented" products on the market. That is because, they are marketed as beneficial "food additives" which don't fall under the FDA's regulatory authority. There is a wide latitude with food additives and natural "vitamin" supplements, with regard to health benefit claims just as long as the product is not marketed for medicinal use.

    If they determine that any OTC medicinal product is or contains ingredients that could be harmful to the general public, the use these substances can be outlawed across the board, as in your example above.

    What I found to be interesting, is that if a pill contains ten different ingredients and one of those was determined to be a "worthless" (not harmful), you could not have that particular ingredient in the formulation.

    While this may seem somewhat logical, in reality, there are numerous issues with this approach.

    Let me explain my thinking, and this is from personal experience. If "they" make the determination, that a product or ingredient is worthless, then what harm is there having that ingredient in the formulation?

    If the product is marketed to relieve the symptoms of "X", then it isn't marketed as a single ingredient, or that it contains a specific list of therapeutic ingredients, if the product has a beneficial therapeutic effect, as claimed, what does it matter what is in the formulation, just as long as all of the list of ingredients are properly disclosed and there is nothing contained is dangerous, what is the problem?

    Let me explain how this works. Let's say that there is a natural ingredient or even an inexpensive to manufacture chemical ingredient, the FDA has been known to be influenced by the "big" multi-billion dollar players in the business.

    Catch the drift, take the competition out of the picture, then you have to purchase their products, which are protected by patents.

    These comments are based on true events, that I was a knowledgeable participant in.

    See where this is going...

    P.S., didn't mean to thread crap, carry on...

    My Bad,

    S&G
     
  22. Doug Walton

    Doug Walton Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I'd like to get a clarification.

    You're asserting that someone who unknowingly has an age-related, high-frequency hearing deficiency, and as a result, now finds brighter cartridges, brighter speakers, and some treble boost more satisfying - this person is simply misguided?
     
    SandAndGlass and jtw like this.
  23. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    No, I'm saying your premise is misguided, suggesting wholesale adjustment of one's stereo system just in case one of your guests has the exact hearing deficiencies, is an ergonomic (and NOT time/effort-wasting) solution to just having individuals choose their own hearing equipment they can take with them once they leave the house.

    "H-hello?"
    "Heeey, Josh - it's Lew."
    "W-whuh, Lew? Whadda ya callin' me at 3 o'clock in the morning for...?
    "Well, I had a hankerin' to check out this new pressing of Wish You Were Here, and I know I could just as easily roll out of bed and put my hearing aids in and fire up the McIntosh, buuut, I figured, well, you've already got your Parasound system set to my hearing parameters, so-"
    "Gotta stop ya right there, buddy. You're a little bit too late; Ray has a Kinks disc he wants to hear with a 2db accentuation in the 12,000-13,500-hz range, and he's already on his way over..."

    This is also why you go into the store for milk, and there's no cow there waiting for you to grab a teat...
     
    kronning likes this.
  24. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Being sixty two, my frequency response is rolled off as a biological thing, but I still find that harsh HF tones, are still bothersome.

    But, I can see someone who has significant hearing damage, needing this over emphasized treble boost in those certain high frequencies.
     
  25. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    I wonder how that's happening? For me, the ONLY good thing about my age-related high frequency hearing loss is that I can now listen to albums that were too harsh when I was younger.
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.

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