Well, &%#

[cozmik_cowboy]

The Lovely & Charming Mrs. Cowboy has always insisted I have hearing trouble (I have always maintained it's a matter of Her habit of mumbling mid-sentence & trailing off at the end....No!  I didn't say that!).


About 17-18 years ago, She made me an appointment with a audiologist to prove it to me.
"Your hearing is within normal range For A Man Of Your Age."
"Oh, good - because my wife says I'm deaf from my years as a rock'n'roll soundman."
"Oh - in that case, your hearing's perfect!" 


Fast forward to Thursday:  I have another such appointment; partly to shut Her up about it again, and partly from concern over the tinnitus I've developed over the last couple years.


Verdict?  Moderate loss starting about 3K & ramping off like a cranked CVQ  as you go up.  Now I am faced with the dismaying choice of trying hearing aids now (to hear Her and to cancel the tinnitus - which is really annoying, as I'm sure at least some of you know) now, or wait another 5dB until they say "You need them".


Bit of a bummer, that.


Peter (who places most of the blame almost 30 years of truckdriving, not on the music - though there's no doubt cymbals & guitarists who insisted on diming Plexis in rooms where a Super Champ would have sufficed played a role[size=78%])[/size]

[edwardofhuncote]

Well, I'll admit it ain't the best news ever, Coz. But aside from the expense, technology has allowed these things to advance considerably since they first came about. There are a lot of people wearing hearing aids now, and in some extreme cases, cochlear implants. Guy in the office upstairs from me has one of these amazing devices... 50 years on the job (been in water treatment since he got home from Vietnam in '72) and says it's the best thing ever happened to him. Of course he was almost completely deaf, and your case is much different... you just need a little bit of highs in the side-fill monitor. Might not be all bad if it cancels tinnitus too. Give it a chance?

You'd think as much noisy equipment as I'm around, I'd be losing some high end too, and I may be. I still hear things other people can't. Or maybe I just notice them. I am more atuned to odd sounds as a matter of experience, may be a better way to say that. But electric motors running, dinful pump stations, driving around with the windows down, it's just the aggregate effects of a noisy job. I wear hearing protection when the exposure calls for it, but even I'm not diligent about it. So far, no trouble hearing. My trouble is elsewhere for now.

A couple weeks ago, an exasperated Victoria of Derby said something along the lines of "you weren't even listening to me!". (She does that mumbling, sentence trailing off thing too...) Not really I said, but only because I already knew what you were thinking. It's a good thing my reflexes are still pretty sharp too... it took Her Highness a hot minute to pick up on the complicated nature of the comment. See, I got the message and moved on from discussions to actions. It's efficient. You can't tell academics or engineers anything without writing a dadgum peer-reviewed paper on it... they're right, you're wrong, t'was ever thus.

Let us know how it goes, man. Hate it for you, but only because you do. Glad they can help you.

[StephenR]

That sucks Peter, I know from personal experience how frustrating tinnitus is. Tough decision but if you can navigate the situation with Mrs. Cowboy it is your choice to make not hers.

My wife, who is considerably younger than I am, ended up getting hearing aids because of her concert inflicted hearing damage making it difficult to hear the kids she was teaching while masked for Covid safety. She ended up going with what seems to be the top-of-the line choice, Widex hearing aids. They are tailored to the exact frequency loss she has and software controlled. You can change them to pick up sound directionally or from all around and change various settings based on the environment you are in. They are tiny and basically invisible.  Price is about what you would pay for a used 70s Series bass. She is really happy with them. Around the time she got them I received a copy of Tape Op magazine that had an interview with Steve Lukather from Toto where he talks about his Widex hearing aids being a life--changing experience. He can now hear the frequencies he was missing while working in the studio and when he gigs they use the same EQ curves in his IEMs. Somehow they cancel the tinnitus by filling in missing frequencies where you are experiencing the ringing. I probably should get these, too, but am holding out for now. Hearing aids are like glasses, once you start wearing them you are pretty much locked in for the rest of your life. Hope you can find a solution that works for you! Here is a link to the Lukather interview.
https://tapeop.com/interviews/146/steve-lukather/

[David Houck]

For what it may be worth in your information gathering phase:

I have significant hearing loss and significant tinnitus, both for quite some time.  I'm used to both.

A few years ago I did a lot of reading on hearing aids.  My conclusions:

Apparently, you have to use them consistently so that your brain gets used to them; otherwise, you won't like them and won't continue to use them.

Even in the most expensive hearing aids, the sound quality is poor.  Here I'm especially thinking about listening to music, which is important to me, and probably to everyone here in the forum.  (I can't recall, it's been a while since my research, but latency may be an issue as well.)

They are expensive, especially and more-so if sound quality is an important factor.

They are fragile.

They either use tiny batteries that must be replaced every few days or they use rechargeable non-replaceable batteries which have a life of three or so years, which means buying another set of hearing aides.

The hearing aid industry appears to me to be something of a racket in that they know you'll be a long-term dependent repeat customer.  Some retailers even have service contracts.

My conclusions may be wrong; do your own research.  My guess is that there may be fellow members here who can report positive experiences.  But at this point, I'm still electing to go without hearing aids.

[hammer]

Wow! This place on the net never ceases to amaze me. Both with respect to what I learn and what we have in common.


Sans the tinnitus, I experience the same high frequency drop off as you Peter and of course have a spouse who must be related in some way, shape, manner or form to yours as every sentence starts clear and sufficiently loud for me to hear but by mid-sentence drops to a mumble/barely audible whisper. Of course, I do experience hearing loss from standing too close to drum sets and amps for far too many years. Had the hearing tested and yep it’s mostly the high frequency stuff with moderate to severe loss in one ear and mild to moderate in the other. To be honest, I didn’t realize how bad it was or how I was coping with the loss until masks went on three years ago. I don’t think it was the muffled voices per se that threw me as much as my inability to use the speech/lip reading skills I had developed. The loss of upper register sensitivity of course has led to accusations on the part of my spouse that I’m just ignoring her and other females while responding to males (at least those with lower register voices) as I’ve always done.


I Still haven’t found a set of hearing aids that works for me as glasses and a mask at work and in the classroom (still) make anything other than an in-ear unit quite uncomfortable to wear. Thus, I don’t wear the one I have as much as I should. The audiologists I’ve seen however appear reluctant to recommend the in-ear type as they limit use of ones residual hearing. I’ve also yet to find one that has rechargeable batteries and the idea of accumulating pounds of dead batteries that are difficult to dispose of without hurting the environment doesn’t appeal to me. I haven’t heard of the Widex brand before but will certainly check them out as it’s clear I need something I will actually use at this stage of life.

[David Houck]

... what seems to be the top-of-the line choice, Widex ... an interview with Steve Lukather from Toto where he talks about his Widex ...

My recollection from when I did my research is that Widex was indeed one of the top choices; and at the time, I read the Steve Lukather interview as well.  It gave me hope that this was going to work; but as I continued my research, the preponderance of the evidence suggested otherwise.

[BeenDown139]

ok i'll add my $0.02 USD:

i also live with severe hearing loss and tinnutis. one of the reasons i retired from performing 4 years ago is that i don't wanna make it worse.  i have to watch people's lips when they talk to me otherwise i can't understand what they're saying.  on the plus side it enables me to practice selective hearing with almost total impunity.

i know this is a direct result of standing between my stack and a heavy-handed drummer for around 45 years or so.  i loved my last drummer's playing but i knew i was in trouble when showed up for an audition and the first thing he did was turn his sticks around backwards to get more oomph outta his kit so he could hang with me volume-wise.

so my advice to you young whippersnappers out there is protect your hearing.  you don't have to prove to the world how loud you can be.  elsewise you'll wind up a cranky old deaf man like me who freaking hates hearing aids and will only wear them to his own funeral.

[hammer]

Dave


Your point of finding something you will wear consistently is well taken. We tend to not realize the extent to which our hearing and vision is connected to our brains. I have worked in the past with people who use cochlear implants and although these are a lot different than a hearing aid, they speak about “learning to hear” which is an accurate way to put it. While the brain is amazingly adaptable, it gets less so as we age so using a device consistently, as almost all of the time, allows time for the adaptation as well as requires less adaptations.


I definitely agree with what you stated about using them to listen to music. The ones I have now are worse than using nothing at all with respect to their fidelity and while okay for speech are pretty much useless for music. I’ve never understood why some company doesn’t incorporate the technology available for in ear monitors into hearing aids.


The search continues.