[Abu Som3a]

My left ear is louder than my right ear. My audiologist did a hearing test and contrary to my expectations the right ear turned out slightly better than the left one, and both ears didn't have a significant hearing loss. My doctor told me I was fine and when I asked him about my left ear being louder he told me to stop using headphones altogether because they cause noise-induced hearing loss.
I also did a hearing test at home with my headphones with similar results. My right ear is better and my left ear perceives sound louder.
What do u guys think?

 

[Abu Som3a]

Do you have any recommendations for headphones or music players that allow balancing the sound levels for each ear individually? Ideally I should be able to assign a volume for each frequency range for each ear...

 

[momomo6789]

headphone don't cause noise-induced hearing loss you should find a new audiologist.

 

[Abu Som3a]

Quote:

headphone don't cause noise-induced hearing loss you should find a new audiologist.

I only mentioned that to explain how he avoided my question.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Could be a number of things. Try cleaning out your ears properly with olive oil (not with cotton buds / Q-tips). Re-do hearing test.
Anyway, any Rockbox'ed player has a 'balance' setting with can cater for that.

 

[Abu Som3a]

Here's a hearing test I did on the internet: The right ear is the red line and the left ear is the blue line. I did it on a Koss Pro-35 (has the same guts as the KSC-75 but different housing).
My right ear seems to have a slight deficit at 6K . I repeated the test with the same result. I think 6K is an important frequency because that's where speech occurs, but this doesn't explain why all frequencies including bass and treble are perceived much louder on my left ear. In my Windows sound manager, I set the right channel volume to 100% and the left channel to 60% for the sound to be balanced.

 

[ford2]

 
 
An easy way to test for an imbalance is to play a mono track,you will easily pick up if one side is louder than the other.

 

[Uruha]

I have the same problem. My right ear hears a little less so the vocals sound like they are shifted over to the left side of my nose. I tested with IEMs, buds, and headphones and yup i did lose hearing hopefully its just wax build up or something minor.

 

[Abu Som3a]

Quote:

 
 
An easy way to test for an imbalance is to play a mono track,you will easily pick up if one side is louder than the other.

The sound is so shifted towards the left ear to the extent that it seems my right ear is deaf because it isn't receiving any sounds. I had to set the left channel to half the volume of the right channel for the sound to be balanced out. At these settings, when I open a mono track it sounds like stereo. Some sounds seem to come from my left ear and others from the right.
 
I did a hearing test on the internet (with both channels at equal volume) and the results indicate there is nothing abnormal.
1) Both ears are equally sensitive to sound. If I had wax build up or noise-induced hearing loss the left ear should have become much more sensitive to sound.
2) I can still hear 18K frequencies. AFAIK, if I had noise-induced hearing loss I would have at the least lost high frequency hearing.
3) My frequency response curve is almost flat with no spikes at any frequencies except the right ear at 6K
 

 
 
 
I also did a professional test with an audiologist with the same results. Actually the doctor told me my right ear was better.
I also did a professional test with an audiologist with the same results. Actually the doctor told me my right ear was better.

 

[oqvist]

Quote:

My left ear is louder than my right ear. My audiologist did a hearing test and contrary to my expectations the right ear turned out slightly better than the left one, and both ears didn't have a significant hearing loss. My doctor told me I was fine and when I asked him about my left ear being louder he told me to stop using headphones altogether because they cause noise-induced hearing loss.
I also did a hearing test at home with my headphones with similar results. My right ear is better and my left ear perceives sound louder.
What do u guys think?

Your ears behaves exactly like mine. My inbalance is hardly big though I sometime push the balance about 1 or 2 clicks to the right in the windows control panel to give an idea.
 
My left ear perceives the volume as slightly louder then my right but the extension seem to be the same?? I was almost def on my right ear some months ago due to some extreme cold but I noticed the same also before.
Just curious if this is somehow linked to our left and right brain halves. If one is better at percepting audio then the other? It´s quite abnormal to have identical hearing in both ears I suspect.
 
Good tip about mono will try that on my Auditor. Easier then turning the headphones around
 

 

[Pianist]

@ OP: I feel for you. I also have this really strange problem with my hearing - even though the hearing in both of my ears in nearly identical according to a recent hearing test at my local audiologist, I actually hear much more detail through my right ear than through my left. And I mean  much more! To the point where reversing the channels on my headphones makes me go "Wow, I couldn't hear all these sounds on my left side before!" I guess my brain is just messed up.

 

[Nachash]

Quote:

@ OP: I feel for you. I also have this really strange problem with my hearing - even though the hearing in both of my ears in nearly identical according to a recent hearing test at my local audiologist, I actually hear much more detail through my right ear than through my left. And I mean  much more! To the point where reversing the channels on my headphones makes me go "Wow, I couldn't hear all these sounds on my left side before!" I guess my brain is just messed up.

It's the SAME thing that happens to me

Maybe is the ear? The structure.

 

[ford2]

 
 
Many who pass the hearing tests with no problems at all will still hear clearer on one side.
 
Nearly everyone that I know including myself will favour one ear when using a phone,why,because it is clearer on that side.