AndyKatz
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2005
- Posts
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- 14
Some months ago I checked in with an ENT just to see what, if any, advances had been made in the treatment of hearing loss due to acoustic trauma and resultant tinnitus. Some drug off-label therapies have shown positive results in limited samples.
Needless to say this ENT didn't play that, not with an audiologist across the hall who has to kick in his half of the rent every month.
We did the audiometry.
You have hearing loss, Mr. Katz.
No ****! said I.
My hearing loss doesn't stem from headphones or music. Nevertheless I surreptitiously pushed the dangling ER4 buds deeper into my pocket as we talked.
What's the point? Neither an audiologist nor his ENT partner-in-crime is going to understand how important mobile sound has become to me ... and, in spite of their best efforts to the contrary, to my family.
We live in NYC, and that entails several realities. Namely, our apartment is the sort of place the uninitiated proclaim "This is a real New York apartment" (rather than scream in horror that there is no God if people actually live here!). It's tiny, and we've been here for eight years.
It would be absurd to describe the various spaces here as "rooms" because that implies a degree of separation we don't have. There is a TV in the bed-space, and one in the living-space. They're about six feet apart. Some nights, when my son and wife are watching TV the dueling volumes rise to cacaphony. Tempers started to fray.
Finally I started the stereo upgrade, and that included hooking the TV and cable sound through an obsolete Aiwa stereo unit (I threw the speakers to that one out), and headphones to the stereo. Now it's possible to watch the big TV without making a sound. Gosh, that makes a difference.
I've been married for twenty-five years to one woman, yet we have a basic incompatibility. She has to have the TV on, all the time. When in high school she did her calculus homework with the Mary Tyler Moore show on. Didn't distract her. I used to do my homework listening to the White Album.
When a TV's on, I'm watching it. Period. Even if it's Wheel of Fortune (can anyone believe that show's still on?!?). Music, on the other hand, distracts her.
Headphonics again to the rescue. IEM's offer an additional benefit of leaking zero sound, so I can play music in bed at night after she's gone to sleep.
She's never been able to read while driving or while on a train, and she has a two hour daily commute to LI where she works. Mobile sound again to the rescue in the form of a Creative Zen matched with Etymotic ER6s. Add audio books to the music and you've just made a major contribution to her quality of life.
Gosh it makes fighting the heat and crowds and traffic and rude storekeepers and interminable delays of this or that nature so much more endurable.
Matter of fact, as my equipment produces clearer, more efficient sound, I've found myself wondering if my hearing hasn't improved slightly. Or maybe my ability to parse sounds, especially speech. I've been in several situations recently where I had less trouble with comprehension than I expected.
Is the delivery of clearer sound helping my traumatized auditory nerve?
That's hard to say because other factors might have been at play (and, anyway, if it *is* the case, the Grados will reverse it
).
Anyway ... I said none of this to Audiologyman. He wouldn't have understood. I thought of suggesting someone develop an MP3 player that also works as a hearing aid. You listen with UE 10s or something similar in place, then with the flick of a switch you change to hearing aid mode. The first electric hearing aids, after all, were carried like mp3 players.
But what's the sense?
Hearing specialists seem to place the value of hearing over that of ideal sound. They're like dietitions who focus on nutritional elements of food without pausing to consider taste.
Andy
Needless to say this ENT didn't play that, not with an audiologist across the hall who has to kick in his half of the rent every month.
We did the audiometry.
You have hearing loss, Mr. Katz.
No ****! said I.
My hearing loss doesn't stem from headphones or music. Nevertheless I surreptitiously pushed the dangling ER4 buds deeper into my pocket as we talked.
What's the point? Neither an audiologist nor his ENT partner-in-crime is going to understand how important mobile sound has become to me ... and, in spite of their best efforts to the contrary, to my family.
We live in NYC, and that entails several realities. Namely, our apartment is the sort of place the uninitiated proclaim "This is a real New York apartment" (rather than scream in horror that there is no God if people actually live here!). It's tiny, and we've been here for eight years.
It would be absurd to describe the various spaces here as "rooms" because that implies a degree of separation we don't have. There is a TV in the bed-space, and one in the living-space. They're about six feet apart. Some nights, when my son and wife are watching TV the dueling volumes rise to cacaphony. Tempers started to fray.
Finally I started the stereo upgrade, and that included hooking the TV and cable sound through an obsolete Aiwa stereo unit (I threw the speakers to that one out), and headphones to the stereo. Now it's possible to watch the big TV without making a sound. Gosh, that makes a difference.
I've been married for twenty-five years to one woman, yet we have a basic incompatibility. She has to have the TV on, all the time. When in high school she did her calculus homework with the Mary Tyler Moore show on. Didn't distract her. I used to do my homework listening to the White Album.
When a TV's on, I'm watching it. Period. Even if it's Wheel of Fortune (can anyone believe that show's still on?!?). Music, on the other hand, distracts her.
Headphonics again to the rescue. IEM's offer an additional benefit of leaking zero sound, so I can play music in bed at night after she's gone to sleep.
She's never been able to read while driving or while on a train, and she has a two hour daily commute to LI where she works. Mobile sound again to the rescue in the form of a Creative Zen matched with Etymotic ER6s. Add audio books to the music and you've just made a major contribution to her quality of life.
Gosh it makes fighting the heat and crowds and traffic and rude storekeepers and interminable delays of this or that nature so much more endurable.
Matter of fact, as my equipment produces clearer, more efficient sound, I've found myself wondering if my hearing hasn't improved slightly. Or maybe my ability to parse sounds, especially speech. I've been in several situations recently where I had less trouble with comprehension than I expected.
Is the delivery of clearer sound helping my traumatized auditory nerve?
That's hard to say because other factors might have been at play (and, anyway, if it *is* the case, the Grados will reverse it
Anyway ... I said none of this to Audiologyman. He wouldn't have understood. I thought of suggesting someone develop an MP3 player that also works as a hearing aid. You listen with UE 10s or something similar in place, then with the flick of a switch you change to hearing aid mode. The first electric hearing aids, after all, were carried like mp3 players.
But what's the sense?
Hearing specialists seem to place the value of hearing over that of ideal sound. They're like dietitions who focus on nutritional elements of food without pausing to consider taste.
Andy
