Follow-up on hearing protection

[Geoff Sykes]

Well, my original question about the Zem ear plugs never even got addressed,
but the thread turned into something interesting anyway. Now let's take it a
step further. 
 
I had an experience yesterday that suddenly slammed this subject home for
me. While prepping a new piano at a store the manager claimed to be hearing
a squeak in two adjacent keys. I could hear a slight rubbing, but no squeak.
Everyone else in the store, (much younger than me btw), could hear it. Just
by chance a fellow tech walked in. This person is a little younger than me
but what makes a real difference is that this person is female, and it has
been proven that women have much better hearing then men, and keep it
longer. She could also hear it fine. She also found the problem and fixed
it. Turned out to be a small piece of wood shaving between two of the keys.
She blew it out and the squeak was gone. 
 
So, today I decided to check out just how my ears were behaving. Just what
COULD I still hear? Surely there must be an online resource that could
provide some clue prior to actually paying to see a doctor. Well my friends,
there is! A company called Digital Recordings offers a free "professional"
hearing test online. It offers 24 test frequencies from 20 Hz to 20KHz with
SPL ranging from 0 - 80 db in 1 db steps. It requires the Java plug in, some
VERY good headphones and a VERY quiet room. I could not get it to run in IE
but on Firefox it ran perfectly. Check it out.
 
http://www.digital-recordings.com/hearing-test/www-ht-pro/ht_help_p.html
 
Needless to say I was extremely disappointed in my results. But, as an
excuse, I have old crappy headphones, live next to a busy street and there
is street construction going outside. I plan to find some decent headphones
and try it again in a quiet place, but I don't expect significantly
different results. (- sigh -) Fortunately the top note on a piano, (C8), is
only around 4186 Hz. Well below where my HF degradation started to kick in.
(Whew!) Still...
 
Enjoy. I expect reports.
 
-- Geoff Sykes
-- Assoc. Los Angeles
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