Yeah, ''WHAT'' indeed... 
Maybe you didn't follow the threads about the ABX tests i organized (and one still ongoing)
DAC blind test: NO audible difference whatsoever.
But basically, i started to question myself. My ears, to be more precise. So i took an appointement and got my results today: Everything is good!
Symmetric Left/Right and very good 8 dBHL average (20db @ 4khz, a ''normal'' dip said the audiologist) and between 0 and 5dbHL starting 6khz, which i'm very happy... to hear
The test itself, now.
Ok, so basically it takes about 45 minutes. It starts with some measurements of your ears (without you telling anything, just inner ear measurements with tones and test noises) with few instruments such as the Madsen Otoflex 100 (didn't take pictures but memorized it)
Tympanometer – handheld – MADSEN OTOflex 100
Next, you go in a small 1-person sealed anechoïc room, such as that one:
Obviously not as anechoic as the real deal in labs, but the noisefloor was indeed extremely low.
Then, inside the room (booth) you have a chair and some equipement. Speakers for newborns and headphones/earphones for children and adults. I was tested with earphones.
It starts with speeches testing and then dBHL (hearing levels, per frequency (250hz to 8khz). Then i got tested with some extra-cranial speakers (crane-phones??).
Bottomline, despite a limited audiogram bandwith: a very interesting experience. The ''audiology side'' of the hobby was sure underestimated on my part and i'll sure keep an eye on that from now on, for any test/questionning/audio equipment evaluation.
Next step, i'll contact a local University for a high frequencies audiogram (they have the lab/equipment to do such).
--------------WEB LINKS---------------
I'll add relevant information in this post #1
FIRST YEARS - Professional Development through Distance Education
What is Audiogram
Maybe you didn't follow the threads about the ABX tests i organized (and one still ongoing)
DAC blind test: NO audible difference whatsoever.
But basically, i started to question myself. My ears, to be more precise. So i took an appointement and got my results today: Everything is good!
Symmetric Left/Right and very good 8 dBHL average (20db @ 4khz, a ''normal'' dip said the audiologist) and between 0 and 5dbHL starting 6khz, which i'm very happy... to hear
The test itself, now.
Ok, so basically it takes about 45 minutes. It starts with some measurements of your ears (without you telling anything, just inner ear measurements with tones and test noises) with few instruments such as the Madsen Otoflex 100 (didn't take pictures but memorized it)
Tympanometer – handheld – MADSEN OTOflex 100
Next, you go in a small 1-person sealed anechoïc room, such as that one:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Obviously not as anechoic as the real deal in labs, but the noisefloor was indeed extremely low.
Then, inside the room (booth) you have a chair and some equipement. Speakers for newborns and headphones/earphones for children and adults. I was tested with earphones.
It starts with speeches testing and then dBHL (hearing levels, per frequency (250hz to 8khz). Then i got tested with some extra-cranial speakers (crane-phones??).
Bottomline, despite a limited audiogram bandwith: a very interesting experience. The ''audiology side'' of the hobby was sure underestimated on my part and i'll sure keep an eye on that from now on, for any test/questionning/audio equipment evaluation.
Next step, i'll contact a local University for a high frequencies audiogram (they have the lab/equipment to do such).
--------------WEB LINKS---------------
I'll add relevant information in this post #1
FIRST YEARS - Professional Development through Distance Education
What is Audiogram
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Thanks for the overview.
After bad genes, decades of abuse, and banging rust off brake drums(!), I got tested. Same process.
They usually start with the lighted magnifier, look for dirt, wax, bugs, irritation, infection.
The tympi-thing tests that your ear drum holds pressure and moves reasonably. Punctured eardrum, heavy ear wax, locked-up ear bones, badly blocked eustachian tube will show here.
Then about like when I was tested 50+ years ago, they play soft tones and you hold up a finger when you hear one. Modern variations include many more available tones, narrow noise, or masking sounds. Another test (especially if the patient complains "everybody mumbles") is the examiner says easily confused words and you say what you hear.
My test suite had small speakers, and also bone-conduction headband. Bone-conduction versus air-ear response may diagnose outer-ear problems from nerve-deaf problems. (Sadly I am just nerve-deaf.)
In this crowd, you should know you can ask for half-Octave, 100Hz-6KHz. A non-hi-fi test may be just octaves, 250Hz-5KHz, because the traditional point of testing is for loss of understanding of speech, which need not be wide-range and is not too-too critical of narrow dips(/peaks). (You may or may not get it depending on who is paying for the test and how busy the office is; it adds a good 15 minutes to cover all the tones well.) Testing beyond about 125Hz-6KHz is not accurate in these sorts of tests. Headphone response below a few hundred Hz is VERY affected by headphone seal, which will be different on everybody. Response above 6KHz is affected by cup-ear alignment and spacing, everybody different. "Pleasure" headphones can rely on user adjustment for "pleasing" balance, but that's not calibrated. Advanced techniques like a micro-microphone up the ear canal are not justified for this type testing.
The final result is a sheet with general notes, the tympi- plot, an audiogram (see attach), and conclusions (hears great, mildly impaired, see doctor, suggest aids, profoundly deaf).
The audiogram is a frequency response, we all read these. They use X for one ear and O for the other ear, this is noted somewhere. This is your "threshold", the LOWEST sounds you can hear. And I believe the bass is corrected by Fletcher-Munson (which is an average, so the 250-500 trend may be over- or under-compensated for you).
After bad genes, decades of abuse, and banging rust off brake drums(!), I got tested. Same process.
They usually start with the lighted magnifier, look for dirt, wax, bugs, irritation, infection.
The tympi-thing tests that your ear drum holds pressure and moves reasonably. Punctured eardrum, heavy ear wax, locked-up ear bones, badly blocked eustachian tube will show here.
Then about like when I was tested 50+ years ago, they play soft tones and you hold up a finger when you hear one. Modern variations include many more available tones, narrow noise, or masking sounds. Another test (especially if the patient complains "everybody mumbles") is the examiner says easily confused words and you say what you hear.
My test suite had small speakers, and also bone-conduction headband. Bone-conduction versus air-ear response may diagnose outer-ear problems from nerve-deaf problems. (Sadly I am just nerve-deaf.)
In this crowd, you should know you can ask for half-Octave, 100Hz-6KHz. A non-hi-fi test may be just octaves, 250Hz-5KHz, because the traditional point of testing is for loss of understanding of speech, which need not be wide-range and is not too-too critical of narrow dips(/peaks). (You may or may not get it depending on who is paying for the test and how busy the office is; it adds a good 15 minutes to cover all the tones well.) Testing beyond about 125Hz-6KHz is not accurate in these sorts of tests. Headphone response below a few hundred Hz is VERY affected by headphone seal, which will be different on everybody. Response above 6KHz is affected by cup-ear alignment and spacing, everybody different. "Pleasure" headphones can rely on user adjustment for "pleasing" balance, but that's not calibrated. Advanced techniques like a micro-microphone up the ear canal are not justified for this type testing.
The final result is a sheet with general notes, the tympi- plot, an audiogram (see attach), and conclusions (hears great, mildly impaired, see doctor, suggest aids, profoundly deaf).
The audiogram is a frequency response, we all read these. They use X for one ear and O for the other ear, this is noted somewhere. This is your "threshold", the LOWEST sounds you can hear. And I believe the bass is corrected by Fletcher-Munson (which is an average, so the 250-500 trend may be over- or under-compensated for you).
Attachments
Not truly "anechoic", no echo. When using headphones, echo does not matter. In such a small room, even speakers won't echo with some burlap and carpet around.
It is isolation. It reduces outside sounds. NO leaks, some mass. Typically a floating floor (watch your step going in).
It does not have to be low-low. Nobody gets tested because their threshold is 20dB SPL. My ears were 30dB-40dB SPL above nominal (young) hearing threshold. Sounds I once would have called very audible were now lost. In a quiet building with staff that respects what is going on, it does not take a lot of isolation to test even mildly deaf people.
BTW, I paid $120 for a fairly comprehensive test. That office also sells hearing aids, but by conventional standards my hearing is not poor enough for that, and they did not try to sell me. (Low-loss ears find an aid more trouble than it is worth, makes unhappy customers.) I did get advice about using my better ear, yah-yaw; stuff I'd figured on my own (a lifetime of running sound) but still good info.
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@PRR
That audiogram for your dad reminds me of my father who at 91 is very hard of hearing. Probably worse than that actually.
I made him a headphone amp for TV viewing which uses an ingenious LCR circuit to give a really good lift at the 1 to 2k region. Post #23
Advice for hearing impaired setup on a new television?
That audiogram for your dad reminds me of my father who at 91 is very hard of hearing. Probably worse than that actually.
I made him a headphone amp for TV viewing which uses an ingenious LCR circuit to give a really good lift at the 1 to 2k region. Post #23
Advice for hearing impaired setup on a new television?
Good for mild loss. A lot better than no correction.
As an old EQ twiddler, you note that I noted the \slope\ of Dad's loss. 45dB/Oct! (Anybody need a woofer crossover for a nasty woofer? Hire my Dad's ears.) Compare with 5dB/Oct lift in your plan. 45dB/Oct to 40dB/Oct is "better", but unlikely to be "Wow!"
Nevertheless, he discovered the EQ in Windows (or sound chip driver), which won't be over 20dB boost, and said it made a real difference listening to music.
OTOH to "fix" his hearing "like new" would need 20dB broadband boost and another 60dB lift above 1KHz. That's an insane gain, and insane power into the earphone above 2KHz. (100 Watts??! Based on 0.1mW for normal level on nominal hearing.) Also getting the "corners" to align around 1KHz and 2KHz (they surely are not such round numbers) will "miss" and the residue would be sharp spikes/dips.
I developed a plan to give 30dB lift with a 18dB/Oct slope which could be tuned to taste. But he does not build anymore, and I'm unable to bench-work this year, and it isn't SO important...
While as rjb hints in the other thread, the new hearing processors do things "impossible" in old technology, there's limits on the technology and practical tuning-to-patient.
I suspect a rule-o-thumb is to only half-correct (in dB) the loss. And never over-do it. And consider the fact that HIGH levels will hasten nerve death.
At some age, limit correction to below 3KHz (as you did). This leaves the fricatives and sibilants silent, but all other important speech sounds are audible. In English, S/Z confusion is mostly harmless, though I do have trouble with S/K.
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2nd audiogram passed today, Musician's Clinic - Audiology Centre West - Montreal... this time 8khz to 20khz and also 125hz. One of the very few places to do these frequencies in the province.
My ears are very good for my age, i can even hear 18-20khz @ 3 dBHL average which is the usual results of a 15-20yo, said the audiologist. Got some asymmetry and a dip at 14khz though, but within ''normal''.
I explained the R&D projects i'm doing and the audiologist gave me a copy of one of the very few studies that were made on very high frequencies dBHL, per age groups.
(partly french, but you'll understand)
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
My ears are very good for my age, i can even hear 18-20khz @ 3 dBHL average which is the usual results of a 15-20yo, said the audiologist. Got some asymmetry and a dip at 14khz though, but within ''normal''.
I explained the R&D projects i'm doing and the audiologist gave me a copy of one of the very few studies that were made on very high frequencies dBHL, per age groups.
(partly french, but you'll understand)
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
No she did not, in fact i was ''normal'' within all bandwith tested, 125hz to 20khz.
The only ''abnormality'' is my capacity 16khz-20khz (0-5dBHL) which are usually found in younger people.
copy-paste from other thread:
... i'd like to add that i'm having difficulties to see any relevance of seeking for high-end audio equipment if one is having really poor hearing capacities... Unless your audiogram shows otherwise, if you're 50yo+, chances that your capacities are much handicaped are high.
5-19yo people not only have much more sensitive (dBHL) hearing, but their frequency response is flatter, even the worst among them (95th percentile)... Worst is 9.5db differential between 11.2khz and 16khz (average people tested in that group of age).
...while we talking almost 30db within the group of age 40-49yo (8khz V.S. 14-16khz)...
and within the group of 50-59yo, it goes to almost 40db and reaches 56.5db in the 95th percentile...
And all that is just for the 8khz-16khz bandwith, there is probably even more differencial if lower frequencies are also compared.
Older people needs DSP in their systems more than anybody, is that it ? Or maybe it's just a total waste to spend money and energy on high-end gears
Well, that Rodriguez study is quite surprising.
... i'd like to add that i'm having difficulties to see any relevance of seeking for high-end audio equipment if one is having really poor hearing capacities... Unless your audiogram shows otherwise, if you're 50yo+, chances that your capacities are much handicaped are high.
5-19yo people not only have much more sensitive (dBHL) hearing, but their frequency response is flatter, even the worst among them (95th percentile)... Worst is 9.5db differential between 11.2khz and 16khz (average people tested in that group of age).
...while we talking almost 30db within the group of age 40-49yo (8khz V.S. 14-16khz)...
and within the group of 50-59yo, it goes to almost 40db and reaches 56.5db in the 95th percentile...
And all that is just for the 8khz-16khz bandwith, there is probably even more differencial if lower frequencies are also compared.
Older people needs DSP in their systems more than anybody, is that it ? Or maybe it's just a total waste to spend money and energy on high-end gears
Well, that Rodriguez study is quite surprising.
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You have a hyperacusis and a cochlear scotoma and it is probably post traumatic symptoms, but there is nothing to do, therefore everything is normal
PS : Don't be scared, this is not grave
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You have a hyperacusis and a cochlear scotoma and it is probably post traumatic symptoms, but there is nothing to do, therefore everything is normal
PS : Don't be scared, this is not grave
Merci Doc, but were you hidden in the audiologists rooms? You have seen my two audiograms?
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