3 ms·

Please don't do this. This would work for a conductive hearing loss (ear drum or bones in your ear messed up, etc.) but not for a sensorineural hearing loss (l

Please don't do this. This would work for a conductive hearing loss (ear drum or bones in your ear messed up, etc.) but not for a sensorineural hearing loss (like what you get from aging or from noise exposure). You need non-linear compression to compensate for loudness recruitment. At a basic level, when you have sensorineural hearing loss, soft sounds will sound way softer than they should (or be below the threshold of audibility), but loud sounds will sound about the same as they should. If you crank up the volume for the affected frequency bands to make it sound right for soft sounds, then with loud transients, it will sound way too loud, and potentially do more damage to your hearing. Look at https://positive-feedback.com/Issue66/hearing.htm https://positive-feedback.com/Issue66/hearing.htm if you want to hack something together that will work better and not damage your hearing.

wrycoder 4y ago
Quite right! I’m quite “deaf” in the sense that I can’t understand what people are saying - they sound muffled (and I can’t separate two people talking at once anymore). But, I’m actually quite sensitive to loud noises! What I need is equalization and compression, so I can hear the soft noises. I don’t need much, if any, overall gain. Why can’t Apple provide that, they have all the necessary technology at hand?
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  Do hearing aids offer this sort of multiband compression? I've heard about hearing aids that act as Bluetooth headphones, so presumably your Apple device could send its unaltered audio over Bluetooth and then the hearing aid's custom programming could handle things from there?
  - biggieshellz 4y ago
    Yes, they do (in fact, they have custom hardware to do it), but the power budget is very, very small, so there have to be tradeoffs made, both in terms of the processing and in terms of the actual transducer.
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      People are used to recharging AirPods frequently, and their hardware exceeds what is in a hearing aid. So, I wish Apple would enter this underserved market and stop just making "works with iPhone" deals with the hearing aid companies.
hunter2_ 4y ago
Thanks!

wrycoder 4y ago

Quite right! I’m quite “deaf” in the sense that I can’t understand what people are saying - they sound muffled (and I can’t separate two people talking at once anymore). But, I’m actually quite sensitive to loud noises! What I need is equalization and compression, so I can hear the soft noises. I don’t need much, if any, overall gain. Why can’t Apple provide that, they have all the necessary technology at hand?

hunter2_ 4y ago
Do hearing aids offer this sort of multiband compression? I've heard about hearing aids that act as Bluetooth headphones, so presumably your Apple device could send its unaltered audio over Bluetooth and then the hearing aid's custom programming could handle things from there?
- biggieshellz 4y ago
  Yes, they do (in fact, they have custom hardware to do it), but the power budget is very, very small, so there have to be tradeoffs made, both in terms of the processing and in terms of the actual transducer.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    People are used to recharging AirPods frequently, and their hardware exceeds what is in a hearing aid. So, I wish Apple would enter this underserved market and stop just making "works with iPhone" deals with the hearing aid companies.

hunter2_ 4y ago

Thanks!