How Good is Your Hearing?

[AsleepInYorkshire]

1. You can hear what people say
2. You can hear what they don't say
3. You can hear what people do
4. And you can hear what they don't do

AiY

[vrdiver]

I see what you're saying.

Sorry. I thought it was a sight test.

[jfgw]

I can hear them.
They are all around me.
I cannot see them but I know that they are there.
They are telling me what to do...

[monabri]

Good, you can hear me, now go and put the kettle on...milk and 2 sugars....OBEY ME!

[vrdiver]

Good, you can hear me, now go and put the kettle on...milk and 2 sugars....OBEY ME!

And you wonder why the people who hear voices do crazy stuff?

Tea? Coffee? What!

It starts with sloppy demands and ends.... well, you know where it ends.

Got to go. The generals have invited me to a dance.

VRD

[Mike4]

1. You can hear what people say
2. You can hear what they don't say
3. You can hear what people do
4. And you can hear what they don't do

AiY

Hearing is the strangest thing. Mine is quite damaged from loud music and I have great difficulty in loud environments (e.g. pubs with a lot of people in, or even a full restaurant) hearing what people are saying. It worse than that in fact, I simply can't distinguish the words so I end up retreating into my own little, isolated world in the mush of noise.

Yet OTOH, I have my wonderful 1970s hifi which I love listening to, and the quality of the sound is such that I have been dissatisfied with MP3s and all digital music except CDs until now, when I bought a quite expensive streaming DAC to listen to Spotify and eventually Tidal (on the recommendation of a customer of mine who does sound stuff for a living) in the hope of achieving some truly hi digital fi. And I'm utterly delighted with it, the difference between listening to my Mac plugged into my Quad 22s and Tannoy Chatsworths and the DAC is beyond noticeable to my lug holes. Digital music sources finally sound as good as CDs!

How strange is that, given how I can't determine what people are yelling at me from three feet away in the loud pub?

[XFool]

Wot?



----- Ignore -----
TLF - 12345

[Midsmartin]

I'm just wondering if you've done a blind test of your hifi setups?

[XFool]

Hearing is the strangest thing. Mine is quite damaged from loud music and I have great difficulty in loud environments (e.g. pubs with a lot of people in, or even a full restaurant) hearing what people are saying. It worse than that in fact, I simply can't distinguish the words so I end up retreating into my own little, isolated world in the mush of noise.

Is that not, sadly, generally an age 'thing' ? (Don't know how old you are!) It is commonly ascribed to loss of hearing at the higher frequencies.

As it must take quite a lot of processing to pick out and decode a particular voice in a noisy environment, and be able to switch context in real time as needed, I can't help wondering if it is possibly also related to reducing brain processing capacity with age.

[AlumniLawn]

What I hate about going deaf is that the constant "eh, what, pardon, say again" not to mention stating the time when asked about the food (for example) makes me feel not so much deaf as rather stupid.

I wear NHS hearing aids as in no audiology department or forum have I found someone who can say "these private and very expensive hearing aids will give you x% better hearing". Better fit, better aesthetics yes. Better hearing no.

Do you hear me?

[didds]

I wear NHS hearing aids as in no audiology department or forum have I found someone who can say "these private and very expensive hearing aids will give you x% better hearing". Better fit, better aesthetics yes. Better hearing no.

Having tried the best aid the NHS has to offer (which I was told was a 2K aid) and "failed" [1] I tried a commercial "guranteed wow heraing" etc type aids.

These were priced at 2.5K

no bloody difference at all.

[1] Both aids basically turned "murmer murmer something vague_noise" into "MURMER MURMER SOMETHING VAGUE_NOISE". Neither helped distinguish the voice/sound I was trying to listen to over other general ambient noise (street/shops/pubs/restaurants). Where they did work better was in a quiet environment, usually with just one or two people in the sme immediate area - like at home, or in a car. When i didnt need the aid anyway as in those quiet environments i could hear adequately.

I doid once try at a theatre the hearing loop system. I set my aid to hearing loop mode, and hung some contraption around my neck that "worked" off the loop allegedly. made no difference whatsoever.

I do struggle with TV and films, and even theatre often - but Im nevger sure if its my hearing issues, or just that the audio is rubbish either becasue the film/program/actors are poor or the TV speakers are rubbish. I do find if I watch stuff on my phone with an ear piece in my good ear I can usually hear more than adeuatrely so I surmise its often external factors I'm not in control of, allied to my general poor hearing in "spaces". The ear piece just delivers the sound directly to my ear with no ambient noises to distract/break it.

didds

[Bminusrob]

My hearing has been going downhill for some years, and I suffer from high frequency hearing loss to the extent that I wear NHS hearing ids, which help quite a bit. The trouble is, I suffer quite badly from tinnitus, so I have this constant high pitched whistle in both ears. As I write this, the whistle is bad, but sometimes, I can just ignore it. The big problem though, is that I have a "notch" in my hearing spectrum (about 7995Hz) where I can't hear anything. This is a problem, because it is almost precisely the frequency of the beep of chip and pin machines, so I can't hear when the bl**dy things beep.

I can't really complain though. It is pretty minor compared with a lot of people in their mid-sixties. I no longer have a heart condition, I no longer have cancer, and I have run two sub-two hour half marathons this year. As a wearer of two hearing aids, I also qualify for a disabled person's railcard, so I and my minder (she who must be obeyed) both get a third off our rail fares, including at peak times.

Happy new year, and I wish you many more to come.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I suffer quite badly from tinnitus, so I have this constant high pitched whistle in both ears. As I write this, the whistle is bad, but sometimes, I can just ignore it.
Happy new year, and I wish you many more to come.

I have NHS hearing aids and most of the time they reduce the amount of tinnitus I get.

Happy New Year

AiY

[GrahamPlatt]

These might be found useful/entertaining:

https://musicianbrain.com/pitchtest/

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/tunestest/tes ... ense-pitch

[AlumniLawn]

I also qualify for a disabled person's railcard, so I and my minder (she who must be obeyed) both get a third off our rail fares, including at peak times.

Happy new year, and I wish you many more to come.

I never knew that! But I do now, good news at last

[Midsmartin]

I have tinnitus, but it mostly doesn't bother me too much. It's worse when I'm tired. It started the day after my first gig in a local community band where a semi pro trumpeter played a solo right behind me when we were squashed into a tight space. I was a bit naive, but nobody had warned me it might be dangerously loud (it's not a rock band!). Now I wear ear plugs even at socially distanced rehearsals and keep suggesting that new band members should be routinely told that ear plugs area good idea but it doesn't happen.

Anyway. I know I've lost the high frequencies quite a bit.
I often wonder about the effects of hearing aids. If they amplify all frequencies, presumably they must increase the stress and rate of damage to your remaining hearing, so there must be a trade off. Is that right?

[servodude]

I have tinnitus, but it mostly doesn't bother me too much. It's worse when I'm tired. It started the day after my first gig in a local community band where a semi pro trumpeter played a solo right behind me when we were squashed into a tight space. I was a bit naive, but nobody had warned me it might be dangerously loud (it's not a rock band!). Now I wear ear plugs even at socially distanced rehearsals and keep suggesting that new band members should be routinely told that ear plugs area good idea but it doesn't happen.

Anyway. I know I've lost the high frequencies quite a bit.
I often wonder about the effects of hearing aids. If they amplify all frequencies, presumably they must increase the stress and rate of damage to your remaining hearing, so there must be a trade off. Is that right?

It's (actually when you look at all the variables) quite complicated...
but you can tune them (or more correctly filter the band you amplify)
- but that's about all you can do (for inline modification of what you hear)

-sd
(Post viral asymmetric tinnitus sufferer who has designed hearing tests and audio nerve monitoring gear)

[didds]

I often wonder about the effects of hearing aids. If they amplify all frequencies, presumably they must increase the stress and rate of damage to your remaining hearing, so there must be a trade off. Is that right?

allegedly (my audioslogists tell me) the modern hearing aids are programmable to only boost certain ranges. My expereince though as I described previously is that all they do seem to acheive is making loud ambient noises even louder despite the assurances

[XFool]

These might be found useful/entertaining:

https://musicianbrain.com/pitchtest/

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/tunestest/tes ... ense-pitch

In my Opra browser the first link has a page with little useful on it.

The second, eventually, told me I have "a fine sense of pitch". Though, as with all and any such multiple test questions, I ran in to my usual problem: "I don't know how to answer this one!"

e.g. If I remember correctly, with the La Cucaracha sample, it sounded OK but for the fact it seemed to end prematurely. Surely there needed to be another note at the end? So: "Did this play correctly? YES/NO" - Aarrgggh!!

I think I ran into two like that so chose one YES and one NO. Who knows?

[ten0rman]

15 years ago I developed Menieres in my right ear, along with the accompanying vertigo. Two operations later and the vertigo was stopped, but there was very little sound in that ear, even though the consultant recommended a hearing aid. In effect then, I ended up with monaural hearing, but with careful positioning I was able to carry on with choral singing.

Almost 5 years ago, during a Haydn Creation concert, something happened to my left ear in that I lost bass response. As a result I had to give up singing, got to see an audiologist who told me what I already knew and was given two new hearing aids, one for each ear. Over a period of 12 to 15 months, my bass response slowly returned. I can only assume that the concert did some damage which then my body managed to repair.

About 6 months ago I broke one of the ear pieces, was given a further test and ended up with two new hearing aids, one for the left ear with fixed gain, and a much larger one for the right ear with fortunately adjustable gain. I say fortunately, because after 15 years of hearing not much in that ear, I, or perhaps my brain, is/am struggling to cope with all the "new" sounds coming down the hearing system.

I have permanent tinnitus, usually a hissing type low level sound in the right ear, but occasionally a large diesel engine sound in that ear.

TV sound is poor: I now use sub-titles all the time. Conversations are ok on a one-one basis, but very difficult, almost impossible if there are other people speaking or there is other extraneous noise. Fortunately, our cordless 'phones have a loudspeaker mode which for me doubles up as an amplifier.

So, all in all, my hearing is not good, but I am managing, it being the least of my problems, lung cancer being the worst. But, mustn't complain, at least I'm still here, and well past my three score plus 10.

Finally, why am I like that? Dunno. I suspect that listening a very loud noise in my twenties won't have helped, plus in my late forties, I changed offices, and was allocated a desk directly in line with, and about 15 feet away from the fire alarm siren. I did complain about the siren, but was told that it met approved standards. As a result, I went out of the room immediately prior to the weekly test but I will have suffered a few weeks of the siren. Also, I know some singing can be very loud so maybe that has contributed somewhat.

Cheers,

ten0rman