Jim and others: I appreciate your suggestions and observations...but my hearing loss is not just one of intensity and frequency. As typical of many with hearing loss, I have loss many of the inner ear structure that reproduce sound. So the sound can be loud enough over wide enough spectrum and still be unrecognisable. The way I like to illustrate this is to say you take a knife to your favorite high fidelity speaker and shred the hell out of it. No amount of volume increase and egualization will restore good sound out that speaker. It probably will sputter and buzz and thump and give the awfullest crappy sound.
My hearing aids are computer programmed by my audiologist with each ear taylored for its needs. It is a 22-channel DSP system with two mics in each hearing aid so noise-cancelling and anti-echo programs run. It has a two-stage AGC system with different response times in programs. I have four separate software programs to chose for different hearing situations. For TV and Ham radio I chose the flat wide-spectrum "music" mode as if gives the crispest sound. There is significant differences for each ear, so using one equalization profile will not work as well. So the best solution for me is using headphones with my hearing aids when signals are weak or QRM is high. Any good fidelity stereo headset that is physically comfortable works. Many headsets press on the ears and do not fit around the ear. The physical pressure on the ear with the hearing aid between it and the head causes that to hurt after awhile. If the hearing aid cuff were to press directly on the head and not touch the ear it would be much more comfortable. But most are not designed for hearing aid wearer, just like not all TV or movies are captioned. I do not watch uncaptioned TV/movies. Those with handicaps learn to adapt as people around them are not able to understand the problem. But if you lost a arm or leg or are blind there are visual clues for others to recognize. There is nothing to indicate a person is hard of hearing. Interestingly, most people miss the fact that I am wearing hearing aids, or if the did they assume it "cures" my hearing problems. there is no cure for hearing loss. I still cannot understand a person who is not facing me or is in another room. If it is a crowded room I hear everything and nothing (ultimate QRM). In a noisy location is near impossible. If I am watching TV and my wife says something I usually have ask her to repeat it as I was concentrating on what was on TV. Thanks Ed - KL7UW ------------------------------ Message: 23 Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:01:54 -0700 From: Jim Brown <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Headphones To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 7/10/2011 10:46 AM, Edward R. Cole wrote: > I have followed the critiques on the reflector for headset-boom mics > but have not bought any. Mostly the reports are on audio performance > and not comfort. Hi Ed, The Yamaha CM500 is quite comfortable. In the 18 months so that I've owned mine, it's become my only radio headset, and I often do weekend contests that keep me in the chair for 15-20 hours (and sometimes as long as 30 hours) in a weekend. The large Sony phones (MDR7506 and the consumer MDR equivalent) are also quite comfortable. Some thoughts about using headphones WITHIOUT your hearing aids in place. The condition you've described of very strong loss of hearing above 500-1,000 Hz is characteristic of the vast majority of people with enough hearing loss to use (or need) a hearing aid, but the details of the response shape varies greatly depending on many factors, including the noise to which the victim has been exposed over the years, and various medical/physical factors. A good hearing aid will include equalization customized to the hearing loss of each ear to try to restore something approaching "normal hearing." The RXEQ section of the K3's signal processing can take a major step in this direction. A hearing impaired user should set the lower four frequency bands to their lowest settings and boost the top two bands. Since ham communications, by their nature, have limited audio bandwidth, there's no benefit from boosting frequencies higher than 4kHz. ======snipped 73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 50-1.1kw?, 144-1.4kw, 432-100w, 1296-60w, 3400-? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep [email protected] ====================================== ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
