Hearing loss: a hobby fades away

[BDWoody]

If you go for an electronic solution, I'd consider the new Sony WF-1000XM3 noise canceling earbuds, they have configuration options for environmental sound and a fast temporary disable mode. The issue I see with devices for shooting is that they are designed to let everything through except loud impulses, which is a different objective entirely.

I've had tinnitus since my 20's, along with my two brothers and my grandfather at least. Right around 10k, both ears, mostly steady. It's just how it is. My hearing otherwise is quite good, but I haven't had a test in a while.

My oldest brother is actually an ENT, and he hasn't had or recommended any of the current treatments. The percentage of people that end up with a worse outcome is higher than I would want to underwrite for myself. I am able to ignore it for the most part...the brain is incredibly adaptive...

To the OP: Have you considered a shared headset system with maybe a foot operated mic switch? Patient listens to tunes...You PTT through the intercom?

Either way, cheers for trying to do what you can. Best of luck!

 

[MattHooper]

My oldest brother is actually an ENT, and he hasn't had or recommended any of the current treatments. The percentage of people that end up with a worse outcome is higher than I would want to underwrite for myself. I am able to ignore it for the most part...the brain is incredibly adaptive...

Understood. It's still a gray area.

That said, I've been undergoing sound therapy for my Hyperacusis and it seems to be working (thank goodness!), and without any detriment to my existing tinnitus.

 

[BDWoody]

Understood. It's still a gray area.

That said, I've been undergoing sound therapy for my Hyperacusis and it seems to be working (thank goodness!), and without any detriment to my existing tinnitus.

Fingers crossed for you... Hopefully you can continue to find relief.

 

[Yviena]

There has been some works regarding restoring hearing loss though, FX-322 drug sounds really promising, according to this article: https://www.drugdevelopment-technology.com/news/frequency-fx-322-hearing-restoration-data/
Hopefully if everything goes as expected the FDA can accelerate the approval process so it reaches consumers around 2020-2022.

 

[MattHooper]

There has been some works regarding restoring hearing loss though, FX-322 drug sounds really promising, according to this article: https://www.drugdevelopment-technology.com/news/frequency-fx-322-hearing-restoration-data/
Hopefully if everything goes as expected the FDA can accelerate the approval process so it reaches consumers around 2020-2022.

Wow, that's fascinating. Too bad there doesn't seem to be any data given on the extent and nature of the hearing improvement.

 

[JoachimStrobel]

I spent some time installing a DSP and defining a room curve. Would it not be possible to define a personal-hearing house curve? For example using the Iso226 loudness curves and check if one‘s personal hearing falls into those lines and if not, then apply the observed personal dip inverse to a house curve?

 

[LTig]

I spent some time installing a DSP and defining a room curve. Would it not be possible to define a personal-hearing house curve? For example using the Iso226 loudness curves and check if one‘s personal hearing falls into those lines and if not, then apply the observed personal dip inverse to a house curve?

You could do this, but with a serious dip (> 10 dB) you may easily burn the voice coils of your tweeter when playing a little louder...

 

[JoachimStrobel]

I watch that. I am at the moment checking which curves to use. The Iso226 are done with headphones. Steven seem to have done them with loudspeakers, they are in Toole’s book. Those might be good for personal hearing check with speakers in a room. For that I would first EQ them with a flat target curve. I am still toying with the setup...

 

[Feargal]

Over the last few years my hearing has deteriorated quite rapidly. I'm fine up to about 1.5-2kHz and then it's a sharp drop off. Speech, female speech especially is difficult to hear, but strangely I feel I still hear music quite well (and I play guitar). I obtained hearing aids a couple of years ago which help to some extent and to my surprise don't seem to affect the fidelity of music that much.

How did this happen? I'm not sure. I think I may always have had poor high frequency hearing. I realise I'm not a good listener and always had to read class/lecture notes after classes as I couldn't take what the lecturer was saying all in. My mother also had a similar pattern of hearing loss so there could be an inherited component.
Another very likely factor is that my very first job was as a computer operator in a university. My "office" was literally the server room so for probably 4 years or so I was in a loud server room for the whole working day (and no natural light either!) Subsequent jobs have also found me spending quite a bit of time in large server rooms. These are very loud, mainly fan noise. Often you cannot to someone else, and barely communicate by shouting. Headsets have come quite commonplace for communication in recent years.

In the last 10 years or so, as it's quite noisy where i live, I tend to wear ear plugs at night. I'm also slightly suspicious that this might be a factor. It can't be particularly healthy to block hearing off for 7 hours or so a day.

Someone earlier mentioned reinforcement. I do also suffer from this, though it doesn't show up in traditional (simple) hearing tests. Certain noises are so loud they make me jump. Weirdly again I don't hear this in music - I guess the brain is filtering it out somehow.

 

[MRC01]

... Would it not be possible to define a personal-hearing house curve? For example using the Iso226 loudness curves and check if one‘s personal hearing falls into those lines and if not, then apply the observed personal dip inverse to a house curve?

Do you want it to sound realistic -- that is, the way live music actually sounds to you? Then don't correct it.
If you do correct it, you may pick up a bit more detail but it will sound artificially enhanced.
Also, when high frequency hearing naturally rolls off with age, the curve is pretty steep. It takes a lot of energy/power to compensate, which can overload amps & tweeters. However, mitigating this is the fact that typically only a small % of the total energy is in the high frequencies.

 

[JoachimStrobel]

Do you want it to sound realistic -- that is, the way live music actually sounds to you? Then don't correct it.
If you do correct it, you may pick up a bit more detail but it will sound artificially enhanced.
Also, when high frequency hearing naturally rolls off with age, the curve is pretty steep. It takes a lot of energy/power to compensate, which can overload amps & tweeters. However, mitigating this is the fact that typically only a small % of the total energy is in the high frequencies.

I am busy implementing my own convolution of hearing-loss compensation and house curve correction. I came across one final problem: I can check my hearing threshold quite well using REW, an Umik and my loudspeakers. That defines the hearing threshold in my listening environment, which I can benchmark against studies of hearing loss as a QC. But I am playing music at 60-80db. How does my hearing loss transpose to those levels? Can I use a transfer function based on the Iso226 curves and apply them to my threshold curve? I can find papers about hearing loss studies versus age - I have not found anything about loudness perception changes with age.

 

[MRC01]

This kind of experimentation is useful because it's important to quantify the effect. If one's hearing threshold drops from 20k in youth to, say, 14k in middle age, it might look bad on paper but he probably won't even notice. It's only about 1/2 an octave and there isn't much energy in that top 1/2 octave in music or other everyday sounds. The effects don't typically become noticeable (say, having a hard time differentiating speech in a noisy restaurant) until the upper frequency limit drops below around 10 kHz.

Incidentally, 60-80 dB SPL is my own preferred average listening level for critical listening. I always try to set the level at a point where psychologically I feel the urge to turn it up just a little (and resist that urge). If I'm feeling that it's just right loud enough, it's too loud.

 

[JoachimStrobel]

... I found that
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ast/30/6/30_6_446/_pdf
I agree to the 14khz argument, I am concerned about the loss at 4-7khz which seems to be age related and in the 6-10db range - potentially correctable.

 

[MRC01]

Yes, the paper you linked supports this point. It only compares response to frequencies from 8 kHz and lower! I also find it interesting that they mention that older listeners may be more sensitive than younger ones to low frequencies. As I have aged, taking hearing tests every few years, my perception of high frequencies has attenuated as expected, but my perception of low frequencies has actually improved.

 

[lucian]

I had a breakdown with 16 years when my self build amp put 100W feedback in my 100W 100dB horns. Even after crouching over the floor pulling the power plug out the huge capacitors kept it running for ages. Don't know if my little tinitus (constant sinus ~ 12kHz) is connected to that now. But I still remember that I was able to hear bats.

Reading a couple of sources now - they all talk about RMS noise. But I still wonder if a single frequency sinus (e.g. 10kHz) is putting damage to all frequency range of the ear ?!?.

Didnt find any source of that yet.

 

[Sergei]

I had a breakdown with 16 years when my self build amp put 100W feedback in my 100W 100dB horns. Even after crouching over the floor pulling the power plug out the huge capacitors kept it running for ages. Don't know if my little tinitus (constant sinus ~ 12kHz) is connected to that now. But I still remember that I was able to hear bats.

Reading a couple of sources now - they all talk about RMS noise. But I still wonder if a single frequency sinus (e.g. 10kHz) is putting damage to all frequency range of the ear ?!?.

Didnt find any source of that yet.

Very roughly, a sine wave near or over pain threshold may also quickly cause cochlear damage in the range of about half octave up from the sine's frequency on music scale, and a tiny bit down from that frequency.

On the linear frequency scale, this roughly corresponds to the square root of 2 ratio, which is 1.414. So, if the offending sine had a frequency of 10 KHz, the damage may spread up to approximately 14KHz.

The effect is highly non-linear: a short exposure right at the pain threshold may only temporarily affect 10-11KHz for instance, while a longer exposure well above the pain threshold may take out 8-20KHz cochlear range.

There are three major levels in the cochlea that may get damaged. The first level recovers in about two weeks, the second level recovery may need up to several months, and the third level practically never recovers.

So, after an unfortunate event like the one you described, don't panic for two weeks at all: just eat well, exercise a lot, and avoid loud sounds. Sleeping with ear plugs may help - it is analogous to a bandage on a skin cut.

Next milestone is half year: if you don't hear improvements by then, the damage may be permanent unfortunately. At that time, it would be a great idea to visit an audiologist for a professional opinion.

 

[watchnerd]

I’m new to this forum and I’ve started a few threads talking about my journey.

We all use our hearing to enjoy this hobby and for some people their jobs. I’m currently in dentistry. And I realized that I’m not hearing as well as I did before I started working as a dentist. I noticed it for the first time when my daughter was talking to me. I did have a head cold and ther was fluid in my ears. But this was the first time I couldn’t quite understand the words she was saying.

So, I wanted to start a thread on hearing protection

Has anyone else experienced hearing loss? I’ve got an appointment with an audiologist/ent for further evaluation.

My goal is to find something that will allow me to practice while protecting my hearing and allow me to talk to patients. I know they have passive filtered hearing protection. However, I sound funny when talking to the patients. Has anyone had good luck with any of the electronic ear protection. I know they have them for hunting/shooting sports. I wonder if they would be effective in my application.

If you have any experience with any of these products feel free to share your experience.

Yes, due to sinus issues and fluid, I had about 70-80% hearing loss in both ears for 2 months until I had surgery and tubes inserted.

Lots of hearing tests.

I'm due to get replacement tubes soon.

 

[lucian]

Very roughly, a sine wave near or over pain threshold may also quickly cause cochlear damage in the range of about half octave up from the sine's frequency on music scale, and a tiny bit down from that frequency.

On the linear frequency scale, this roughly corresponds to the square root of 2 ratio, which is 1.414. So, if the offending sine had a frequency of 10 KHz, the damage may spread up to approximately 14KHz.

The effect is highly non-linear: a short exposure right at the pain threshold may only temporarily affect 10-11KHz for instance, while a longer exposure well above the pain threshold may take out 8-20KHz cochlear range.

There are three major levels in the cochlea that may get damaged. The first level recovers in about two weeks, the second level recovery may need up to several months, and the third level practically never recovers.

So, after an unfortunate event like the one you described, don't panic for two weeks at all: just eat well, exercise a lot, and avoid loud sounds. Sleeping with ear plugs may help - it is analogous to a bandage on a skin cut.

Next milestone is half year: if you don't hear improvements by then, the damage may be permanent unfortunately. At that time, it would be a great idea to visit an audiologist for a professional opinion.

Thx, interesting. Still 25 years since than. Still wonder if it has still impact now ....

Unfortunately at this time no cared about this stuff - and here was no awareness. Still remember clubs with cigarette smoke so thick you couldn't see your own hand in front of your eyes.

Also with the good equipment here, without distortion, it is quite easy to damage yourself without knowing. And its not teached at school either.

 

[ahofer]

I use Eargasm attenuators to ride the subway in NYC, in planes, and going to the movies. Feels much better and less fatiguing. They come with a variety of insert sizes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SJ3Y8...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==



Movies are ridiculous. I was once at an iMax film with my kids that was just deafening. I asked for theatre management and complained. They apologized and said they contractually weren't allowed to turn it down (I think they blamed Lucasfilms). They may have a class action on their hands.

 

[pozz]

I've had tinnitus since I was a teenager. Probably something to do with factory work on an assembly line and raves. It comes and goes. I've learned to keep my stress down and to avoid all stimulants, so no tea or coffee. Once in a while I hear silence.

I felt really down about it for a long time. I used to hate hearing it, and I heard it constantly. It was a bad day whenever it was acute. In the last five years or so I've learned to listen to it. The spectrum varies a lot. Depending what's playing, I can tell how tired I am, or how much pressure I'm under. After I make that judgment it usually subsides. Can't say why, but the intensity has a lot to do with how mindful I'm being.