Fitz
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2005
- Posts
- 7,089
- Likes
- 19
Or at least that's what I'd like to think.
This is actually a serious thread, so let me give a little background information. Since pretty much as long as I can remember, I have heard slightly better out of my left ear than my right ear. In normal daily life it was a trivially small difference, usually only mattering if I had to use a phone in a noisy environment. For the last few years I have also had a slightly annoying bit of tinnitus, since before I got into audio. After a few minutes in an extremely quiet environment (as close to silent as you can realistically get in a city), my ears would start trying to adapt to the low noise level, and the tinnitus would kick in. It was a very low pitch, and would almost feel like pressure directly on my ears as it increased in volume the longer I was in the silent area. Deliberately making a noise, such as coughing, would mostly "reset" it, and it never reared its head in any normal situation.
As a result of the subtle hearing imbalance, I would need the right channel a couple decibels higher for it to sound properly balanced, and naturally keep the volume set this way. Having both channels equal still sounded fine, since I was used to that, but I could consciously recognize that it was shifted to the left. And also if the sound was ever shifted to the right, I knew something was up with the equipment or recording.
When I got my K1000 recently, things sounded fine for the first several hours I listened to them, but after a while I noticed the right channel seemed noticeably louder than the left channel, which would require a very big channel imbalance in the phones due to my hearing. As time went on the imbalance became more and more noticeable. I worried about this for a bit, especially since due to an accident a few weeks ago I no longer had the equipment to measure the headphones to verify any channel imbalance. That evening however, while listening to music in bed before sleep with another set of phones, I also noticed the right-shifted channel imbalance. The next day, I also found the case to be that all of my phones sounded like the balance was shifted to the right.
Ok, so the K1000 is fine, yay! But, something else is wrong, crap! To adjust for the imbalance, I set the right channel volume lower than usual, until I could figure out what was wrong. I could not find anything wrong with my equipment though. Eventually it slowly dawned on me to look at how I was keeping the volume now: both channels at the same volume! I started playing with the channel balance, and found that slight shifts either direction would make the sound noticeably shift left or right away from center, whereas before it took a lot to make a significant difference because I could not hear properly balanced anyways. I also made sure to pay attention to the tinnitus, and the low pitch "pressure" seems to have changed to a higher pitch ringing at a much lower volume, and isn't even really annoying at all when it is quiet enough for me to actually notice.
I have never heard of such a weird thing happening, where after having these natural flaws in my hearing for as long as I can remember, that they suddenly correct themselves in a short timespan. It is not from earwax or anything, because I already tried getting my ears cleaned a while ago to see if it was maybe due to earwax buildup from the past (lots of nasty stuff came out, and I could hear better, but it didn't change the problems), and I have had it for too long for it to be anything like health / diet / stress. So the only thing I can think of is that the K1000 had the power to cure me of these problems, since it happened over the course of the first few times I listened to them.
What do you think?
This is actually a serious thread, so let me give a little background information. Since pretty much as long as I can remember, I have heard slightly better out of my left ear than my right ear. In normal daily life it was a trivially small difference, usually only mattering if I had to use a phone in a noisy environment. For the last few years I have also had a slightly annoying bit of tinnitus, since before I got into audio. After a few minutes in an extremely quiet environment (as close to silent as you can realistically get in a city), my ears would start trying to adapt to the low noise level, and the tinnitus would kick in. It was a very low pitch, and would almost feel like pressure directly on my ears as it increased in volume the longer I was in the silent area. Deliberately making a noise, such as coughing, would mostly "reset" it, and it never reared its head in any normal situation.
As a result of the subtle hearing imbalance, I would need the right channel a couple decibels higher for it to sound properly balanced, and naturally keep the volume set this way. Having both channels equal still sounded fine, since I was used to that, but I could consciously recognize that it was shifted to the left. And also if the sound was ever shifted to the right, I knew something was up with the equipment or recording.
When I got my K1000 recently, things sounded fine for the first several hours I listened to them, but after a while I noticed the right channel seemed noticeably louder than the left channel, which would require a very big channel imbalance in the phones due to my hearing. As time went on the imbalance became more and more noticeable. I worried about this for a bit, especially since due to an accident a few weeks ago I no longer had the equipment to measure the headphones to verify any channel imbalance. That evening however, while listening to music in bed before sleep with another set of phones, I also noticed the right-shifted channel imbalance. The next day, I also found the case to be that all of my phones sounded like the balance was shifted to the right.
Ok, so the K1000 is fine, yay! But, something else is wrong, crap! To adjust for the imbalance, I set the right channel volume lower than usual, until I could figure out what was wrong. I could not find anything wrong with my equipment though. Eventually it slowly dawned on me to look at how I was keeping the volume now: both channels at the same volume! I started playing with the channel balance, and found that slight shifts either direction would make the sound noticeably shift left or right away from center, whereas before it took a lot to make a significant difference because I could not hear properly balanced anyways. I also made sure to pay attention to the tinnitus, and the low pitch "pressure" seems to have changed to a higher pitch ringing at a much lower volume, and isn't even really annoying at all when it is quiet enough for me to actually notice.
I have never heard of such a weird thing happening, where after having these natural flaws in my hearing for as long as I can remember, that they suddenly correct themselves in a short timespan. It is not from earwax or anything, because I already tried getting my ears cleaned a while ago to see if it was maybe due to earwax buildup from the past (lots of nasty stuff came out, and I could hear better, but it didn't change the problems), and I have had it for too long for it to be anything like health / diet / stress. So the only thing I can think of is that the K1000 had the power to cure me of these problems, since it happened over the course of the first few times I listened to them.
What do you think?
