Equipment for Asymmetric Hearing Loss

[mitchco]

23 hours ago, Andrew Canadian said:

It's probably heresy, but I'm fine with listening to speakers through my good ear.  It only spoils my enjoyment when listening to headphones.

 

Hi @Andrew Canadian I have had a number of clients in which we have tried to compensate for hearing loss through eq'ing speakers, but because of room reflections and no way to isolate the sound from entering both ears, the results have not been very good. In this case, hearing aid assistance is the best approach.

 

However, for headphones, it is a different matter as we can now isolate the left and right ears with no room reflections. So there is a better chance of correcting this. It is still a bit tricky as the FIR convolution filter should only compensate for the difference between what the regular hearing loss is expected for 37 years and the deficit in the one ear, measured in decibels. You should ask for a "high resolution" audiogram that is more than hearing thresholds measured at only five to six frequencies at octave intervals. The plot should also contain the typical hearing loss of a 37 year old so the difference can be calculated. The plot for the left ear should be included as we not only want to know the difference, but also want to match the response to the left ear as well.

 

The resulting convolution filter can be loaded into Camilla DSP or BruteFIR or I am not sure what other convolver is available for the RPi4. My HLConvolver would work, but I have not purchased an RPi4 to recompile to yet.

 

Hope that helps.