If people want cheering up and a different perspective, I suggest searching out what Evelyn Glennie has to say about music and listening.
yah, rather rude......when I glanced over the first couple paragraphs I thought it was strangely written....then I saw the date!
I didn't catch the date at first and decided that everyone was welcome to their own decision of how to approach hearing loss.
I have suffered hearing loss for nearly 58 years.
I often rely on others to evaluate my designs since I can not discern "stage" in a play back even though what should be a reasonable system.
I have worn hearing aids for over 16 years due to my hearing loss.
That said, I still enjoy music and working with tube based systems.
This in a way reminds me of the IC manufacturers in the 80s April Fools jokes like the Signets WOM (Write Only Memory).
Kudos.
I have suffered hearing loss for nearly 58 years.
I often rely on others to evaluate my designs since I can not discern "stage" in a play back even though what should be a reasonable system.
I have worn hearing aids for over 16 years due to my hearing loss.
That said, I still enjoy music and working with tube based systems.
This in a way reminds me of the IC manufacturers in the 80s April Fools jokes like the Signets WOM (Write Only Memory).
Kudos.
My hearing is thankfully still good enough to allow me to enjoy music, but not what it was 40 yrs ago (I'm 64 now). My wakeup call came about 20 yrs ago when my 15 yr old son was in a band and they had a 'band nite' in Buxton, Derbyshire at one of the town's pubs. They came on to play and within seconds my ears were hurting. It took about a week for the ringing and discomfort to abate. Subsequently, I always took ear plugs (Police in Tokyo, Sting in Taipei, Ryan Adams in Manchester and a few others). My hearing was excellent up until that night, but I know I damaged it permanently. Years of flying around on business did not help either.
My son now has hearing problems and he's 35. An hour at 105 dB SPL damages hearing permanently, 7 minutes at 120 dB SPL. Lesson from and oldie: don't risk it.
🙂
My son now has hearing problems and he's 35. An hour at 105 dB SPL damages hearing permanently, 7 minutes at 120 dB SPL. Lesson from and oldie: don't risk it.
🙂
@ Reeler
You are not alone in this type of decision. I too have been pondering over giving it all up. Different reasons though. If I can get things swung the way I would like, I may pay you a visit on the boat floating on the Shannon - I'm an Irishman at heart, take after my mother (an O'Reilly from Cork heritage) in that way.
But I have not given up yet.
A link to the equipment would be great, if you don't mind. My daughter is in Europe and I may ask her to grab something for me.
All the best and hope you find enjoyment in this endeavour.
Regards, Kevin
You are not alone in this type of decision. I too have been pondering over giving it all up. Different reasons though. If I can get things swung the way I would like, I may pay you a visit on the boat floating on the Shannon - I'm an Irishman at heart, take after my mother (an O'Reilly from Cork heritage) in that way.
But I have not given up yet.
A link to the equipment would be great, if you don't mind. My daughter is in Europe and I may ask her to grab something for me.
All the best and hope you find enjoyment in this endeavour.
Regards, Kevin
I am sure live music is getting louder. Just because the 5 KW PA is getting smaller and cheaper does not mean that you have to drive it into clipping in a bar. I used to watch bands playing with Vox AC30s in the 70s
A 5kW PA getting smaller and cheaper is not necessarily getting louder. Quite the opposite. 5kW does not get you nearly the same SPL as it did 20 years ago because smaller cheaper speakers are less efficient, not more.
They just keep adding zeroes to the power. Instead of 5kW, they use 50. Class D (translation: disposable) watts *are* cheap. At one time, 500 watts would blow the roof off a bar.
They just keep adding zeroes to the power. Instead of 5kW, they use 50. Class D (translation: disposable) watts *are* cheap. At one time, 500 watts would blow the roof off a bar.
Ok, I am new here, but I would like to chip in my two penn'orth, as my hearing is going as well. A couple of years ago I had to start wearing hearing aids as I was having difficulty understanding conversation, particularly with higher-pitched voices. Unfortunately the aids were very poor indeed for listening to music. However, once the pandemic started and I isolated as a 'person at risk', I became determined to solve the problem.
There is one point here to present first - when you have a hearing test, it is your threshold of hearing that is tested and graphed, not the performance when volume levels are sufficiently high to hear clearly. My solution, therefore, was a graphic equalizer that I bought years ago to set up volume-matching on a bi-amped setup, using its microphone, built-in white and pink noise generators and graphic response display.
This time, I installed the equalizer on the mid/treble channels, and set it initially to the converse of my hearing test curve. My hearing starts to fall off at around 800 Hertz in a fairly steady curve. After setting a comfortable listening level, as expected, the high frequency boost could be reduced, and, for now at least, after a bit of tweaking, I can still listen to music as I heard it before my hearing deteriorated, and without hearing aids.
YMMV, depending on your level and type of hearing loss!
There is one point here to present first - when you have a hearing test, it is your threshold of hearing that is tested and graphed, not the performance when volume levels are sufficiently high to hear clearly. My solution, therefore, was a graphic equalizer that I bought years ago to set up volume-matching on a bi-amped setup, using its microphone, built-in white and pink noise generators and graphic response display.
This time, I installed the equalizer on the mid/treble channels, and set it initially to the converse of my hearing test curve. My hearing starts to fall off at around 800 Hertz in a fairly steady curve. After setting a comfortable listening level, as expected, the high frequency boost could be reduced, and, for now at least, after a bit of tweaking, I can still listen to music as I heard it before my hearing deteriorated, and without hearing aids.
YMMV, depending on your level and type of hearing loss!