Greetings all, I cannot return all the private email asking about the electronic ears, so I will just post what I know out here on the list. For those with still sparkling hearing and low tolerance for off-topic clutter, bah! humbug, you have your reward.....(:)}} The problem with electronically boosting the incoming signal is one of balance. Nobody has the same hearing loss, so the manufacturers build these units to do the most good. This average format doesn't let you balance the boost to just where you are in need of it. The more specific you want to be, the more money you will spend. I found nothing out there that allows control for increments above 5K, those values will all be grouped together, though this doesn't seem to cause problems. The frequency range between 3.7K and 4.2K seems to be the area of excessive noise damage. It is here that I had my greatest drop in hearing. The problem arises with explosion damage because it is so specific an area, it is hard to amplify without also boosting the frequencies above or below that you hear perfectly well. When that happens, the sound is very metallic and fatiguing. After trying several systems, the Oticon Digifocus proved it's superiority for my uses. It's power levels are fitted over a baseline reading of the harmonics formed in your ear canal, and having seven bands of discrete amplification, plus full control of compression, as well as a limiter that can be set for power control, lets you begin tuning the signal in a lot of ways.. Anytime you have signal processing, you will have noise, and this device does produce noise, however, you soon stop hearing it. What I have found is that if the power levels are up to normal hearing aid correction levels, tuning unisons in the top octave is like shooting ducks in a barrel , however, the ability to judge tone, i.e., for voicing, is severely skewed. If the power is brought down to just brightening the tone enough to more easily judge evenness of voicing, the top end begins to sound "cotton-like". That is a studio description that means the sound is a little thicker than "airy". go figure. There is a process that your hearing goes through to accomodate the added sound, and that takes time. We finally zeroed in on an optimum setting on my fourth visit, I had the head of the department working on my case, as it offered a special aspect for his teaching curriculum. Anyhow, this is what it sounded like when I first started. Since then, we have turned the power down a lot, ( they wonder if I really needed this thing!!) First impressions: As I exit the building, wearing the hardware, I am surprised to find that there is a hurricane blowing. At least, that is what it sounds like until I notice that the trees are standing still, and nobody is running for cover; no Red Cross or flying debris . It is a white-noise like background that I am trying to hear through. The wind roar is almost overpowering. Though the bulldozer's low grunt is curiously subdued, the treads sound like they are self-destructing. The construction scaffolding across the street doesn't creak so much as sound like a glass replica of the Eiffel tower doing a controlled shatter. In the asphalt parking lot, footsteps sound like they are in gravel, and the key in the lock sounds like a car that cost half as much as this one did. Inside the car, the roar of the wheels and wind is only occasionally punctuated by the clank of the turn signal. The music on the radio is impossible, the whole bottom of the spectrum seems to have been placed just under the surface of a bright, 4K sheen. A restored 1892 Steinway piano pulls me into the house like an acoustical magnet; I know this piano, the strings, soundboard and hammers. If I need a standard, this is easily the one. The first note seems to come from somewhere else. Perhaps a jet plane has just come through the ceiling? I instantly try a major triad, and what I hear reminds me of Jimmy Hendrix. I have not heard this much distortion and phase shift since I parked a racing, unmuffled, V-8 Ford inside a cotton gin at baling time. They go in the case. My aural imaging is going to have to change to accept this. Tomorrow I will tune a Steinway grand for a member of the Blair piano faculty, using one. Regards, Ed Foote
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