• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

So much talk about gear.... what about ears??

cheapsoundguy

Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2021
Messages
61
Likes
53
We talk and talk about gear and spend thousands on it. It's a fun fetish to have.

But what about our EARS?

Does anyone here do anything to heal/protect/improve their hearing?

Inflammation reduction (garlic/tumeric/etc), clearing up sinuses (Claritin, etc), rest (not listening to loud sounds for a day or two), mood (meditation), substances (alcohol), etc?

It seems that as we approach "perfection" in our DACs and Amps, we need to get a bit creative in looking at the last element in the audio chain!

Thoughts?
 

killdozzer

Major Contributor
Joined
Aug 2, 2020
Messages
1,615
Likes
1,628
Location
Zagreb
We talk and talk about gear and spend thousands on it. It's a fun fetish to have.

But what about our EARS?

Does anyone here do anything to heal/protect/improve their hearing?

Inflammation reduction (garlic/tumeric/etc), clearing up sinuses (Claritin, etc), rest (not listening to loud sounds for a day or two), mood (meditation), substances (alcohol), etc?

It seems that as we approach "perfection" in our DACs and Amps, we need to get a bit creative in looking at the last element in the audio chain!

Thoughts?
Ears do get mentioned a lot. But it is a difficult topic to discus. I have zero experience listening through anyone else's ears. It's a joke, of course, but I hope you see my point. I'm stuck with what I have. It is my only listening experience. Still, I want technology to work properly and my ears as good as they can.

Every now and then I have them checked. My results are just fine. Doctors usually tease me that I have the hearing of a teenager BEFORE he discovers disco. I guess it means I hear OK. I steer clear from noise. Even in cinema, I'll dump the sound with some cotton. I didn't live in a disco when I was young and wasn't big on concerts either. I guess I saved my hearing for the most part. I'm 45 and I hear up 14,5kHz (repeated several times).

The most interesting thing on this subject was a proposition I found in one paper shared at Audioholics where it said that maybe aging is not why your hearing gets weaker. It's just that damage accumulates over TIME so people connect it with time. In other words, living with no noise might save most of your hearing for when you're older.

I can't remember ever having inflammation. Perhaps one or two times when I was a kid. Garlic/tummeric... No.

But, the thing is, even people with poor hearing can sometimes hear something being wrong with their system. Those two don't necessarily cancel each other out. Also, it would be a strange choice and a strange decision to go for a poorly performing gear because your hearing is not at its best. Don't you think it would be tough to match your specific hearing problem with a specific shortcoming of your gear?
 

Peterinvan

Active Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2021
Messages
294
Likes
234
Location
Canada
I am in my 70s now, and the latest audiologists graph shows the average drop off for my age, starting at 8Khz, and diminishing rapidly after that. I confess to maltreatment of my ears with loud noises over the years. I listen below 75db for fear of further damage.

I still enjoy my Tidal playlists without EQ, but I have found that I am now buying "brighter" sounding headphones and earphones.

When I go to a concert, or even to the movies, I now use these special earplugs.

Etymotic Research ER20 High-Fidelity Earplugs

 

birdog1960

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2022
Messages
309
Likes
329
Location
Virginia
Don't believe anything mentioned will make a huge difference x possibly antihistamine decongestant for treatment of congestion, not prophylactically. I'd certainly have your ears checked for cerumen (wax) every doctors visit. peroxide containing eardrops can be used preventatively.
 

ahofer

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 3, 2019
Messages
4,952
Likes
8,698
Location
New York City
I use attenuators or noise cancelling IEMs in the subway and at movies.

As for substances, I’ve noted the “veil-lifting” effect of THC on one’s focused music listening (meditation can do something similar, although it’s harder and less reliable). Cheapest tweaks out there. Alcohol, not so much.
 

Doodski

Grand Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Dec 9, 2019
Messages
20,750
Likes
20,760
Location
Canada
Inflammation reduction (garlic/tumeric/etc), clearing up sinuses (Claritin, etc), rest (not listening to loud sounds for a day or two), mood (meditation), substances (alcohol), etc?
I listen daily as it is part of my routine/schedule. I near always have a finger of rye at hand and some hash for relaxing.
 

Peterinvan

Active Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2021
Messages
294
Likes
234
Location
Canada
I listen daily as it is part of my routine/schedule. I near always have a finger of rye at hand and some hash for relaxing.
I don’t like mixing these two drugs. I find that the benefits of THC get cancelled out by alcohol. THC really sharpens my attention when doing dedicated listening (i.e. not multitasking).
 

srrxr71

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 4, 2020
Messages
1,581
Likes
1,243
BEBIRD R1 Ear Wax Removal Tool, Ear Cleaner with Ear Camera, 1080P Ear Scope, Ear Wax Removal Kit with 2 Silicone Ear Scoops, Ear Pick with 6 LED Light for Earwax Removal, Black https://a.co/d/iaM4XJv


WaxBgone Ear Wax Removal Kit with SoftSpray Ear Irrigation Tips for Safe and Effective Earwax Removal - Complete Ear Cleaning Kit for Adults and Kids - Includes Ear Wax Removal Softening Drops https://a.co/d/h2wKVqd

WaxBgone Ear Wax Removal Kit - Safe Electronic Ear Cleaner with Otoscope, 5 Water Pressure Settings, 10 Disposable SoftSpray Tips, 2 Wands, Ear Basin, and Earwax Drops - Waterproof and Rechargeable https://a.co/d/fi70Pqn
 

fpitas

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 7, 2022
Messages
9,885
Likes
14,191
Location
Northern Virginia, USA
FWIW, my doctor told me to splash water in my ears during showers. Since doing that I've seldom had much wax build-up.
 

fpitas

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 7, 2022
Messages
9,885
Likes
14,191
Location
Northern Virginia, USA
But, the thing is, even people with poor hearing can sometimes hear something being wrong with their system. Those two don't necessarily cancel each other out. Also, it would be a strange choice and a strange decision to go for a poorly performing gear because your hearing is not at its best. Don't you think it would be tough to match your specific hearing problem with a specific shortcoming of your gear?
Some people boost highs to account for hearing loss. I'm 68 and whereas I'm sure my high frequency loss is about normal, I find a flat response sounds best. So, it obviously all depends.
 

OldHvyMec

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 5, 2022
Messages
343
Likes
253
I can say without a doubt taking care of your ears pays. I still use plugs and muffs while working in the shop.
I use muffs vacuuming, grinding coffee beans, or working around any noise I gear up and protect my ears.
At higher volume listening, I NEVER do it in small places and the room or car is always ported.
I don't listen in any sealed rooms and if the volume is up I alway open my mouth and leave the room.
Concussive hearing as a kid taught me a lot about ear protection and spending your life on one knee if
you're not careful.

Anti-inflammatories have alway cause me hearing issues and the lack of water.

I'm 68 and my ears still test 13khz @ + 4 db and fall off completely after 15khz. My younger brother is 53 and can't hear worth a $hit.
He's been in a band of one type or another for 40 years.

I still have a physical once a year and have had since I was 25. It's amazing what you learn with all that data. A DOT physical is a good thing.
One guy was still driving long haul and no partner. 79 years old. He had "White line fever," BAD. He could hear just fine though.
 

sejarzo

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Messages
961
Likes
1,066
Some people boost highs to account for hearing loss. I'm 68 and whereas I'm sure my high frequency loss is about normal, I find a flat response sounds best. So, it obviously all depends.

I agree.

My loss, starting in my 40s until currently at age 65, is concentrated in the 5-8 kHz range in my left ear and really obvious via a 20-20k sweep. Above 8 kHz my left and right ears seem more or less equal up to 14 kHz. Thus it's not surprising to me now that when I listen to pink noise "as is" in proper headphones or IEMs, it sounds different between my ears.

I typically must shift the stereo balance using Foobar's plug in to 48, or two points left of center on a 100 point scale, to center either pink noise when listening to headphones.

I decided to try MathAudio Headphone EQ to boost the 5-8 kHz range in left channel only using a broad Q peak, and eventually, I managed to attain a character of pink noise that seemed to be quite similar between ears. I had to move the balance from back to 50 to center the phantom image between my ears, so I thought that was a good point to listen to a handful of tracks of various genres.

It only took 10-15 minutes before it became obvious that boosting that region made things worse--music seemed shifted back to the left, unlike pink noise that still seemed centered when I went back and listened to it again.

Perhaps the boost, if one thinks it improves things, all depends on how well one's brain has adapted to a loss with respect to real world sounds/music rather than pure tones or pink noise.
 

sejarzo

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Messages
961
Likes
1,066
I can't remember ever having inflammation. Perhaps one or two times when I was a kid. Garlic/tummeric... No.


My wife had rheumatic fever when she was in first grade, and had to repeat it because it took a long time for her hearing to return to normal. That being said, she hears much better than I do now; she wonders why I want to turn up the TV soundbar as loud as I like.

I'm 65, so suffered through many childhood diseases that were said to contribute to permanent hearing loss, but this study suggests that thinking was wrong except in the case of diphtheria.


My TV listening level is a concern likewise noted by our daughter, who is not an audiologist but has degrees in both Speech, Language & Hearing Science plus Brain & Behavioral Science. I attribute it to too much listening at too high level on crappy headphones in my teens and 20s, and truth be told, it's probably still the case that I listen louder than I should at age 65. Working in manufacturing plants with borderline high noise levels for a decade or so before I decided I'd just use plugs or muffs anywhere, not only in the posted areas, likely also contributed to my loss.

Our daughter is dead set against the use of IEMs or using various OTC devices for wax removal. She said it's much too easy to inflict damage with either of those than most people realize. She only uses over the ear headphones and says if you do produce enough wax to require removal, the last thing you should do is use IEMs as they will just push it in farther and create more problems. You should see the look on her face when I show her the $10 USB cameras that are supposed to "help" individuals remove wax themselves.
 

robwpdx

Active Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2020
Messages
268
Likes
372
The ears are a nonlinear device where the cochlea does sort of an FFT by length of the cilia and the snail-like cochlea. http://www.cochlea.eu/en/hair-cells#:~:text=In the human cochlea, there,chemo-receptors in the nose! The hair cell receptors are in a neural network trained primarily on human voice from birth. There is good evidence that training babies in a tonal language improves the potential for musical training in childhood. One form of nonlinearity is psychoacoustic masking which several forms of data compression use. MPEG Layer III - MP3 uses psychoacoustic masking.

To the original question...

Maybe it is its own thread or has already been discussed - sound level meters! On your smartphone...free!

Study summary: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2014/04/09/sound-apps/
Study paper: https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.4865269

So CDC/NIOSH picked the best app (I believe a German company.) On the most consistent platform, the iPhone. Then paid them and released a free version.

Summary: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2017/01/17/slm-app/

If you have an iPhone, you can download it from the secure app store for free, and it doesn't have in-app purchases.

 
Last edited:

MattHooper

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 27, 2019
Messages
7,197
Likes
11,813
I started protecting my ears with earplugs in the mid 90's. I played in a band and started to get ear ringing and that was enough to get me spooked.
So my ears have been well protected since then in very loud conditions.

The bad news is I still have the tinnitus. The good news is that my hearing has remained very good.
 

anmpr1

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 11, 2018
Messages
3,722
Likes
6,406
There is good evidence that training babies in a tonal language improves the potential for musical training in childhood.

I hadn't heard that. But why not? Chinese is a tonal language, and a lot of kids are taught the violin or piano from childhood. I always thought that was more of the Amy Chua 'tiger mom' thing, though. Instilling discipline, etc. I can't ever get the tones correct, so when attempting the language, I point a lot.

tiger.jpg
 

Axo1989

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 9, 2022
Messages
2,814
Likes
2,815
Location
Sydney
I started protecting my ears with earplugs in the mid 90's. I played in a band and started to get ear ringing and that was enough to get me spooked.
So my ears have been well protected since then in very loud conditions.

The bad news is I still have the tinnitus. The good news is that my hearing has remained very good.

Good to hear [edit: the hearing part, not the tinnitus]. I had an interesting experience re tinnitus yesterday. Since I have diabetes hearing tests have become a thing even though I'm not of the usual age. My previous test showed some hearing loss, a bit disturbing. But I get some stress-related tinnitus ... which naturally comes up in testing situations!

The cranky old audiologist I saw previously had retired and the new one used a test routine with warble tones instead of unmodulated sines: "older audiologists don't always understand tinnitus, especially if it's intermittant" she said (she's around my age and has a similar thing). Under that testing scenario I have normal hearing (keep in mind this is the up-to-8 kHz standard range for hearing tests). We all know about masking, a few moments thought will suggest that it's an obvious factor in hearing tests.
 
Last edited:

MattHooper

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 27, 2019
Messages
7,197
Likes
11,813
Good to hear. I had an interesting experience re tinnitus yesterday. Since I have diabetes hearing tests have become a thing even though I'm not of the usual age. My previous test showed some hearing loss, a bit disturbing. But I get some stress-related tinnitus ... which naturally comes up in testing situations!

The cranky old audiologist I saw previously had retired and the new one used a test routine with warble tones instead of unmodulated sines: "older audiologists don't always understand tinnitus, especially if it's intermittant" she said (she's around my age and has a similar thing). Under that testing scenario I have normal hearing (keep in mind this is the up-to-8 kHz standard range for hearing tests). We all know about masking, a few moments thought will suggest that it's an obvious factor in hearing tests.

I've had tinnitus (sometimes stunningly loud) since the mid 90's. Have you tried any of the masking apps? It's only recently that I've tried using them and they can work wonders. Many of the apps allow you to select from among different versions, frequency profiles, of noise. As it happens violet noise (narrow band of white noise) is right in the frequency range of my tinnitus ringing, so if I play violet noise on my iphone it completely covers up the ringing. It's almost spooky, like I don't have tinnitus anymore.

The way I find this helpful is that if something gets my ears really ringing, if I just play the violet noise from my phone placed near me, just enough to barely mask the tinnitus, it lets my brain relax and it stops focusing on the ringing. After a while, anywhere from 5 minutes to 1/2 when I turn off the noise the tinnitus is less bothersome (and can seem quieter).

Speaking of old audiologists: I remember an old audiologist diagnosing me with hyperacusis somtime around 2,000. I'd been working on long scenes (sound design/editing) on a fantasy TV show featuring a giant lizard, and I'd been constructing various hissing sounds, playing them back quite loud. I'll never forget how the hissing started bothering my ears, but I didn't think anything of it. Except when similar noises started bothering my ears at home, and then lots of things started to hurt my ears. So, off to an audiologist. He diagnosed me with hyperacusis and when he asked two questions "Do you have young children and what do you do for a living?" I told him yes, a loud 2 year old, and that I work in post sound. He winced - the worst 2 answers I could give him apparently. He told me to wear earplugs around my kid, and find another job. (I managed to continue on working as the hyperacusis slowly got better over the years...)
 

Axo1989

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 9, 2022
Messages
2,814
Likes
2,815
Location
Sydney
I've had tinnitus (sometimes stunningly loud) since the mid 90's. Have you tried any of the masking apps? It's only recently that I've tried using them and they can work wonders. Many of the apps allow you to select from among different versions, frequency profiles, of noise. As it happens violet noise (narrow band of white noise) is right in the frequency range of my tinnitus ringing, so if I play violet noise on my iphone it completely covers up the ringing. It's almost spooky, like I don't have tinnitus anymore.

The way I find this helpful is that if something gets my ears really ringing, if I just play the violet noise from my phone placed near me, just enough to barely mask the tinnitus, it lets my brain relax and it stops focusing on the ringing. After a while, anywhere from 5 minutes to 1/2 when I turn off the noise the tinnitus is less bothersome (and can seem quieter).

Speaking of old audiologists: I remember an old audiologist diagnosing me with hyperacusis somtime around 2,000. I'd been working on long scenes (sound design/editing) on a fantasy TV show featuring a giant lizard, and I'd been constructing various hissing sounds, playing them back quite loud. I'll never forget how the hissing started bothering my ears, but I didn't think anything of it. Except when similar noises started bothering my ears at home, and then lots of things started to hurt my ears. So, off to an audiologist. He diagnosed me with hyperacusis and when he asked two questions "Do you have young children and what do you do for a living?" I told him yes, a loud 2 year old, and that I work in post sound. He winced - the worst 2 answers I could give him apparently. He told me to wear earplugs around my kid, and find another job. (I managed to continue on working as the hyperacusis slowly got better over the years...)

Interesting. Mine is not super loud and fairly high-pitched, somewhere around 6-8 kHz I reckon (a bit hard to map to test tones when it's low level, I must try and match it again when it ramps up). The violet noise is interesting, a quick try on audiocheck.com seemed to have an effect, I'll work up a longer clip or find an app.
 
Top Bottom