Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 33 posts

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#21

Post by boringg »

deng wrote: post #20
ricardobeat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two Sonys and never noticed that. Do you hear a difference when comparing to Bose or Apple ANC? My impression is that all earbuds I’ve tried suffer from the occlusion effect equally.

Sorry, I'm not talking earbuds but closed headphones. I have the WH-1000XM5, and I immediately notice that I hear my own voice/noise way more as soon as I turn them off.

Agreed - I have the same headset and same experience - amazing.

They are by far the best headset I have ever owned. Some minor quibles as always.

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#22

Post by the-dude »

joezydeco wrote: post #10
colloydi wrote: post #9

>New Earplugs Won’t Amplify the Sound of Your Own Voice I think part of it is that most of us speak more loudly to others when we can't hear them very well, e.g. when wearing headphones or on a mobile in a train

No, it's just a chronic lack of sidetone in these devices. Sidetone is the small amount of feedback in the earpiece as you speak into the microphone. The telephone company figured this out 100 years ago and then, somehow, we totally dropped it when mobile phones came along. We've been shouting into microphones ever since.

Isn't the 'somehow' this? With POTS, both parties were transmitting on the same line but on digital/mobile connections, there are 2 streams?

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#23

Post by joezydeco »

the-dude wrote: post #22
joezydeco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's just a chronic lack of sidetone in these devices. Sidetone is the small amount of feedback in the earpiece as you speak into the microphone. The telephone company figured this out 100 years ago and then, somehow, we totally dropped it when mobile phones came along. We've been shouting into microphones ever since.

Isn't the 'somehow' this? With POTS, both parties were transmitting on the same line but on digital/mobile connections, there are 2 streams?

Yes, there are two streams. But the handset could provide sidetone directly to the earpiece if it wanted to.

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#24

Post by deng »

boringg wrote: post #21
deng wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm not talking earbuds but closed headphones. I have the WH-1000XM5, and I immediately notice that I hear my own voice/noise way more as soon as I turn them off.

Agreed - I have the same headset and same experience - amazing. They are by far the best headset I have ever owned. Some minor quibles as always.

Another point that is rarely mentioned or tested in reviews: massively improved transparency mode compared to the older models. I can use these headphones for hours as headset in video conferences with enabled transparency and not feel isolated from my surroundings, it's almost like you're not wearing them.

My main quibble is the touchpad, which is way too sensitive and I had to turn it off (probably a defect, I guess I'll send them in eventually).

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#25

Post by ssl-3 »

redwall_hp wrote: post #13
amelius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to wear earplugs while singing?

Performing music is very loud and will result in hearing damage over time, which is not something you want if you like music. Professional musicians nowadays tend to wear IEMs (In Ear Monitors), which are earplugs that drastically cut sound level but have an earbud driver that pipes in audio from the mixing board at a safer volume. This also offers better clarity, the ability for individual band members to hear thems…

> as venues are pushing 90-100db

I went to a rather big multi-day outdoor rock show last year, and spent some time hanging out behind the FOH tent watching people work at various times because that's fun for me.

Hanging inside of the tent was a big, bright numeric LED display showing SPL, right by a big sternly-worded sign about the not-to-exceed level for the venue (which was, IIRC, 103dB).

For the headliners, I was regularly seeing 120dB -- and sometimes, 125dB -- presumably as measured somewhere around that point in space.

Choirs can get loud, too: I've read before that choir members can experience peaks of 110dB just from the sounds of their collective voices.

(Before IEMs became common, I worked extensively with a 5-piece band that had one aspect of their stage layout that they were absolutely unwilling to change, no matter how big or small that stage was: Each member had a "good" ear and a "bad" ear, and they considered it absolutely necessary to never be positioned so that their good ear was facing the drummer.)

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#26

Post by hprotagonist »

hooverd wrote: post #17
rarely wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While tinnitus ringing isn't a result of vibrations activating the hair cells in the cochlea, the hair cells are still the reason the ringing occurs. If I recall correctly, it is still possible to exhaust these ringing-inducing hair cells to gain temporary relief. I wonder if you could somehow mask in a constant ringing that would exhaust these specific hair cells at some frequency for extended relief?

We've discovered that people can still experience tinnitus if their cochlear nerve is severed for whatever reason. There's a lot of causes- personally I think they all lead to neurons in the auditory processing part of your brain going wee-woo, sort of a localized epilepsy.

“maladaptive plasticity” is a keyword to google here.

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#27

Post by Talinx »

imzadi wrote: post #11
hprotagonist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unfortunately masking peripheral stimuli won’t necessarily do much for reducing central percepts of non-peripheral stimuli. Tinnitus isn’t a sound, exactly…

All I know is that there are some sounds that help my tinnitus and other sounds that trigger it. If I could have something that filters the triggering frequencies and also sends out the masking frequencies, maybe it would help? I don't know.

There are earplugs that minimize certain frequencies, e. g. Flare Calmer [1]. They have a report with frequency response graphs [2].

No idea if this helps with tinnitus at all.

[1] https://www.flareaudio.com/en-eu/collections/calmer [2] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1721/0649/files/ISVR_Offic...

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#28

Post by wkat4242 »

joezydeco wrote: post #10
colloydi wrote: post #9

>New Earplugs Won’t Amplify the Sound of Your Own Voice I think part of it is that most of us speak more loudly to others when we can't hear them very well, e.g. when wearing headphones or on a mobile in a train

No, it's just a chronic lack of sidetone in these devices. Sidetone is the small amount of feedback in the earpiece as you speak into the microphone. The telephone company figured this out 100 years ago and then, somehow, we totally dropped it when mobile phones came along. We've been shouting into microphones ever since.

They also used to feed some noise even when no sound was received. Softphones still do this today, it's called comfort noise :) if you have none most callers start wondering if the connection is still active.

Re: New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice

#29

Post by wkat4242 »

redwall_hp wrote: post #13
amelius wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to wear earplugs while singing?

Performing music is very loud and will result in hearing damage over time, which is not something you want if you like music. Professional musicians nowadays tend to wear IEMs (In Ear Monitors), which are earplugs that drastically cut sound level but have an earbud driver that pipes in audio from the mixing board at a safer volume. This also offers better clarity, the ability for individual band members to hear thems…

Yeah etymotics are great. I've been using them for years. They don't look as good as loops but they sound so much better.
Post reply on HN