Hifi Hearing Aid

[JohnRoberts]

Current litt on the subject seem to indicate that your involvement in distortion compensation may have been an isolated effort that did not permeate the mainstream.

Maybe its time to develop a smart phone app for this.

No one finds it strange anymore to see healthy youngsters permanently connected to their phones via their ear buds.  :

But I've only joined the 21st century (bought a smart phone) this year.  8)

Isn't the weak link in this chain the microphone?

Cheers

Ian

Probably not as weak as damaged ears. You can also EQ for stable mic errors.

The mic inside a smartphone is probably optimized for close in speech pick-up intelligibility so perhaps roll your own around a cheap mic. I pay about $1 for the cheap Chinese mics I use, and they will run off a modest DC voltage.

JR

PS: I too have distortion, but only in one ear, and it is (high) level dependent, so not a problem for 99.9% of my listening.  Probably easier for me to just avoid loud sounds. I have used ear plugs for decades, even back in the '70s while riding my motorcycle to reduce wind noise, but there were a few outlier high SPL events while in the military (during training, not actual conflicts).

 

[ricardo]

Maybe its time to develop a smart phone app for this.

Isn't the weak link in this chain the microphone?

I'm very impressed by the recording quality of my Nokia Lumia.

The phones to use are those with omni electret capsules .. much better than the cardioid types.

I'm actually working on a mike to improve on the phones with cardioid mikes while remaining inconspicuous.

Won't be small, though. 

Doesn't have to be.  It's now cool to be permanently attached to your phone with earbuds 

Yes, I had thought about a crossed pair of ribbons strapped on top of my head plus a decent pair of cans and a DIY amp/EQ.

The problem with using a smart phone is stereo.  We'll have to wait till Apple makes the following hip (or cool or whatever the modern word is) http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/ear/ear.htm

 

[Nesaraj]

In the 80's, I was peripherally involved with hearing aid design.

There is a HUGE range of hearing defects and one very common one is that the patient hears stuff distorted rather than just at a reduced level.

The exciting development in those days was that DSP could help reduce perceived distortion. I've lost touch with developments but it is worth talking to an audiologist about this.

Certainly the technology to do this is a LOT cheaper than 30 yrs ago. A modern mobile phone or MP3 player with ear buds has all the hardware required including the DSP capability.

iPhone are nice

 

[cyrano]

No tubes this time though.

Hehe. LOL.

If you use spy gear as a search phrase, you might come across some very small boards on sites like Alibaba. I've seen remarkably small ones, very cheap. You could buy a few and check if they are "hifi"?

 

[Tubetec]

I did see a video around somewhere , I may have posted the link on another topic
Its was an older gentleman who spent his days with a stereo parabolic reflector in his garden zooming in on nature ,

Ian ,
it was a good while since your original post ,not sure how youve coevolved with hearing technology since .
maybe an actuated parabolic reflector with dsp beamforming mics and a set of phones hidden under the straw fedora , pocket keyfob could steer the beam manually ,you could remain hidden behind your copy of the Guardian

Great points raised in this thread about the nature of hearing loss, its not all about frequency curve , discomfort on loud sounds due to intermodulation within the ear itself increases as we get older , so we tend to avoid louder sounds.
You know they say its the first few watts that count ,yeah matters more the older we get and 80 or 90 db spl is loud enough

 

[ruffrecords]

Well, I will be 72 in a few months. My hearing is not getting any better but it does not seem to be significantly worse except for developing tinnitus in my right ear. I have not yet had my hearing tested nor have I tried hearing aids. However, I was aligning a tape recorder the other evening and playing the output through a tinny speaker. I was pleasantly surprised to find I can still hear 10KHz quite clearly but 12Kz and above is gone. I saw the doctor the other day on an unrelated matter and asked him to check my ears. The left was clear, but the right (the wowrse of the two) was 50% blocked with wax so now I an using some wax clearing fluid on it.

My main problem is still understanding speech, especially the mumbling that passes for actors speech these days ( and while we are diverting to the topic of TV output quality, why is most of Netfix's output shot in the dark?) If I cup my left ear that clarifies things a lot so maybe a single hearing aid will cure my main problem.

Cheers

ian

 

[Tubetec]

Ive had wax build up too a few times , one time it got so conjested I was down pretty much to one ear ,
The day the doctor syringed it out it happend to be raining , the sizzle of the car wheels in the rain was like sensory overload when I stepped out of the surgery , my brain had compensated and when hearing was restored its was one of the most bizzare sensations of my life . Took a day or two for perception to readjust .

Theres a few different methodologies to ear cleaning , mucrosuction is the new one but it doesnt even require a medically trained person to do it , I just have the doctor syrynge them out if nessasary , much of the loss in terms of frequency ,level and volume of tinitus goes way down after a proper clean .

For me lately I dont have build up issues , I stopped using cotton buds to clean ,which was creating a wax ball that leans against the ear drum, The doctor took a pea sized lump of wax out of my ear that time , with all that mass leaning on the membrane how could it sound any good . The other thing is low frequency or loud sounds cause painful intermod distortion .Sleep disturbances is another factor ,as you shift around in your sleep the wax ball shifts around creating low frequency signals .

If I feel a build up what I use the odd time is use a stainless M5 threaded machine screw with a rounded tip ,
I just put it carefully into the ear without touching the tympanic membrane move it against the side wall and withdraw , with a little practise its fairly effective , obviously the thread needs to be throughly cleaned after use
Obviously Im not a doctor and this isnt medical advice so be extremely careful . an adjustable stopper mounted on the thread might be safer way to do it ,

You could always do it the traditional Aussie way , get the witch doctor to find to your own custom set of widgidy grubs
and have them go to work .

Just one other thought , if theres signifigant unbalance from ear to ear , localisation abillity is seriously impared , something like a blob of wax causes phase shifts from ear to ear that messes things up completely. Best listening position of the head may not correspond looking directly at a screen or a person across the room. Seems lip reading to some extent may play a part as we get older and harder of hearing .

Seeing as their was mention of smart phones the other day I saw a mini acoustic horn in the equivalent of dollar general , its clips onto the case of the phone , two apertures lead into the throat of the horn , Im not sure precisely how many DB boost it gives but in similar experiments previously where I coupled mobile phone speaker to the air in a flower pot I got a surprisng acoustic gain Was easily 10 db in that case , with a reasonable well constructed horn it should be a good bit more ,might save a bit in battery life and allow the amp in the phone run a bit cooler or if you want to rock out with a mini reggae danchall style rig you can too , a small battery powered sub could easily be added .
I might purchase a pair of said mini horns and try in ear headphones to drive them .

Theres other reasons I wont go into why I cant make as much noise as Id like these days ,
Anyway Ive decided not to bother using my large class AB power amp to run my monitors ,
instead Im going to hook them up to my tube headphone amp which is wired for 4 ohm output , its less than 1.5 watts per channel so around 85db spl max with loads of distortion from the single ended triode,
I have a nice pair of c core single ended output transformers I like to try but realestate on the chassis is almost maxed out . I'll have to look at it again original transformers came from a tube stereo dansette phono player . I put the unit toghether nearly 20 years ago now , the mil spec EL84's I put in originally are still going strong , its got well in excess of 10,000 hours on the clock at this stage , anode voltage is only 220 volts as per the reccomendation for single ended triode working ,pure class A of course .
Its built using an old Philips bakelite radio as a donor chassis.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Well, I will be 72 in a few months. My hearing is not getting any better but it does not seem to be significantly worse except for developing tinnitus in my right ear. I have not yet had my hearing tested nor have I tried hearing aids. However, I was aligning a tape recorder the other evening and playing the output through a tinny speaker. I was pleasantly surprised to find I can still hear 10KHz quite clearly but 12Kz and above is gone. I saw the doctor the other day on an unrelated matter and asked him to check my ears. The left was clear, but the right (the wowrse of the two) was 50% blocked with wax so now I an using some wax clearing fluid on it.

My main problem is still understanding speech, especially the mumbling that passes for actors speech these days ( and while we are diverting to the topic of TV output quality, why is most of Netfix's output shot in the dark?) If I cup my left ear that clarifies things a lot so maybe a single hearing aid will cure my main problem.

Cheers

ian

I encounter the occasional garbled line in movies. With the DVR I back up and try to decipher the words by replaying it multiple times often with no success. Making it louder doesn't seem to help either... If I really cared I would try slowing it down with pitch restoration to better suss out the utterance, but I don't care that much.

Back in the 70s when I was working for Variable speech Control, we sold equipment to police departments trying to decipher low quality recordings (like maybe phone taps?).

JR

 

[abbey road d enfer]

My main problem is still understanding speech, especially the mumbling that passes for actors speech these days

It seems it's a deliberate attempt by directors to make their films more "natural".
Fortunately, most have subtitles. I have them on all the time. Actually, some films are better with the sound turned off, because of horrible "music".

 

[ruffrecords]

It seems it's a deliberate attempt by directors to make their films more "natural".
Fortunately, most have subtitles. I have them on all the time. Actually, some films are better with the sound turned off, because of horrible "music".

Subtitles can be quite amusing especially where they say things like "eerie music playing" but I find them a distraction. Many of my friends have subtitles on all the time.

Cheers

Ian

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Subtitles can be quite amusing especially where they say things like "eerie music playing" but I find them a distraction. Many of my friends have subtitles on all the time.

Cheers

Ian

These are "subtitles for hearing impaired". Normal subtitles have music notes

 

[ruffrecords]

These are "subtitles for hearing impaired". Normal subtitles have music notes

Interesting. We don't seem to have that option in the UK.

Cheers

Ian

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Interesting. We don't seem to have that option in the UK.

Not all channels have this option. Actually, many programs don't have it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

True, subtitles help clear up garbled dialog but not many movies have subtitles available.

A few weeks ago I watched a movie in french (no english dub available) and I understood less than 10% of the dialog... It was a sci-fi/time travel comedy and would have been funnier if I understood the jokes. It was still entertaining nonetheless.

JR

 

[abbey road d enfer]

True, subtitles help clear up garbled dialog but not many movies have subtitles available.

I think it's mandatory in Europe to have subtitles in the language of destination, whch is sometimes tricky, because the server does not really know where it goes. But most often you get at least english and french.

A few weeks ago I watched a movie in french (no english dub available) and I understood less than 10% of the dialog...

I may have had the same difficulty.