At a PTG meeting about 10 years ago, (this was when I lived in NY State) we had an audiologist test everyones hearing. One thing I remembered her explaining was that in our speaking voices, vowels are usually around 300 to 400 cps. Consonants are up around 4000 cps. Things like air tools produce noise in that 4000cps range, and exposure to such things creates a hearing loss in that range. If one has trouble distinguishing between words such as sat, cat, splat, etc. it may be an indication that they have such a loss, and would not be able to hear the top octave of the piano. They still hear the vowels fine, and so they think they don't have a hearing loss. Maybe if the customer needs you to repeat things you say, but has no problem with the volume level of your voice, you can assume that they do have this kind of hearing loss. I think a customer might accept this explaination better then making it sound like they are 'just losing their hearing.' I'd rather think my hearing loss was localized then that I was losing it all because I'm getting older. Ask them if they ever worked around loud machinery, listened to very loud music. or the like. This will at least make them consider that it may be their hearing, and not just the tuner making excuses. Gordon Large Mt. Vernon, ME
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