Customers with hearing aids

[Leslie Bartlett]

We're certainly a small niche in the overall hearing market, and our
requirements are the most demanding on the industry.  I wonder if they ever
will really take us seriously. On the other hand, with the greying of
America, more and more will have trouble hearing music. They might provide
the pressure to up the standards.      I've tried three sets of hearing
aids. Only one was suitable for tuning/voicing etc.   My audiologist says
that technology has zoomed ahead since I got mine less than two years ago,
but I'm skeptical...    We'll see within about three years as I expect these
to last little longer than five years.....
les bartlett 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Diane Hofstetter
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 12:17 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: RE: Customers with hearing aids

Hearing aids are amplification devices made for people who have a variety of
hearing problems. The lucky ones are those who simply have a conductive loss
in which all frequencies are compromised equally.  In those cases all you
have to do it provide a simple amplifier and the person hears normally
again.

However, the vast majority of hearing losses are sensory(loss of the sensory
nerve cells) neural (loss of nerve connections in the brain), and these
hearing losses are extremely difficult to solve, if that is possible at all.

Thus some customers will never be able to hear their pianos sounding right
again.  Others will hear a vast improvement over what they can hear without
hearing aids, and the lucky few will have virtually normal hearing again.

With the advent of the new expensive digital technology the biggest issure
now is to determine what is needed to hear music ( or, for the piano
technician, piano tuning) properly and how to adjust the acoustic parameters
to make that possible.  Millions of dollars have gone into research on
speech perception, but not music, and definitely not piano tuning.

Diane Hofstetter



-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.10/720 - Release Date: 03/12/2007
7:19 PM