Live data from Hacker News

Bose Hearphones

hearphones.bose.com

321–330 of 429 posts

Re: Bose Hearphones

#321

I am totally bothered by noise in the bars. Or the fact that you go to sports bar, but you cannot hear the audio. I was thinking of building on Pi something that would plug to TVs audio output, and then broadcast that to local Wifi in the bar. So that smartphone that's connected to same wifi could receive the audio and you could listen to it on your smartphone. Turns out there is someone already doing it: http://www.…

Like a hearing aid induction loop (a transmitter that plugs in to a venues mono-out and [I gather] transmits on a frequency for specially hearing aids).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_induction_loop

Re: Bose Hearphones

#322
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suddenly lost the hearing on one ear and it got replaced by a strong and permanent tinnitus. I quantify it as strong based on my talks with others with tinnitus. What worked for me was stop fighting and start loving it. Now it's a perma mantra. Some somatic malfunction that enables me to ear the hum inside of me or whatever poetry works for you. Try it maybe.

> What worked for me was stop fighting and start loving it. Now it's a perma mantra. Some somatic malfunction that enables me to ear the hum inside of me or whatever poetry works for you. Try it maybe. Whoa, what an interesting strategy. Here's a question for you: is your tinnitus a constant predictable pitch? If so, you could probably train a strong relative pitch skill enough to be able to spoof perfect pitch! That…

Been an amateur musician I did try that, but sadly what I hear has a big range of frequencies and it also changes. Curiously its pitch fluctuates when I move my head or eyeballs.

Thanks for the suggestion tho.

Re: Bose Hearphones

#323

I never understood my poor ability to focus sound could be a thing until I read Douglas Coupland's account of sneezing out a lump of...well..his lung...his brain? I don't really know...but it's a great anecdote: http://boingboing.net/2011/09/09/how-coughing-up-a-piece-of-...

Good god. Baffling and scary.

Re: Bose Hearphones

#324
post #77

Wow, this address a major problem I have. I have decent hearing, but when I'm in a noisy environment like a bar, I can hear but can't understand what other people are saying. It's why I don't like going to bars/pubs with live performances or ambient music. People think I'm bored or brooding because I'm not talking to anyone, but I just can't understand anything anyone says, so I can't participate in a conversation.

Are you sure you have decent hearing? I thought I could hear what people were saying in noisy environments, but couldn't understand anything. This was one of the major symptoms for me before I was diagnosed with moderate/severe hearing loss. It's very isolating. No problems now with a decent set of hearing aids. Have yourself tested! The quality of life improvement from a set of hearing aids is incredible! edit: I wa…

I've had the same issue for a good chunk of my life. I have good hearing according to my standard and advanced 'musician' hearing tests (aside from tinnitus). But I have trouble focusing on a given conversation in a room full of noise. Places with flat walls reflecting sound make it especially difficult.

Re: Bose Hearphones

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to an audiologist a few years back because I could hear certain things that would drive me up the wall. I thought it might be tinnitus or something like that- I ride motorcycles, am on the water in boats, use power tools, etc. Turns out I have exceptional hearing as well, and much better high frequency responses than an average 30 year old. Certain cheap lights and power transformers can drive me absolutely fr…

I've wondered if hearing loss can be induced purposely for specific ranges for cases like this. Maybe just loud sound of a given frequency would work since that would only resonate with and damage its associated hairs inside the ear.

This Reddit comment [1] suggests that people who work around CRTs a lot have a "notch" on their hearing tests at the CRT frequency of 15.734kHz. So yes it is possible.

On the other hand, you probably don't want the tinnitus that often comes with noise-induced hearing loss. Better to be able to turn off the noise (or wear earplugs) than to hear it all the time.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1tepwv/why_is_t...

Re: Bose Hearphones

#326
We have similar directional, sound-suppressing "headphones" for use in the military. Specifically I used them as a gunner on a Bradley (BFV) and a gunner on a regular ole Humvee gun truck. This kind of thing is pretty impressive. I could talk to other gunners in other turrets in our security element that were reasonably close without using the radio. You could still hear everything happening around you -- incredibly important -- without blast sounds and weapons fire causing your ears to ring.

Re: Bose Hearphones

#327
post #162
post #77

Wow, this address a major problem I have. I have decent hearing, but when I'm in a noisy environment like a bar, I can hear but can't understand what other people are saying. It's why I don't like going to bars/pubs with live performances or ambient music. People think I'm bored or brooding because I'm not talking to anyone, but I just can't understand anything anyone says, so I can't participate in a conversation.

The Army Rangers have headphones that cancel gunfire and explosions and enhance voices, they say they can have a normal conversation in the middle of a battle. Very clever!

Not only Rangers, but any unit that will order them for you.

Re: Bose Hearphones

#328
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would it be possible to generate anti phase wave out of these things to cancel out tinnitus? No. Tinnitus is not caused by a real sound. It occurs somewhere after the phase-erasing Fourier transform performed by the physical structure of the ear. If it were caused by a real sound, or the brain added sounds in the time space (rather than the frequency space), it would work. But neurons are not fast enough to handle…

But neurons are not fast enough to handle time-domain sound processing, so they offload Fourier transformation to the ear and then work with the (presumably phaseless) frequency-domain representation. Then how is it that you can play one frequency into one ear and a slightly different frequency in the other ear, and the brain will register the beat frequency?

Any nonlinearities in the Fourier transform process (of which there are presumably many) will manifest as harmonics of the beat frequency. I'm on my phone right now, but if you take two simple-ratio tones, add them, apply a nonlinearity (like exponentiation to a non-1 power), and then Fourier transform, you will see the beat frequency and its effects. I imagine (but do not know) that this is the physiological mechanism for high-frequency beat frequencies.

For binaural beats with low-frequency tones, I can only guess, but you can actually reconstruct phase information from the frequency domain signal depending on your sampling period. As a trivial example, imagine f << 1/T; now you can treat the DC component of the Fourier transform as a time-domain signal that contains f. I imagine that's how binaural beats work, as they occur at sufficiently low frequencies for this to happen. It could also be that the ear transmits low-frequency time domain information as well as frequency-domain information.

Re: Bose Hearphones

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share a link? I know someone who could really use the help

I use Widex Dream 440's[1] (superseded by the Unique 440's I think) but all of the major players (Siemens, Widex, etc) offer these features. [1] http://www.ziphearing.com/blog/widex-dream-440-review/

Wow the pricing is amazing (think: price of 2016 MBP 15"). Is this due to the way healthcare equipment pricing works?

Re: Bose Hearphones

#330
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see my other comment. I wish they didn't start by forcing you to have tinnitus to begin with. I'd use foam inserts if they were given out at concerts and clubs etc - but not if I'm the only one bringing them with me, that's ridiculous. tinnitus is caused by people listening to music that is too loud. Music is too loud at most venues, if you are standing where you are meant to. EDIT: people don't like this comment, an…

tinnitus can be caused for other reasons than loud music, some that are not that well understood. Any sensorineural hearing loss can be accompanied by tinnitus. Autoimmune inner disease (AIED) and meniere's disease can bring about tinnitus. Tinnitus sucks. I think the best guess is nerve cells in the inner ear firing improperly and generating a random noisy signal that gets interpreted wrong by the brain.

all right - sounds like you know a lot about it. Is it fair to say most tinnitus in the world is preventable, and most (as a percentage of people suffering from tinnitus) have had as a direct cause loud noise? (So that if they had had earing protection, they would not have tinnitus.)

open-ended question.

Post reply on HN