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Can't you just turn up the volume?

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Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#71

Post by enneff »

larrybolt wrote: post #2

This was an interesting read, but what to me personally is more interesting is how to prevent hearing loss over the years. I might be wrong on this, but I recall a hearing specialist advising me not to use earbuds at all, or at least limit the use to max 1 hour at a time. A dynamic headphones, such as the good old Superlux HD 681 would be "better" in the long term. (Not trying to advertise for that headphone, it's ju…

I wear good quality noise cancelling headphones with the music turned quite low. I feel like this is doing a lot to preserve my hearing.

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#72

Post by cheng1 »

dlandis wrote: post #69

> If you know people who have hearing loss, you’ve noticed that they can’t tolerate loud noises that you’re fine with, but they also can’t hear some of things that you can hear perfectly well. So what is the explanation of why they can't tolerate certain loud noises? I feel like the article was going to address that aspect of hearing loss as well but never did.

Hearing is an range. So they have reduced range on both side.

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#73

Post by pistle »

anigbrowl wrote: post #29

What’s the solution? Multi-Band Compression (MBC), a technique that’s been used by the $6 billion hearing aid industry to solve this specific problem. An MBC uses intelligent design instead of a one-size-fits-all method. With the right data about your hearing pattern, it can mash the full sound into your range so that you get all the information you need. Audio engineer here. That is patently untrue. MBC is a super-u…

I was about to question everything until I read this. Thanks AE. My understanding of MBC is more like a crossover (or mix of low, bandpass, and highpass filters) network followed by compression per band within each section of the frequency range.

Now, I want to go test out what it would be like to 'compress' frequencies. Something like a notch filter that shifts nearby frequencies around the target frequency away into regions above and below. It adds noise, essentially, within the compressed range, but maybe it's tolerable and is useful for someone with a narrow band hearing loss. It could potentially be interesting musically.

Maybe such a filter exists, but I am not familiar with it.

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#74

Post by gwern »

For people with hearing loss & run Linux: if you have your audiogram and an idea how your hearing loss varies by frequency, you can try to do selective boosts by frequency through a Pulseaudio filter. I discuss it a bit in https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/posts/32qSkcQP...

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#76

Post by dlandis »

cheng1 wrote: post #72
dlandis wrote: post #69

> If you know people who have hearing loss, you’ve noticed that they can’t tolerate loud noises that you’re fine with, but they also can’t hear some of things that you can hear perfectly well. So what is the explanation of why they can't tolerate certain loud noises? I feel like the article was going to address that aspect of hearing loss as well but never did.

Hearing is an range. So they have reduced range on both side.

Hmm, I'm not sure you understand it any better than I do.

The article says:

>Well, if you get hearing damage at a specific frequency, you’ll start to lose sensitivity to the quiet sounds at this frequency. However, your sensitivity to loud sounds remains the same.

If their sensitivity to loud sounds remained the same on the one hand, why would they be unable to tolerate certain sounds on the other hand. Seems contradictory.

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#77

Post by Stratoscope »

bigiain wrote: post #57
Stratoscope wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not being pedantic at all. It's a fairly egregious error for an article about hearing . It would be like an article about a camera talking about its fast f/1.4 shutter speed.

Curiously, that sort of language is used by camera people. Aperture and shutter speed are not the same thing, but they are inextricably linked to each other (in a way that dynamic range (in the amplitude sense) and frequency response/range are not nearly so linked). In a "camera article", the phrase " ... its fast f/1.4 shutter speed." would probably be in the context of saying something about one or more of the sens…

Sorry to disagree, but a knowledgeable camera person would never talk about a "fast f/1.4 shutter speed". A camera article, review, or blog post that said that would be loudly criticized in the comments.

The phrase just doesn't make sense - that's why I chose it as an analogy. It especially doesn't make sense as a figure of speech referring to some characteristic of the sensor.

A more sensitive and less noisy sensor may let you use a higher ISO setting and therefore allow either a faster shutter speed or a smaller aperture for the same overall exposure.

A lens with a wider aperture would allow you to use a faster shutter speed or a lower ISO with the same exposure.

Similarly, a slow shutter speed would allow you to use a smaller aperture for more depth of field, or a lower ISO setting for less noise. Or a fast shutter speed would allow you to a wider aperture to blur the background. Again all with the same overall exposure.

Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO setting are closely linked - changing any one of them will affect your overall exposure, or you can change two or all three of them in combination to get the same exposure while altering other characteristics like motion blur or depth of field.

But they are three very different things, and even in casual conversation someone who knows cameras would not mix them up.

BTW this goes way back to the film days. Shutter speed and aperture work the same now as they did then, the only difference is that you changed ISO rating by buying a new roll of film instead of turning a dial.

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#78

Post by thaumasiotes »

ramLlama wrote: post #60
analog31 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that a simple way to eliminate the feedback issue is to separate the microphone from the speaker. Hearing loss runs in my family, so I've watched my relatives struggle with hearing aids, and I've decided that when it's time for me: 1) I will build it myself and figure out the details, to hell with the audiologists and their racket. 2. I will carry the microphone and amplifier in my shirt pocket. No mor…

A bigger issue with separating the microphone and amplifier is cosmetic: hearing aids sadly have a stigma attached to them and people are more likely to wear them if they are invisible. There is a reason why hearing aids are produced in hair colors. Also, I found that the best way to get rid of feedback was to get an ear mold rather than using an "open-fit" mold. This is a clear separation between the speaker and the…

> hearing aids sadly have a stigma attached to them

It's probably worth distinguishing between two kinds of phenomena that might be described as carrying a stigma:

- Something might lead other people to mock or otherwise denigrate you for exhibiting it. Being fat is a good example here; fat people get a lot of messaging from society that they're worse people for being fat.

- Something might carry no real significance to the rest of society while still being viewed, by the individual, as painfully embarrassing. There's a traditional view that women don't like to wear glasses because they think the glasses ruin their looks. I don't know how well that currently corresponds to reality; I've known one girl who really hated her glasses for that reason and another who, not needing glasses of her own, liked to take other people's and wear them -- but that's the prototype of a "category two" stigma: a woman who hates wearing her glasses even though no one around her sees anything wrong with them.

I suspect that hearing aids are firmly within the second category, which means getting people to wear them "openly" should be doable.

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#79

Post by randlet »

ramLlama wrote: post #60
analog31 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that a simple way to eliminate the feedback issue is to separate the microphone from the speaker. Hearing loss runs in my family, so I've watched my relatives struggle with hearing aids, and I've decided that when it's time for me: 1) I will build it myself and figure out the details, to hell with the audiologists and their racket. 2. I will carry the microphone and amplifier in my shirt pocket. No mor…

A bigger issue with separating the microphone and amplifier is cosmetic: hearing aids sadly have a stigma attached to them and people are more likely to wear them if they are invisible. There is a reason why hearing aids are produced in hair colors. Also, I found that the best way to get rid of feedback was to get an ear mold rather than using an "open-fit" mold. This is a clear separation between the speaker and the…

"I don't see the elderly changing but our generation just might."

I'm youngish (mid 30's) and recently had my hearing aids replaced and realized I had a strong preference to stick with fairly visible behind-the-ear units rather than something more "discrete". I want them to be visible so that people I'm interacting with will be more sympathetic about repeating themselves and may make an (possibly unconscious) effort to speak more clearly.

The line of thinking that got me over being self conscious was "Lot's of people walk around with assistive devices for their vision...why should I be embarrassed about the same thing for my hearing?"

Re: Can't you just turn up the volume?

#80

Post by stolio »

anigbrowl wrote: post #29

What’s the solution? Multi-Band Compression (MBC), a technique that’s been used by the $6 billion hearing aid industry to solve this specific problem. An MBC uses intelligent design instead of a one-size-fits-all method. With the right data about your hearing pattern, it can mash the full sound into your range so that you get all the information you need. Audio engineer here. That is patently untrue. MBC is a super-u…

I thought the bear picture was maybe the best part of the article. Compression is tricky, multiband even more so, and the type of multiband compression they're using is even harder to wrap your head around (there are two ways (that I know of) to do what they're doing but I doubt they want to talk about which one they use.)

It's a great layman's explanation, but if you have a better one I'd love to see it.

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