Hearing test

Its not really a train smash.. there is little above 6k , but I would suggest a miniDSP unit if you want to tailor a curve that fits your ear
www.minidsp.com
the 4x10hd would most likely suit and be a bit of overkill , but it has balanced i/o

Hope my comment make you feel a bit better.
I am 49. I have a hearing loss at 800Hz and I have continous ringing in my ears.
My noise floor is definitely higher than others..but stll enjoy listening to music.

Tang

panreels said:

I still enjoy listing to music and I also have Tinnitus, known as ringing in the ear, there is one advantage to high frequency hearing lose you don’t have to here tape hiss and some record ware LOL, I wish more high end preamps would include tone controls and have the parametric type, most standard tone controls increase frequency’s at 10KHZ and in my case would be of little use but the parametric type allows you control frequency like mine at 3K, 6K and 12KHZ, lets bring back tone controls.

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Well for anyone who wants to compensate for a significant hearing deficiency and who listens to PCM based material (including ripped CDs, for example), I would recommend learning the basics of digital audio workstation software. You would not need an actual audio workstation to apply parametric-based EQ to PCM material - in cases like this you can just get by with any Windows or Mac computer - even a laptop.

You could, for example, try a demo version of Sound Forge Pro which in addition to built-in EQs of various types, can accept VST plug-ins where the sky becomes the limit as regards third party EQ products. Using this sort of software provides vastly better and more precise control that could ever be afforded by any consumer gear or computer audio based playback applications.

As an example, if you have a collection of ripped CDs, you could experiment to determine a suitable EQ curve as well as apply notch filtering, low pass and high pass filters, for example. You can then easily set up a batch processing file to convert each and every one of the files you have in bulk without having to lift a finger apart from a mouse click to set the whole process off.

Obviously this won't help people still listening to physical media, but it is worth pointing out to people who choose to listen to PCM material. To do this with the best sound quality you'd be wanting to convert 16/44.1 material to 24/44.1 simply to allow the filter processing to be more precise, but with virtually all DACs these days able to play back 24 bit material, that should not matter either.

Just came back from the audiologist having ear impressions made for new in-ear-monitors. Also got a hearing test. Have normal hearing up to about 2 kHz and mild loss on up to 8 kHz where the test stopped. Considered not bad for 69 years!

My Astell&Kern AK380 DAP has a 20 band parametric equalizer which can boost or attenuate up to 10 DB and I'm not afraid to use it.

Glad we are still enjoying the music.

oh, no. That is too bad.

Hi

I had a similar test and have pretty good ghearing for my age ... up to 14 KHz or so .. then drop like a rock from there ...15 KHz is perhaps -20 dB down and 16 KHz -40 db

I would suggest not to compensate your system to your hearing problems. You hear what you hear , the way you hear it and that is what your reality is. A clear example, in front of a violin you will hear it with all the issues you have in your hearing a certain way,,, that has become your reality. Despite everything that has been said our hobby revolves around the concept of High-Fidelity the notion of reproducing sounds as close as possible to the way they are in real. If you're hearing a certain way, let's say down -30 dB @ 12 Khz and back up say @14 KHz that becomes your new reality, your paradigm .. changing the linearity of your system to compensate is likely to have you not recognizing the sound of the real instruments...

My advice is to leave the system alone or at least use DSP t linearize the bass in your room (I believe for example in Equalizing or DRC for the bass, I leave everything else alone above 200 Hz...) In other word compensate for more linearity but not hearing losses.


it is early in the morning and I may have to edit this to make sense ..

panreels said:

. . . . I do have in storage a NAD 1300 preamp that has tone controls, in fact they are the parametric type that will allow me to adjust frequency’s at +12 db between 6k and 12 KHZ I didn’t realize how much treble in music I have been missing, I’m 74 years old and the hearing doctor told me this is about normal for men my age, I could get a hearing aid to help with high frequency, but if you do it for music you may not like the results, apparently hearing aid are not HiFi I’m not sure what I’m going to do about the NAD preamp it doesn’t have balance outputs and because the power amps are 20 ft. from the preamp this would be a problem, so I will have to interface the two preamps for the time being, anyway if your getting up in years you may want to look into a hearing test.

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Use the NAD preamp. Use the tone controls. Hearing aids are NOT hifi.

20 feet is nothing for single ended. Don't worry about it. You don't need balanced. Just use decent (they don't need to be expensive) cables.