Interesting read. I have had difficulty to understand speech in noise environment for as long as i can remember but i have always thought that's just how it is for me. I have had multiple concussions along years and first of them was when i was something like 4 or 5 and, despite my mother telling me not to, rode my bike on top of a small retaining wall. helmets weren't thing back then. As teenager i started mountain biking which has brought me multiple mild concussions after that and also i have been run over with a car which caused, along other injuries, pretty noticeable headache when my head made dent to a windshield.
I have learned to live with this thing, people around me know about it and i'm not very social chit chatter anyways so it isn't really a problem for me, but interesting to know there could be some external reason for why my hearing is like it is.
I have learned to live with this thing, people around me know about it and i'm not very social chit chatter anyways so it isn't really a problem for me, but interesting to know there could be some external reason for why my hearing is like it is.
I got one when I was a teenager; my dirt bike bucked me over the handlebars with my head hitting the ground pretty hard. Spent that night in the hospital for observation...
These days speech discrimination against comparatively loud background noise is pretty difficult for me. Particularly when the noise source is close and the speech source is distant.
These days speech discrimination against comparatively loud background noise is pretty difficult for me. Particularly when the noise source is close and the speech source is distant.
Ditto. When I was young the neighborhood kids including myself all tried to emulate Evil Knievel on bicycles. Living in Miami put most of our ramps in the street or on the sidewalk. Later on we had big ramps leading to the lake, but these rarely caused injury. Bicycle helmet? Not invented yet in the mid 60's.
We had bicycle races, and bicycle "chariot" races which involved a bicycle pulling a little red Radio Flyer wagon with a passenger which was often me since I was one of the smallest kids. The local stock car track had "figure eight" races, so we did that too. Yes, there were crashes. That's before kids had video games. Life was real, and so was getting hurt. We would even jump the Radio Flyer...they really do NOT fly, but do roll over easily.
Did we make "sails" with broomsticks and bed sheets for use during a hurricane? Attempting to use dog power resulted in a nasty head VS street crash when the dog spotted a cat and made an abrupt left turn. Don't tie the leash to the handlebars, hold it in your hand so you can let go. Head thumps were common. Fortunately I grew out of this stage before the skateboard became common in Florida. My younger brother fractured his skull on one.
By age 14 I had experienced 4 collisions between myself and a moving car on my bike. Again this was the 60's. There was no 911. A trip to the hospital required explaining things to my parents which wasn't going to happen. Medical insurance wasn't common either so a trip like that cost money. One car VS George event did result in a trip to the hospital because the driver stuffed me into their 1958 Oldsmobile and drove me home.
There were a few head VS boom incidents in sailboats before I learned that lesson in my late teens.
Later in life my head put a $2000 dent in a Nissan Maxima, and a tree jumped out in front of me on a mountain bike trail causing a rather abrupt stop.
In my early 40's I started experiencing debilitating dizziness. The first bout was the worst and had me in bed for a week. Attempts to move resulted in nausea, so I didn't eat or get out of bed. My hearing started getting bad.
Several different "experts" over 10 years have said Meniere's Disease, and that I would be deaf by age 50 or so. These bouts of severe dizziness continue come and go but rarely last more than a few minutes. There are milder dizzy spells which can be transitory, or last for days. They rarely get to where I must stop everything and sit down. Certain motions can provoke them so I have learned not to do them, or do them slowly......getting out of bed or sitting up from lying on the floor is worse case.
Each dizzy spell takes a bit of hearing with it, and now at age 69, there is constant strong tinnitus (not just noise, but a myriad of assorted sounds) and I am nearly deaf. Even when I can hear every word clearly, intelligibly is mediocre, but total noise if more than one person is talking.
The true cause of Meniere's Disease is unknown, as is its exact mechanism of action. There is however a significant correlation with head trauma in early life.
We had bicycle races, and bicycle "chariot" races which involved a bicycle pulling a little red Radio Flyer wagon with a passenger which was often me since I was one of the smallest kids. The local stock car track had "figure eight" races, so we did that too. Yes, there were crashes. That's before kids had video games. Life was real, and so was getting hurt. We would even jump the Radio Flyer...they really do NOT fly, but do roll over easily.
Did we make "sails" with broomsticks and bed sheets for use during a hurricane? Attempting to use dog power resulted in a nasty head VS street crash when the dog spotted a cat and made an abrupt left turn. Don't tie the leash to the handlebars, hold it in your hand so you can let go. Head thumps were common. Fortunately I grew out of this stage before the skateboard became common in Florida. My younger brother fractured his skull on one.
By age 14 I had experienced 4 collisions between myself and a moving car on my bike. Again this was the 60's. There was no 911. A trip to the hospital required explaining things to my parents which wasn't going to happen. Medical insurance wasn't common either so a trip like that cost money. One car VS George event did result in a trip to the hospital because the driver stuffed me into their 1958 Oldsmobile and drove me home.
There were a few head VS boom incidents in sailboats before I learned that lesson in my late teens.
Later in life my head put a $2000 dent in a Nissan Maxima, and a tree jumped out in front of me on a mountain bike trail causing a rather abrupt stop.
In my early 40's I started experiencing debilitating dizziness. The first bout was the worst and had me in bed for a week. Attempts to move resulted in nausea, so I didn't eat or get out of bed. My hearing started getting bad.
Several different "experts" over 10 years have said Meniere's Disease, and that I would be deaf by age 50 or so. These bouts of severe dizziness continue come and go but rarely last more than a few minutes. There are milder dizzy spells which can be transitory, or last for days. They rarely get to where I must stop everything and sit down. Certain motions can provoke them so I have learned not to do them, or do them slowly......getting out of bed or sitting up from lying on the floor is worse case.
Each dizzy spell takes a bit of hearing with it, and now at age 69, there is constant strong tinnitus (not just noise, but a myriad of assorted sounds) and I am nearly deaf. Even when I can hear every word clearly, intelligibly is mediocre, but total noise if more than one person is talking.
The true cause of Meniere's Disease is unknown, as is its exact mechanism of action. There is however a significant correlation with head trauma in early life.
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The exact same thing can happen from just listening to loud music for many years. I can hear very quiet sounds (even over the tinnitus I can hear what they’re saying on the TV in the other room behind closed doors now) and pick out the high bit rate rip from the CD in blind test after blind test. But get that damn Roomba running and I might as well turn the sound on the TV off and turn on the captions. The *music* or other sounds are fine, but the speech is just gone. Unless I turn it up enough to hear the dialogue over it - then when the effects kick in (or it goes to commercial) it knocks things off the table.
George - Wow, it's amazing you've accomplished all that you have in the context of making sound with that as background. I take it you're not much of a drinker these days - me neither. I remember wonderin' how my father's full six packs had so much dust on them - now I know.
wg_ski - Yeah, I've been conscious of protecting my hearing in the last few years. "Well, Joe, how's it sound when pushed?" I never push anymore, so, how it sounds then is no longer relevant. One thing I notice - unsure if it's just older age or what - is I get easily annoyed with higher SPLs; it feel like my brain doesnt want it. Whatever it is that it has to do to process that experience isnt the same as it used to be.
My wife - a non native English speaker - demands the sub-titles whenever we watch a movie. After accommodating several times, I notice that I prefer the sub-titles; it's as if jumping over the auditory recognition process is somehow easier. If not jumping over certainly supplementing it with reading at the same time (hopefully...) seems to relieve the auditory interpretation task - it makes watching something with dialog perceptibly easier.
wg_ski - Yeah, I've been conscious of protecting my hearing in the last few years. "Well, Joe, how's it sound when pushed?" I never push anymore, so, how it sounds then is no longer relevant. One thing I notice - unsure if it's just older age or what - is I get easily annoyed with higher SPLs; it feel like my brain doesnt want it. Whatever it is that it has to do to process that experience isnt the same as it used to be.
My wife - a non native English speaker - demands the sub-titles whenever we watch a movie. After accommodating several times, I notice that I prefer the sub-titles; it's as if jumping over the auditory recognition process is somehow easier. If not jumping over certainly supplementing it with reading at the same time (hopefully...) seems to relieve the auditory interpretation task - it makes watching something with dialog perceptibly easier.
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We often use subtitles - on modern stuff, the speech is often unclear. Older stuff is still fine.
I remember seeing white for a sec or so a few times from one upside the head by dad as a kid. 🙂 Does that count?
I have suffered the occasional bang on the head myself, whilst playing Cricket. 😱
But frequently tune out of dull conversations. I seem to hear Da-Da-Da-Da in my head.
Like my deaf friend Herr Beethoven:
Beethoven's 5th Symphony - YouTube
But frequently tune out of dull conversations. I seem to hear Da-Da-Da-Da in my head.
Like my deaf friend Herr Beethoven:
Beethoven's 5th Symphony - YouTube
Long list.
But most recently was some years ago when I decided to pick up kickboxing again to get some excercise as I like the sport, told them I just wanted the workout and the light points-only sparring and no matches.
One of the very fit younger ones had a temper that flared too easily, and he got pissed off he had trouble landing good hits on me, went brute force and managed to jump high and land a very hard straight right to my temple. I do not go down -ever- but the lights went out so I just said "stop". When my vision returns the entire room is quiet just watching me with big eyes, I probably said it clear enough that 20+ actively fighting guys all stopped simultaneously.
Would very much like to pick up kickboxing again, but there's no local places to do that, maybe I'll see if there's a boxing club, just have to be careful of people with anger management issues.
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Would just like to clarify that everything worked fine, could think, act and reason just fine and I had no problem moving, but I had absolutely no vision at all. It happens sometimes with hits to the temple. It has actually happened that people have died because they did not fall and the fight continued despite not being able to defend, which is why I said "stop".
But most recently was some years ago when I decided to pick up kickboxing again to get some excercise as I like the sport, told them I just wanted the workout and the light points-only sparring and no matches.
One of the very fit younger ones had a temper that flared too easily, and he got pissed off he had trouble landing good hits on me, went brute force and managed to jump high and land a very hard straight right to my temple. I do not go down -ever- but the lights went out so I just said "stop". When my vision returns the entire room is quiet just watching me with big eyes, I probably said it clear enough that 20+ actively fighting guys all stopped simultaneously.
Would very much like to pick up kickboxing again, but there's no local places to do that, maybe I'll see if there's a boxing club, just have to be careful of people with anger management issues.
Edit:
Would just like to clarify that everything worked fine, could think, act and reason just fine and I had no problem moving, but I had absolutely no vision at all. It happens sometimes with hits to the temple. It has actually happened that people have died because they did not fall and the fight continued despite not being able to defend, which is why I said "stop".
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I still play with tube amps, and music generation toys like guitars and synthesizers. Unfortunately I haven't actually built a complete amplifier in several years, for several reasons. The dizziness and tinnitus was manageable for the most part from a couple years after the onset in my 40's until about 10 years ago when it started getting worse.
Coincidentally the ADHD that got me in trouble everywhere I went as a kid returned about the same time making it hard for me to actually complete a task. The motor skills in my hands have degraded noticeably in the past 20 years to where I sometimes have difficulty with simple things that I have done all my life, like soldering.
My father was a severe alcoholic for all of the time that I lived with him. I didn't understand his rage, and he did not understand my severe ADHD, but I learned to avoid contact with him whenever possible, as I was usually the target of his rage.
I made it a point not to be like him, and for the most part have avoided alcohol. After years of minimal, often unpleasant contact, we finally reconnected after he quit drinking.
I had never known about what happened to him in WWII which weighed heavily on him. His rage was often triggered by the news shown on TV in the early 60's. ADHD was not well understood in the 1950's and his PTSD from WWII was even less understood.
I forgot about the big one....been trying to forget about ever since the 5th grade.
During a softball game in physical education class at a private school where "misfits" like me were sent, a somewhat "misguided" kid picked up a bat and tried to send my head into the outfield "just to see what would happen." He had a history of stupid actions like this, and I just happened to be the closest target.
Someone screamed "lookout" which resulted in me turning toward the batter at the moment of contact. I don't remember much except waking up in the hospital where I remained for a few days. Other than a large hard lump that took weeks to clear, there were no obvious signs of permanent damage with the medical technology available in 1962.
Nothing much happened to the kid, except permanent banishment from physical education class, which is probably what he wanted. We were told to stay clear of each other in school after I convinced the kid that I would electrocute him if he ever got close to me again.
I reinforced that fear by carrying one of those 67.5 volt "B" batteries that were common in 1950's "portable" vacuum tube radios. When another kid laughed at my "toy" I spit on the terminals and touched it to him. His reaction ensured that nobody ever messed with me again.
I was always small and looked younger than I was until my mid 40's.
When they put in a gym at Motorola and made it free to employees, I started going at age 47. I peaked in muscularity around age 52 at 207 pounds, and then began the long slow decline. I have lost almost 50 pounds since then.
The first picture shows me at age 25 I weighed about 135 pounds then. The second at age 51 and a bit over 200 pounds, the third at age 54, and the fourth at age 59 and still about 185 pounds. The grandkid on top is now 16.
I haven't been to a gym since Covid came, so today I'm down to 160 pounds at age 69. Not so intimidating any more.
When they put in a gym at Motorola and made it free to employees, I started going at age 47. I peaked in muscularity around age 52 at 207 pounds, and then began the long slow decline. I have lost almost 50 pounds since then.
The first picture shows me at age 25 I weighed about 135 pounds then. The second at age 51 and a bit over 200 pounds, the third at age 54, and the fourth at age 59 and still about 185 pounds. The grandkid on top is now 16.
I haven't been to a gym since Covid came, so today I'm down to 160 pounds at age 69. Not so intimidating any more.
Attachments
Oh, come on - you don’t have circuit boards with the word “BOMB” printed right on them?
BFR training has been around for a long time. There is a lot of literature about it, especially from the oriental countries. The concept is sound, but many implementations can cause problems, including blood clots. Since I have had bruising and blood blister issues for my whole life, I have never tried it.
Remember the first rule of Fight Club
A silly prank involving a wind up alarm clock, some cardboard tubes, coiled wires, batteries and a bottle full of green liquid got the entire high school evacuated back in 1969. Of course, I nor anyone else knew anything about it. Fortunately, it stayed that way.
I learned a long time ago not to use that word in print. I have had a "discussion" with security, HR or both more than once over my 41 year career.
It seems that big corporations contract with even BIGger (BLUE) corporations to scan their entire server and client base weekly for certain key words, and other signs of employee malcontent or corporate espionage.
Being called on the carpet because their algorithm detected several unusual gif images on an "unauthorized" computer associated with my assigned ethernet jack was the first, in the mid 90's. The "unusual images" were downloads from the Hubble telescope FTP site, and the unauthorized computer was actually provided to me by Motorola, I just gave it a little "tune up." It could boot Linux, DOS / Win 3.1, Win 95, and OS2 Warp 4 connect, which I used to get into the UNIX servers by remotely logging into a SPARC station, from there one could go "anywhere." Most of my "malicious activity" involved file transfers to and from the local college where I was working on my MSEE degree at Motorola's expense, not so malicious after all.
The email discussions about BIG DIY firecrackers with coworkers with pictures in prep for a serious year 2K new years eve bang did raise a few eyebrows.
I even had to "officially explain" a one word email ("Pizza?") once. That entire email domain was forever blocked from access on a Motorola computer.
After too many yahoos asked “are you guys making a bomb?” I started printing that word directly on all my home-brew PC boards back in college. Then when the same question gets answered we say YES. Can’t you READ???? When it’s quite obvious from the bass, treble, volume and balance controls that it’s another AMPLIFIER. Of course, these were never sent out to a fab shop - they were all done with a Sharpie directly on scrap board from Skycraft. You should see the ferric chloride stain we left in Alpha 336. I’ll bet it was there till the building was torn down. Nothing ever became of any of it, despite the spark-o-matic and the giant electrolysis rig. Not *especially* dangerous but fantastic INTIMIDATION factor.
I made an 80 WPC car stereo amp for my van in the mid 70s. It was essentially two Universal Tigers and a home brew boost converter using a DIY toroid and a pair of BIG germanium transistors. In order to get the big fat bass needed to shake a full size Chevy van in 1976 some serious power supply capacitors were needed. A pair of large can electrolytics were longitudinally Ty-Rapped to the top of an aluminum chassis otherwise covered in heat sinks.
I filled out the necessary paperwork to bring this device into the Motorola plant for some proper measurement, and got the needed signatures. I was working in the cal lab at the time and they had far better test equipment than I did.
Security refused to allow it into the plant since it looked to them like a "destructive device." I had to get my boss to come to security and explain it to them.
I kept a baby spark-o-matic in the file cabinet in one of the engineering labs. It had 10 or 12 mid-sized snap in 35 volt electrolytics wired in parallel. I had labeled it "Farad Bomb", but later changed it to "shorts remover" after an email incident. It worked wonders on the early 4 layer PC boards...and for initiating freshout engineers.
Motorola also had POPI police. Protection Of Proprietary Information was a big deal. Anything looking confidential left visible or accessible, even in a locked office, was confiscated. You and your boss then had to answer to why and how not to do it again.
I found that the best answer to this is to print out some complicated looking but innocent stuff, like data sheets for Motorola parts on mylar transparencies. Lay them down on a conductive surface like a file cabinet, then run an ESD test gun turned all the way up to 25 KV across the surface. Stack on another sheet, and repeat. When the POPI cop tries to pick it up they will get a shocking surprise that leaves no traceable evidence.
Wandering back on track, does anyone else with this type of hearing degradation notice that familiar material either speech or music is far more understandable than new stuff? I don't know if the brain is filling in the blanks, even with music that I haven't heard in years, or if todays over compressed bass heavy stuff is just harder to understand.
I filled out the necessary paperwork to bring this device into the Motorola plant for some proper measurement, and got the needed signatures. I was working in the cal lab at the time and they had far better test equipment than I did.
Security refused to allow it into the plant since it looked to them like a "destructive device." I had to get my boss to come to security and explain it to them.
I kept a baby spark-o-matic in the file cabinet in one of the engineering labs. It had 10 or 12 mid-sized snap in 35 volt electrolytics wired in parallel. I had labeled it "Farad Bomb", but later changed it to "shorts remover" after an email incident. It worked wonders on the early 4 layer PC boards...and for initiating freshout engineers.
Motorola also had POPI police. Protection Of Proprietary Information was a big deal. Anything looking confidential left visible or accessible, even in a locked office, was confiscated. You and your boss then had to answer to why and how not to do it again.
I found that the best answer to this is to print out some complicated looking but innocent stuff, like data sheets for Motorola parts on mylar transparencies. Lay them down on a conductive surface like a file cabinet, then run an ESD test gun turned all the way up to 25 KV across the surface. Stack on another sheet, and repeat. When the POPI cop tries to pick it up they will get a shocking surprise that leaves no traceable evidence.
Wandering back on track, does anyone else with this type of hearing degradation notice that familiar material either speech or music is far more understandable than new stuff? I don't know if the brain is filling in the blanks, even with music that I haven't heard in years, or if todays over compressed bass heavy stuff is just harder to understand.
Maybe nobody *wants* to understand today’s music. When you Just Don’t Care, it goes in one ear and out the other.
I agree that the stuff pushed to the masses for the most part sucks. I don't even try to listen to it. I occasionally find interesting stuff on Youtube or Soundcloud that I like. I often find it difficult to understand the words though.
For instance, I discovered the jam band Goose about a year ago. Most of their Youtube videos are live recordings. Some are done well, and some are smartphone garbage. They have a sound similar to Phish, or Umphrey's McGee. I can't understand a lot of the words from any of these bands even though they are loud and clear, but the music still sounds good. When they cover a familiar old song though everything is understandable. There has to be some subconscious signal processing going on.
Motorola did a study over 15 years ago. They had users perform common tasks while attempting to carry on a blind conversation with another human about a familiar topic. The audio however was fed through some A/D to DSP to D/A conversions, with impairments added by the DSP to simulate cell phone digital audio, and the various transcodings that are found when dissimilar phone systems interconnect. A voice conversation can go through several transcodings to get from one phone to another, especially when two different networks are involved, IE an AT&T GSM based phone talking to a Verizon CDMA based phone.
One of the many common tasks was operating a driving simulator. The results were never made public because they were flat out scary. The old 2G and 2.5G phone systems caused a lot of simulated car crashes because the brain was subconsciously using a lot of its processing power fixing the mangled audio. All of these 2G systems are gone in the US, and most of the 3G derivatives will be gone by the end of 2022. The 4 and 5G LTE based stuff is much better.
For instance, I discovered the jam band Goose about a year ago. Most of their Youtube videos are live recordings. Some are done well, and some are smartphone garbage. They have a sound similar to Phish, or Umphrey's McGee. I can't understand a lot of the words from any of these bands even though they are loud and clear, but the music still sounds good. When they cover a familiar old song though everything is understandable. There has to be some subconscious signal processing going on.
Motorola did a study over 15 years ago. They had users perform common tasks while attempting to carry on a blind conversation with another human about a familiar topic. The audio however was fed through some A/D to DSP to D/A conversions, with impairments added by the DSP to simulate cell phone digital audio, and the various transcodings that are found when dissimilar phone systems interconnect. A voice conversation can go through several transcodings to get from one phone to another, especially when two different networks are involved, IE an AT&T GSM based phone talking to a Verizon CDMA based phone.
One of the many common tasks was operating a driving simulator. The results were never made public because they were flat out scary. The old 2G and 2.5G phone systems caused a lot of simulated car crashes because the brain was subconsciously using a lot of its processing power fixing the mangled audio. All of these 2G systems are gone in the US, and most of the 3G derivatives will be gone by the end of 2022. The 4 and 5G LTE based stuff is much better.