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Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

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Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#71

Post by letitbeirie »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #59

The thing I hate is that the tests stop at a stupidly low frequency. I don't care if I still have good hearing at 8khz, my left ear hears up to 16k, and my right ear barely registers at 10, yet no is not testing for you if you're a musician. And ever had an ENT condescendingly tell you "you can still hear about the same as a normal person, what's the problem?" while smugly writing you a free hearing test? And no one'…

I have had the same experience several times now. "Oh you have perfect hearing." No I don't, I can hear a constant ringing at all times and can't understand anything being said on a speaker phone. My high-range hearing is shot, you just can't measure it.

I even know the exact frequency of the ringing - it's 15,734 Hz, from the flyback transformers of old CRT monitors. It's kind of weird to know that but have multiple audiologists be unable to check.

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#72

Post by andrelaszlo »

dschuetz wrote: post #32
andrelaszlo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was told that the more you wear them the more your brain adjusts, normally. Eventually you might be more tired without them.

My experience is quite different: if I don't wear them I am in control when I get tired. I get tired when I need to focus too much on lipreading and actually following the conversation. If there is nothing worth listening to I don't get tired. I'm used/adapted to go without them, so basically forcing myself to "re-adjust" my brain by wearing them all the time would make my hearing actually far worse than it feels. It…

> It's really weird, each doctor who examined my hearing was amazed how well I actually hear without any aids with my condition.

The brain is amazing - I realized how much I rely on visual cues for hearing when I very faintly "heard" a GIF of someone mouthing the words f* you!

Another thing is the ambiguity that comes with not really hearing high pitched sounds - many words with consonants become very hard to distinguish. "Cat - hat - sat" are similar visually and if you only hear "at - at - at", your brain is still able to tell which one is the correct by context. This is terrible when learning a new language though.

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#73

Post by orff »

There is one major flaw in the presented approach. The base of any hearing aid is frequency compression (in each frequency band), as the hearing impairment induce, that a patient loss the ability to hear the soft sounds, but the loud sound cannot be amplified, as the threshold of pain remains the same. Usually, the gain curve resembles two linear lines. Feel free to reach out [redacted] if you wanna discuss the topic in more depth (i designed some algorithms for hearing aids)

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#74

Post by StrictDabbler »

rhubarbcustard wrote: post #13
caeril wrote: post #9

Objectively, my hearing is just fine. I can hear frequency sweeps and tones perfectly well, but all my life I've been unable to pick out words in conversation if there's even moderate background noise. "What?" is likely my most commonly uttered phrase. This leads to people constantly telling me to get my "hearing checked", when it's not the ability to hear tones that's the problem. Rather irritating explaining this t…

Sounds like you have Auditory Processing Disorder. You might be able to train yourself to do better in noise with something like https://neurotone.com/lace-auditory-training-program

The course is $99, the diagnostic test package they've linked is $176.

That's a high entry price for something so similar in concept to the brain-training snake-oil schemes that used to be sold in the back of magazines

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#75

Post by dschuetz »

andrelaszlo wrote: post #72
dschuetz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is quite different: if I don't wear them I am in control when I get tired. I get tired when I need to focus too much on lipreading and actually following the conversation. If there is nothing worth listening to I don't get tired. I'm used/adapted to go without them, so basically forcing myself to "re-adjust" my brain by wearing them all the time would make my hearing actually far worse than it feels. It…

> It's really weird, each doctor who examined my hearing was amazed how well I actually hear without any aids with my condition. The brain is amazing - I realized how much I rely on visual cues for hearing when I very faintly "heard" a GIF of someone mouthing the words f * you! Another thing is the ambiguity that comes with not really hearing high pitched sounds - many words with consonants become very hard to distin…

I still managed to learn another two languages, it's possible.

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#76

Post by TheRealPomax »

letitbeirie wrote: post #71
TheRealPomax wrote: post #59

The thing I hate is that the tests stop at a stupidly low frequency. I don't care if I still have good hearing at 8khz, my left ear hears up to 16k, and my right ear barely registers at 10, yet no is not testing for you if you're a musician. And ever had an ENT condescendingly tell you "you can still hear about the same as a normal person, what's the problem?" while smugly writing you a free hearing test? And no one'…

I have had the same experience several times now. "Oh you have perfect hearing." No I don't, I can hear a constant ringing at all times and can't understand anything being said on a speaker phone. My high-range hearing is shot, you just can't measure it. I even know the exact frequency of the ringing - it's 15,734 Hz, from the flyback transformers of old CRT monitors. It's kind of weird to know that but have multiple…

"we tailored the test so that we don't have to acknowledge that almost a fifth of the entire population suffers from something that we can only describe with a word for the symptom, not even several different diagnostic terms for possible causes"

It's deeply disappointing.

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#77

Post by joerick »

car wrote: post #38
dschuetz wrote: post #30

It's very interesting to read that you actually need to wear your hearing aids all the time. Because, I have the exact same condition with almost exactly the same loss curve (except at 8kHz where it's ~10dB above yours), but I only need to wear my aids in conferences or lectures (school was particularly hard). I refused to wear them and still do, because they wear me out in 1-2 hours. Now, I have more severe problems…

Not sure if this is a solution for you, since you describe neural processing fatigue. The Apple AirPods Pro have the ability to modify sound output based on an audiogram. The audiogram can be generated by other certified apps, that have been calibrated, on the regular AirPods for example. It is then stored in the Apple Health app. It is pretty amazing, wearing the AirPods in this mode is almost as good as hearing aid…

Have you got a link for one of the 'certified apps'? I couldn't find anything online but I think my grandad could use something like this

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#78

Post by joerick »

nitrogen wrote: post #64

I found it very interesting that (unless I misread) you are applying a time-varying gain to the whole spectrum rather than using a simple filter or EQ. Have you experimented with setting a 31-band graphic EQ to the inverse of your audiogram, or multiplying the FFT bands by a frequency-dependent gain and using IFFT? If so, does the time-windowing approach work better?

I would also be curious to know this. Maybe it's possible that non linearities of hearing make the time-based approach better?

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#79

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

frompdx wrote: post #29
4ad wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same problem. As an additional data point, I have no problem hearing the dialog in documentaries, youtube shows, "casual" TV shows, etc, but I am having a very hard time understanding the dialog in movies and more serious TV shows.

It seems like around 2000 dialogue in movies and TV shows started to get quieter and quieter while action sequences got louder and louder. It's awful. I am hearing impaired and I watch everything with subtitles, however, I really don't have an issue with intelligibility of dialogue while watching older shows and movies.

That's because older movies were mastered for stereo instead of surround sound. If surround sound is downmixed to stereo, extra care must be taken to compensate for the loss of spatial information, otherwise the dialogs get overwhelmed by the sound effects from the surround channels.

Re: Experimenting on My Hearing Loss

#80

Post by car »

joerick wrote: post #77
car wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is a solution for you, since you describe neural processing fatigue. The Apple AirPods Pro have the ability to modify sound output based on an audiogram. The audiogram can be generated by other certified apps, that have been calibrated, on the regular AirPods for example. It is then stored in the Apple Health app. It is pretty amazing, wearing the AirPods in this mode is almost as good as hearing aid…

Have you got a link for one of the 'certified apps'? I couldn't find anything online but I think my grandad could use something like this

These apps are found in the 'Health App' under 'Audiogram'. The app I used is called Mimi Hearing Test. Free, and calibrated for regular Airpods. There are two more apps listed for audiograms, Streaks and SonicCloud Personalized Sound.

Once there's an audiogram captured into the Health app, go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > Headphone Accomodations > Transparency Mode.

Some of these are not immediately obvious as links. He can then modify the amplification and 'brightness' of the sound.

I'd urge you have him get real hearing aids though. They are pricey, but so much better long term. There are newer ones that can connect to IOS devices and stream sound.

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