Hearing Loss and the Audiophile

[mevdinc]

Hi,
Hearing loss and tinnitus related hearing problems seem to be the topic of interest in many hifi forums and groups lately.
I had shared the following post on a Facebook ATC Loudspeaker Group sometime ago and thought might be a useful to share it here too.
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I have always had a slight loss of hearing myself. In the mid eighties when I lived in the UK before becoming a game developer, I worked at a cable factory. The factory was incredibly noisy and I am sure I inflicted my hearing loss then. I could only just about hear up to 10Khz.

But I always considered this as a minute hearing loss and it never really effected my music listening enjoyment until 2018 when I attended the wedding of my niece. There was this terrible PA system which was covered by black cloths and without knowing I stood right beside one of the overdriven and overly distorted PA beasts for a couple of minutes.

And it ruined my left ear, I lost some of my hair cells in my left ear. It is an awful thing, as it effects some of the frequencies on which I hear resonance and horrible echoing sound which doesn't actually exist and entirely produced by the brain. Apparently this is what the brain does, it replaces the missing hair cell functionality itself by producing artificial sounds. 

I was devastated as it ruined my musical enjoyment! Being a programmer I started reading and investigating about my problem. In the end I realised that there was no cure for dead hair cells. Apparently, only the chickens have the ability to regrow their dead hair cells, lucky things. LoL

To restore some of my lost music enjoyment I managed to find a logical solution, which resolved my problem by about 70-90% depending on the type of music I am listening to.

I use Audirvana as my playback software. I decided to use one of the EQU plug-ins and started playing around with it until I could clearly establish which frequencies were causing most of the resonance and echoing. By a lot of trial and error and playing around I made adjustments to some of the frequency bands (around 32 bands from 20Hz to 20Khz) and reduced the volume by several decibels (3-4db, different levels for different frequencies, as some frequencies were producing more resonance). In the end, I ended up with a nice EQ curve that makes my music listening much more enjoyable. Obviously it's not a perfect solution, but I am happy to say that I am now able to listen to more than 80% of my favourite music.

Of course, when I am out and about my problem still bothers me a lot, even the environment sounds cause resonance. So I am hoping to develop a hearing aid where I can include my EQ curve editing functionality so that I can carry the solution with me everywhere. And more importantly, if this hearing aid works to my expectations and yields similar results I have achieved with the EQU curve then I am hoping it could also help other people with similar problems.

In fact, I have just finished writing my autobiography, Life Is A Game, where I share all the details about my hearing problem with the hope of helping some of the readers with similar problems.
 

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to share my experience with the hope of providing some info on the subject and possibly some help too.

I am also attaching a photo of the simple EQU curve that I am using within Audirvana.
BTW, since I listen to digital sources only via my Macmini I have also found a small sound driver/app (menuBAR) that allows me to use the same EQU plugin so that I can use my solution even when I am watching Netflix or YouTube.

Stay safe and enjoy your music wherever you are. 

[mevdinc]

I did come across a video on YouTube from a professor, who seemed to lead a research team on the subject of tinnitus and dead hair cell treatment, said that they were still quite a long way away from any meaningful treatment. It was the same Professor making the statement about chickens having the ability to regrow dead hair cells.
 

I would never risk any physical treatment or intervention to solve my problem. As everyone already stated the risk far outweighs the possible benefit.
My simple but seemingly effective software solution has made a huge difference for me.
A dedicated EQU unit maybe even better. Since some of the adverse effect results in echoing, a proper room treatment and eradication of any room modes could also help further reduce resonance and exhoing.
 

[mevdinc]

ATC speakers are known to be brutally revealing. I guess some people could also describe them as non-musical or analytical or similar.

 

I have been using active ATC speakers for over 22 years with great satisfaction. I listen to music every day for hours on end without any fatiguing.
I want my system to reproduce or reveal what's on the recording. I like detail, clean bass, large sound stage and plenty of dynamics, which my system delivers in spades.

Some of the recorded music just sounds poorly. I only listen to well recorded music and there's more than enough choice out there. And I listen to all kinds.

[mevdinc]

1 hour ago, AudioDoctor said:

SO some of you may remember that I have been struck with a bit of tinnitus last year, and I am now forever on the hunt for things that may help with it. On one of those searches, I found these things and while they have not eliminated the tinnitus, they do make it less noticeable at times while increasing my ability to hear those fine details and low level sounds deep in the mix when I am listening to music.

 

https://www.flareaudio.com/pages/calmer-life

Thanks for sharing this.

I had shared my trauma induced hearing problem on my left ear before, but sharing here again with the hope of helping others with similar problems.
I am not sure the Flareaudio solution would help me but it's worth a try I guess.
 

 

[mevdinc]

2 hours ago, JoshM said:

I’d like to preface this by saying that my tinnitus was more-or-less caused by a medication, so I can’t say that it will work for everyone, but after doing *lots* of research I found that daily NAC and Tebonin Ginko eliminated it. (I think a few other things may help, too, but I’m less sure.)

 

Now, as I said, mine is a unique situation. I (and my doctor) think the underlying issue is/was TMJ. But it had never caused tinnitus until I started taking an old antidepressant now used for nerve pain. Unfortunately, every other medication I tried for my back pain didn’t work as well.
 

So I realized I would either have to live with pain or tinnitus. I was going to choose the former until I saw an audiologist who gave me a hearing test and basically said my hearing was excellent and that the tinnitus wasn’t masking other sounds. 
 

I decided that I could live with the tinnitus as long as it wasn’t impacting my hearing — and, indeed, listening to music or being someplace with background noise provided relief from my tinnitus, rather than exascerbating it — however, I still really wanted to find a way to stop it.
 

There are lots of anecdotal claims of various supplements improving tinnitus, but scientific support for only a few, including Tebonin. I tried basically all of them, and the NAC and Tebonin Ginko have worked for me. I’m back to silence when there should be silence. 
 

Long story short, there are at least a handful of things out there worth trying to see if they provide some relief. 

Thanks for sharing your experience.
I will try your supplements to see if I experience any improvements.

I did read about the Flare solution and it seems they only help with the frequency band 2kHz-8kHz, presumably where tinnitus mostly occurs.
Unfortunately, my trauma induced hearing problem is a bit different as I get annoying resonance and echoing from certain frequencies across the full bandwidth.  That's why my EQ profiling solution works for me since I am able to identify and reduce the adverse effect of the problem frequencies.