Unusual Sound Question

[EIREHotspur]

Guys.....unusual kind of queston for a Video Sound Tech forum but it was the best source I could think of. I am totally deaf in my left ear since birth. My right ear has gradually got worse to the point I need a hearing aid at this point. I bought one for €2,500 the week after I bought the 5D3. The 5D3 worked out of the box.....the hearing aid hasn't. I have been back to the 12-15 times to adjust it and every time I have been unsatisfied and because of other important things going on in my life this past yeat I didn't have the patience and gave up wearing it until the next time. This last time I have been determined to wear it and get used to it. Problem is and where my question comes in is this. He adjusted it so that now it sounds as if every sound is being played back through a small bathroom with a boom at the end of every word/sound. If I was to try and reproduce that in Soundbooth/Audition...what effect could I use to try and get over to this guy? Really need it working right at this point. By the way....sorry for the long paragraph without break but the return key is not working in replies on here?

 

[paulears]

Sadly it's a very common problem - I don't mean the hearing loss, but the inability to express what you are hearing in words.

If you have good hearing in the other ear, then you could always experiment, but I suspect that the problem is a combination of the way these devices work. The majority of the products on the market are quite simple. An omni directional microphone, a pre-amp with compression/agc, an equalisation section, and that's about it. As you're aware, the audiologist produces a frequency response plot that roughly follows the performance of your ear. Compared with recording studios and audio workstations, the resolution is quite blunt - the tones you heard when they tested and measured your hearing were quite widely spaced.

If you assume that you have a deeper loss at some frequencies than others, one snag with a hearing aid is that they have to attempt to boost some frequencies quite a lot, and if you think about it, this means one frequency may well be VERY loud, if this is what you need, and often the device uses an agc circuit to keep it from distorting. So when your deepest hearing loss frequency is present in the room, the agc dips everything else. The combination of the live sound of a room and the presence of one of the triggering frequencies could be what you're hearing? The distant reverberation heavy room that suddenly chops off as the agc becomes active seems to be to be likely. Why don't you record some audio in a room at a distance - then if you have the info, create an eq curve that's the opposite of your trouble ear, and then slap on a heavy agc or compressor with a fast attack and release and then see if this sounds similar to your hearing aid's performance? If you don't have an omni mic, use a cheaper camcorder as these have pretty non-directional sound.

My mum complains her hearing aid vibrates - I think she may mean distorts, but she doesn't have the necessary audio vocabulary to get it across to me.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I bought one for €2,500 the week after I bought the 5D3....He adjusted it so that now it sounds as if every sound is being played back through a small bathroom with a boom at the end of every word/sound.

What type of hearing device do you have? I'm presuming for 2500 euros, it is probably a 'Behind the Ear' type device. I'm familiar with Phonak and Siemens via the Wife who is lifelong hard of hearing. Her hearing has degraded to the point where we took ASL to have a backup communication path. She does not want a Cochlear Implant, which may or may not improve her hearing.

Her loss 'on average' across the aural spectrum is about 90+ dB, and 95% of her 'understanding' of words uttered comes from lipreading. And because of the loss in her left ear, she only wears an aid in the right. One thing that happens if one does not wear an aid, is that the loss becomes greater, apparently not from 'continued damage', but the brain no longer processes the audio signal as well, sort of on the order of use it or lose it.

In any case, getting her hearing aids 'tuned' has always been a problem. The Phonaks she has now are about 5-6 years old, and we are debating when to get replacements... like next month or next 6 months.

The 'tuning' is done via a computer and attempts to match the aid's response to the loss, insofar as the aid has the capability. Also, the aid has some DSP capability to allow for certain conditions, and attempts to mitigate 'background noise', etc. But it some times goes 'berzerk'... like on wash board roads where the DSP attempts to compensate for the pulsating sound.

The device also has the capability of having different settings for general conditions. However, it seems that with her devices, that has proven to be a 'non' feature, as the compensation is insufficient.

If you have an 'in the ear' device, there may not be enough 'power' either in amplification or processing to get the 'best' that can be done for your loss.

As for describing sounds... that proves to be problematic... I get a lot of 'the sound is muffled', when we are watching TV. Since we have a pretty 'stupid' audio setup for the TV, all I can do is move the 'bass' and 'treble' knobs around and adjust some small bit. I'm looking into how perhaps a 5.1 sound system could be used to 'minimize' non-center dialog sound... The BD player does have a 'enhance dialog' feature, which suggests that the center is 'boosted' over the off center sound... But it doesn't seem to really do much.

 

[EIREHotspur]

Thanks to you both for your detailed replies. I am going to try reproducing the sound tomorrow in Audition. It's strange with a hearing aid.....I noticed when I clap my hands it is like the equiv hearing sensation of going through a slipstream on a moterway....momentryin and out of sound...weird. The biggest frustration I have is having to keep travlling 13 miles to this place to go through the same song and dance every time. This new chap that does it has no manner for dealing with the public either. I don't socialise and avoid discussion with people in pubs and large crows because quiet frnkly it is a waste of time. I appreciate the time you both took and I will follow your advice also in tring to convey my problem with him.