SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’ • Hacker News Board

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#31

Post by ilyanep » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 9:19 AM UTC

kevincennis wrote: post #10

I was expecting to be pretty underwhelmed by this app, but I have to say, I'm impressed. My office has a pretty loud HVAC system, and it totally kills the low end when I listen with a pair of cheap Apple earbuds. I took the little SoundFocus hearing test, turned on their EQ, and the difference was pretty pronounced. It killed a bit more high end than I would have liked (seemed to roll off after about 12k), but the lo…

I'm legitimately curious about how a former sound engineer finds himself using a pair of cheap Apple earbuds at work.

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#32

Post by unicornporn » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 1:10 PM UTC

Excellent and long awaited initiative! I have a genetic hearing loss on both ears. It's a bit different on both ears though. Now I use Poweramp for Android with its excellent EQ to tune the audio as good as possible after my "cookie cutter" audiogram. On my computers I use the system wide EQ "Hear" [ http://www.prosofteng.com/products/hear.php ]. One inherent flaw with all solutions I've come across so far though (as with yours?) is that EQ can't be tuned differently for each channel (left and right).

Nice idea though. But I'll have to wait for a system wide Android EQ (there is one, but it has too few bands https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartandro... ). Preferably combined with your hearing test based EQ (can't say much about it as I don't use an iOS device other than at work).

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#33

Post by unicornporn » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

unicornporn wrote: post #32

Excellent and long awaited initiative! I have a genetic hearing loss on both ears. It's a bit different on both ears though. Now I use Poweramp for Android with its excellent EQ to tune the audio as good as possible after my "cookie cutter" audiogram. On my computers I use the system wide EQ "Hear" [ http://www.prosofteng.com/products/hear.php ]. One inherent flaw with all solutions I've come across so far though (as…

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#34

Post by kevincennis » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 2:00 PM UTC

ilyanep wrote: post #31

kevincennis wrote: post #10

I was expecting to be pretty underwhelmed by this app, but I have to say, I'm impressed. My office has a pretty loud HVAC system, and it totally kills the low end when I listen with a pair of cheap Apple earbuds. I took the little SoundFocus hearing test, turned on their EQ, and the difference was pretty pronounced. It killed a bit more high end than I would have liked (seemed to roll off after about 12k), but the lo…

I'm legitimately curious about how a former sound engineer finds himself using a pair of cheap Apple earbuds at work.

I've found that it's actually harder for me to concentrate on doing real work when I have high-end monitoring.

It almost always seems to come from snare drums. I'll be working away, not really paying attention to whatever random song comes on, and all of a sudden I'm like "Wow. The reverb on that snare is beautiful. I don't think that's digital -- it sounds like a real plate. And it's got so much attack. The compression is perfect. I bet that's an 1176. It's too fast to be an LA-2A, and too clean to be a Distressor".

And then I just have to know who mixed it. So I'll do a quick Google search, and find out that it was A.J. Mogis. And then I'll need to find some other record that he mixed and load it up on Rdio.

And this happens All. The. Time. when I use nice headphones.

With shitty earbuds, I basically have no idea what the fuck is happening, so I can kind of enjoy the music passively and actually get stuff done.

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#35

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 3:20 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #21

Question for the founders: I'm completely deaf in one ear. But, I can't use normal headphones - the sound coming in on my right (bad) ear causes some health issues. As a result, I usually cut the right earbud wire entirely. This seems like a really dumb solution. Does SoundFocus let me make all the sound come into the left earbud?

iOS can do this natively. Under the accessibility settings, select "mono audio".

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#36

Post by Osmium » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:34 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #35

keiferski wrote: post #21

Question for the founders: I'm completely deaf in one ear. But, I can't use normal headphones - the sound coming in on my right (bad) ear causes some health issues. As a result, I usually cut the right earbud wire entirely. This seems like a really dumb solution. Does SoundFocus let me make all the sound come into the left earbud?

iOS can do this natively. Under the accessibility settings, select "mono audio".

No; that will make the sound the same through both earphones which isn't what the parent poster had in mind. iOS does solve the problem natively though (I believe): it has a left-right balance slider, so you can just push it all to one side, then sound will only come out of one earphone.

Re: SoundFocus (YC S13) Launches With an App for ‘20/20 Hearing’

#37

Post by muraiki » Sun, Aug 18, 2013, 1:40 AM UTC

varunsrin wrote: post #7

muraiki wrote: post #3

This is really cool. I have a friend who is a very talented multi-instrumentalist but who also has hearing loss in the low frequency range. I sent him this app and look forward to finding out how / if it helps him listen to his own recorded music.

Thanks Muraiki - we'd love to hear what your friend thinks of the app.

I asked him if it helped, and he unfortunately said: "Actually no :( All it did was boost the bass up so much that it just got muddy." But I think he has a pretty severe impairment in terms of hearing bass frequencies, so I don't know if there's much that could feasibly be done.