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As a mid-50 year old who discovered two years ago that he has moderate hearing loss (50-55 dB HL), I will be forever grateful to Apple for doing this. If anybo

As a mid-50 year old who discovered two years ago that he has moderate hearing loss (50-55 dB HL), I will be forever grateful to Apple for doing this. If anybody from the accessibility teams is reading this, please know that it is difficult for me to overstate my gratitude and my appreciation for the amount of work this must've taken. Music sounds unbelievably better through my AirPod pros, and I didn't even know what I had lost until I heard it again. I'm willing to bet that a lot of my middle aged compatriots don't even know how much their hearing has degraded… Get your hearing test tested, folks, while you still have it!

analog31 2y ago
Yes, and protect your hearing while you can. Turn down your tunes. Disclosure: Working musician. I wear musician's earplugs when playing in bands.
- an_d_rew 2y ago
  Totally agree but there's a small caveat... Everybody has vastly different sensitivities to sound exposure. Even identical twins with identical sound exposures can have drastically different hearing profiles especially as they age. I actually have always been very careful with my hearing; there is some evidence that I may have a very very mild congenital birth defect that makes me prone to hearing loss, but that's largely speculation. My wife is actually older than me and has a spectacularly sensitive hearing - as does her mother! - and she's the drummer! (The wife, not her mother :-) I just do keys and vocals...) That's why it's so important that everyone protect their hearing because even though it's not too loud for the people around you, it might be too loud for you - and you won't know until it's too late.
  - formerly_proven 2y ago
    Hearing being a "logarithmic" sense and decibels make this a bit weird to me. Like losing 6 dB of hearing in a car crash is considered negligible and insignificant, but that actually means the ears lost half their sensitivity in a flash (and it's never coming back, just like teeth). Likewise your 50 dB hearing loss is considered moderate, but actually represents a 300-fold reduction in acuity.
    - an_d_rew 2y ago
      Exactly! Although I try not to think about that too hard because... well it's kind of depressing. But it's the exact reason that hearing aids are so difficult to design. For example if you were to naïvely try to just "add back" 50 dB of gain to a 70 dB ambient sound, that hearing aid would be trying to pump 120 dB of sound energy into your ear canal... which would actually cause damage to the surrounding cochlear bands... But if it doesn't try to add something there, then everything sounds distorted because you have way too much sound energy from the other frequency bands, perhaps ones where you have much higher sensitivity. Hence the multi band compression and why it's so difficult, and why hearing aid manufacturers focus on speech intelligibility above and beyond everything.
- Semaphor 2y ago
  > I wear musician's earplugs when playing in bands. As a musician, you possibly have custom ones, but for anyone else who’s not an audiophile, you can get decent ones that mostly preserve the sound while lowering the volume for around $15-20. A godsend for concerts.
  - analog31 2y ago
    I actually just use the Etymotic ER20's. I'd rather have cheaper ones that I can afford to lose, and also have a pair in each instrument case.
    - blendo 2y ago
      Yes, +1 for etymotic. I’ve used them for years.
    - analog31 2y ago
      I'm past the edit window here, but have a couple more thoughts. First, I'm just a jazz player, so my gigs can get loud, but not screaming stooopid loud. Second, I am almost always amplified on stage, meaning that the most delicate subtleties of optimal tone quality are lost anyway. Many of the rock players are moving to in-ear monitors, which block everything but replace it with your monitor mix, received via wireless. On the other hand, some band mates, and my kids, play classical. Their needs are a lot more critical in terms of perceiving their tone quality. A benefit of the fitted plugs is that you can get the capsules with less attenuation, which means you're still safe in something like a classical ensemble, but without losing too much.
    - QuantumGood 2y ago
      Under $20, nice: https://www.etymotic.com/product/etyplugs-high-fidelity-earplugs/ https://www.etymotic.com/product/etyplugs-high-fidelity-earp...
  - euroderf 2y ago
    > A godsend for concerts. Maybe necessary for movie theatres too. Contemporary volume levels are abusive (imo).
- dagmx 2y ago
  I shoot live concerts as a hobby and it blows my mind that I’m the only one in the media pit with hearing protection. My Apple Watch is screaming at me that its damaging levels of audio, and I can’t imagine listening to the show without protection.
  - iwontberude 2y ago
    When I go to rock concerts I am the one percent, when I go to bass music shows all of a sudden half of the people are wearing ear protection. I think some scenes and genres are better about this than others.
DanielleMolloy 2y ago
Did you try AppleMusic? Not directly related to your case, but I thought I had some age-related hearing loss when listening to Spotify Premium only for a decade. I appreciate their recommendations (found me a whole bunch of new interesting bands, even new favourite ones), but didn't know how awful Spotify's quality is even in comparison to Apple's standard codec. I didn't make the switch yet since for lossless since I don't have enough space on my phone, but am considering it, even for just showing support for the current music quality efforts over at Apple.
- gnatolf 2y ago
  Spotify high quality is usually 320kbps. If not, it's because only worse qualities are recorded/available. I have sincere doubts you're able to hear a difference to lossless qualities, especially if you're listening on the go or in non-hifi setups. The Apple RDF seems strong here.
  - dbspin 2y ago
    I've heard this argument so many times - but personally I can trivially easily here the difference between Tidal / Apple Music and Spotify's 'high quality' setting - even on wireless headphones. Music on spotify sounds flat and drained. No idea if this has something to do with their compression technique, some kind of EQing, or a flaw in some other part of the pipeline, but I've blind tested it many times and its night and day.
    - slickytail 2y ago
      Generally the problem with this type of argument is that the two sources are not volume-matched. Try out an ABX test here, of lossless vs various lossy codecs: https://abx.digitalfeed.net/ https://abx.digitalfeed.net/
      - threeseed 2y ago
        So that test doesn't mention how the FLAC was encoded back in 2014. Because most of the benefits of Apple/Tidal lossless come from the fact they are encoding in 24-bit, 192 kHz direct from the original masters.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
My wife is in her 50's. Her hearing seems noticeably poor than it used to be but she is in a bit of denial about it. This will be my first purchase of Air Pods — and for my wife. A kind of stealth hearing aid....
- meragrin_ 2y ago
  > A kind of stealth hearing aid.... I've had hearing aids for years. People don't notice unless you don't have much hair or you have to have the industrial strength ones.
  - Loughla 2y ago
    I would add, I've also never heard anyone make fun of another human for having hearing aids. I do not understand the stigma around these things.
    - KineticLensman 2y ago
      I've been wearing them for 10 years and have never had any bad comments as a result. When I first got them, work colleagues were visibly pleased for me that I had done something about a problem that was getting worse (not being able to follow quiet conversations in meetings). The one time someone did say something slightly negative that included "oh it's that guy with the hearing aids" I came back with "yes, and thanks to them I can hear what you just said, the clue is in the name", which got a general laugh that helped a lot. But that was a one off, apart from people slightly staring sometimes when they notice them, no one seems bothered.
  - JKCalhoun 2y ago
    "Stealth" in this case means I am stealthily getting her to try a "hearing aid" by way of Air Pods.
- an_d_rew 2y ago
  Hearing loss is one of the very few proven and CAUSAL mechanisms behind cognitive degeneration as we age. They even know the mechanism: the slow imperceptible year by year withdrawal from rich communication patterns with our environment. I found that it took me a little while not to feel "old" when I discovered that I needed hearing aids. But my oh my what a difference. It's difficult to describe to someone what it's like and how much less cognitive energy you have to put into even simple things like discussing lunch with your wife!
repler 2y ago
It's just like putting on glasses but for your ears! I had the same experience as you did - what a difference.

analog31 2y ago

Yes, and protect your hearing while you can. Turn down your tunes. Disclosure: Working musician. I wear musician's earplugs when playing in bands.

an_d_rew 2y ago
Totally agree but there's a small caveat... Everybody has vastly different sensitivities to sound exposure. Even identical twins with identical sound exposures can have drastically different hearing profiles especially as they age. I actually have always been very careful with my hearing; there is some evidence that I may have a very very mild congenital birth defect that makes me prone to hearing loss, but that's largely speculation. My wife is actually older than me and has a spectacularly sensitive hearing - as does her mother! - and she's the drummer! (The wife, not her mother :-) I just do keys and vocals...) That's why it's so important that everyone protect their hearing because even though it's not too loud for the people around you, it might be too loud for you - and you won't know until it's too late.
- formerly_proven 2y ago
  Hearing being a "logarithmic" sense and decibels make this a bit weird to me. Like losing 6 dB of hearing in a car crash is considered negligible and insignificant, but that actually means the ears lost half their sensitivity in a flash (and it's never coming back, just like teeth). Likewise your 50 dB hearing loss is considered moderate, but actually represents a 300-fold reduction in acuity.
  - an_d_rew 2y ago
    Exactly! Although I try not to think about that too hard because... well it's kind of depressing. But it's the exact reason that hearing aids are so difficult to design. For example if you were to naïvely try to just "add back" 50 dB of gain to a 70 dB ambient sound, that hearing aid would be trying to pump 120 dB of sound energy into your ear canal... which would actually cause damage to the surrounding cochlear bands... But if it doesn't try to add something there, then everything sounds distorted because you have way too much sound energy from the other frequency bands, perhaps ones where you have much higher sensitivity. Hence the multi band compression and why it's so difficult, and why hearing aid manufacturers focus on speech intelligibility above and beyond everything.
Semaphor 2y ago
> I wear musician's earplugs when playing in bands. As a musician, you possibly have custom ones, but for anyone else who’s not an audiophile, you can get decent ones that mostly preserve the sound while lowering the volume for around $15-20. A godsend for concerts.
- analog31 2y ago
  I actually just use the Etymotic ER20's. I'd rather have cheaper ones that I can afford to lose, and also have a pair in each instrument case.
  - blendo 2y ago
    Yes, +1 for etymotic. I’ve used them for years.
  - analog31 2y ago
    I'm past the edit window here, but have a couple more thoughts. First, I'm just a jazz player, so my gigs can get loud, but not screaming stooopid loud. Second, I am almost always amplified on stage, meaning that the most delicate subtleties of optimal tone quality are lost anyway. Many of the rock players are moving to in-ear monitors, which block everything but replace it with your monitor mix, received via wireless. On the other hand, some band mates, and my kids, play classical. Their needs are a lot more critical in terms of perceiving their tone quality. A benefit of the fitted plugs is that you can get the capsules with less attenuation, which means you're still safe in something like a classical ensemble, but without losing too much.
  - QuantumGood 2y ago
    Under $20, nice: https://www.etymotic.com/product/etyplugs-high-fidelity-earplugs/ https://www.etymotic.com/product/etyplugs-high-fidelity-earp...
- euroderf 2y ago
  > A godsend for concerts. Maybe necessary for movie theatres too. Contemporary volume levels are abusive (imo).
dagmx 2y ago
I shoot live concerts as a hobby and it blows my mind that I’m the only one in the media pit with hearing protection. My Apple Watch is screaming at me that its damaging levels of audio, and I can’t imagine listening to the show without protection.
- iwontberude 2y ago
  When I go to rock concerts I am the one percent, when I go to bass music shows all of a sudden half of the people are wearing ear protection. I think some scenes and genres are better about this than others.

DanielleMolloy 2y ago

Did you try AppleMusic? Not directly related to your case, but I thought I had some age-related hearing loss when listening to Spotify Premium only for a decade. I appreciate their recommendations (found me a whole bunch of new interesting bands, even new favourite ones), but didn't know how awful Spotify's quality is even in comparison to Apple's standard codec. I didn't make the switch yet since for lossless since I don't have enough space on my phone, but am considering it, even for just showing support for the current music quality efforts over at Apple.

gnatolf 2y ago
Spotify high quality is usually 320kbps. If not, it's because only worse qualities are recorded/available. I have sincere doubts you're able to hear a difference to lossless qualities, especially if you're listening on the go or in non-hifi setups. The Apple RDF seems strong here.
- dbspin 2y ago
  I've heard this argument so many times - but personally I can trivially easily here the difference between Tidal / Apple Music and Spotify's 'high quality' setting - even on wireless headphones. Music on spotify sounds flat and drained. No idea if this has something to do with their compression technique, some kind of EQing, or a flaw in some other part of the pipeline, but I've blind tested it many times and its night and day.
  - slickytail 2y ago
    Generally the problem with this type of argument is that the two sources are not volume-matched. Try out an ABX test here, of lossless vs various lossy codecs: https://abx.digitalfeed.net/ https://abx.digitalfeed.net/
    - threeseed 2y ago
      So that test doesn't mention how the FLAC was encoded back in 2014. Because most of the benefits of Apple/Tidal lossless come from the fact they are encoding in 24-bit, 192 kHz direct from the original masters.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

My wife is in her 50's. Her hearing seems noticeably poor than it used to be but she is in a bit of denial about it. This will be my first purchase of Air Pods — and for my wife. A kind of stealth hearing aid....

meragrin_ 2y ago
> A kind of stealth hearing aid.... I've had hearing aids for years. People don't notice unless you don't have much hair or you have to have the industrial strength ones.
- Loughla 2y ago
  I would add, I've also never heard anyone make fun of another human for having hearing aids. I do not understand the stigma around these things.
  - KineticLensman 2y ago
    I've been wearing them for 10 years and have never had any bad comments as a result. When I first got them, work colleagues were visibly pleased for me that I had done something about a problem that was getting worse (not being able to follow quiet conversations in meetings). The one time someone did say something slightly negative that included "oh it's that guy with the hearing aids" I came back with "yes, and thanks to them I can hear what you just said, the clue is in the name", which got a general laugh that helped a lot. But that was a one off, apart from people slightly staring sometimes when they notice them, no one seems bothered.
- JKCalhoun 2y ago
  "Stealth" in this case means I am stealthily getting her to try a "hearing aid" by way of Air Pods.
an_d_rew 2y ago
Hearing loss is one of the very few proven and CAUSAL mechanisms behind cognitive degeneration as we age. They even know the mechanism: the slow imperceptible year by year withdrawal from rich communication patterns with our environment. I found that it took me a little while not to feel "old" when I discovered that I needed hearing aids. But my oh my what a difference. It's difficult to describe to someone what it's like and how much less cognitive energy you have to put into even simple things like discussing lunch with your wife!

repler 2y ago

It's just like putting on glasses but for your ears! I had the same experience as you did - what a difference.