(EH)? Electronic Ears

[A440A@aol.com]

Greetings all,

      I cannot return all the private email asking about the electronic ears,
so I will just post what I know out here on the list.  For those with still
sparkling hearing and low tolerance for off-topic clutter, bah! humbug, you
have your reward.....(:)}}

     The problem with electronically boosting the incoming signal is one of
balance.
Nobody has the same hearing loss, so the manufacturers build these units to
do the most good.  This average format doesn't let you balance the boost to
just where you are in need of it.   The more specific you want to be, the
more money you will spend.

     I found nothing out there that allows control for increments above 5K,
 those values will all be grouped together, though this doesn't seem to cause
problems.
The frequency range between 3.7K and 4.2K seems to be the area of excessive
noise damage.  It is here that I had my greatest drop in hearing.  The
problem arises with explosion damage because it is so specific an area, it is
hard to amplify without also boosting the frequencies above or below that you
hear perfectly well.  When that happens, the sound is very metallic and
fatiguing.

     After trying several systems,  the Oticon Digifocus proved it's
superiority for my uses.  It's power levels are fitted over a baseline
reading of the harmonics formed in your ear canal, and having seven bands of
discrete amplification, plus full control of compression, as well as a
limiter that can be set for power control, lets you begin tuning the signal
in a lot of ways..

     Anytime you have signal processing, you will have noise,  and this
device does produce noise,  however, you soon stop hearing it.
          What I have found is that if the power levels are up to normal
hearing aid correction levels, tuning unisons in the top octave is like
shooting ducks in a barrel ,  however,  the ability to judge tone, i.e., for
voicing, is severely skewed.
    If the power is brought down to just brightening the tone enough to more
easily judge evenness of voicing, the top end begins to sound "cotton-like".
 That is a studio description that means the sound is a little thicker than
"airy".   go figure.
     There is a process that your hearing goes through to accomodate the
added sound, and that takes time.  We finally zeroed in on an optimum setting
on my fourth visit, I had the head of the department working on my case, as
it offered a special aspect for his teaching curriculum.

Anyhow,  this is what it sounded like when I first started.  Since then, we
have turned the power down a lot, ( they wonder if I really needed this
thing!!)

    First impressions:
As I exit the building, wearing the hardware,  I am surprised  to find that
there is a hurricane blowing.   At least,  that is what it sounds like until
I notice that the trees are standing still, and nobody is running for cover;
 no Red Cross or flying debris .

      It is  a white-noise like background that I am trying to hear through.
 The wind roar is almost overpowering.   Though the bulldozer's low grunt is
curiously subdued,  the treads sound like they are self-destructing.   The
construction scaffolding  across the street  doesn't creak so much as sound
 like a glass replica of the Eiffel tower doing a controlled shatter.
     In the asphalt parking lot,  footsteps sound like they are in gravel,
and the key in the lock sounds like a car that cost half as much as this one
did.  Inside the car,  the roar of the wheels and wind  is only occasionally
punctuated by the clank of the turn signal.  The music on the radio is
impossible,  the whole bottom of the spectrum seems to have been placed just
under the surface of a bright, 4K sheen.
      A restored 1892 Steinway piano pulls me into the house like an
acoustical magnet;   I know this piano, the strings,  soundboard and
 hammers.  If I need a standard, this is easily the one.
     The first note seems to come from somewhere else.  Perhaps a jet plane
has just come through the ceiling?   I instantly try a major triad, and what
I hear reminds me of Jimmy Hendrix.  I have not heard this much distortion
and phase shift since I parked a racing, unmuffled, V-8 Ford inside a cotton
gin at baling time.
     They go in the case. My aural imaging is going to have to change to
accept this.  Tomorrow I will tune a  Steinway grand for a member of the
Blair piano faculty, using one.

Regards,
Ed Foote