HF hearing loss - how much is too much?

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 12:57 pm

I just discovered that my already not-so-hot HF hearing is getting worse. A year or two ago it was rolling off around 12.5K. Now it's down to about 10-10.5K. I'm 45 and was planning to be doing this recording stuff after I retire, but if my hearing is going to keep getting worse, maybe I'm kidding myself. I wrote off selling mastering services due to my hearing - but is it going to get to the point where I'm not even qualified for recording and mixing?

Folks like my work, and since I know my limits, I sometimes call in younger ears for a second opinion. Luckily my younger daughter has good ears for analytical listening. I find it worrisome that my ears are getting significantly worse in a fairly short time - and I use hearing protection whenever I'm doing noisy things and certainly don't blast music when listening.

Sad

I like this business - I'd hate to be forced out due to bad hearing.

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 1:03 pm

I don't know what the cutoff is, but around here we get our hearing tested once a year, and when we get to a certain point I imagine they'll cut us from mixing and have us simply push buttons or run cable...

I know, because of these yearly tests, that I've got a drop around 8k - I've actually noticed that for a few years now. Oddly enough my upper and lower frequencies are still well within range.

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:16 pm

I know more engineers that have hearing problems than those who don't.

Most "hearing tests" only test 250Hz to 8K.

What you need to do is find an audioligist who can test
20Hz to 20K, and give you a report for you to use as a baseline. You can then compensate, and no one will ask you why your mix is so sibilant!!!

Here in Los Angeles, The House Ear Institute caters to engineers and musicians.
No it's not the same Dr. House as the TV show!!!

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:18 pm

Bent

You said:

I know, because of these yearly tests, that I've got a drop around 8k

Do you have tinnitus (ringing in the ear)?? If its an 8k ring it could mask that frequency causing you to not hear 8k.

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:28 pm

I've done a little more messing around, and in headphones it seems level starts to drop around 10k - I can still hear 12.5K, but the level is down significantly. 13K only comes through faintly if I don't up the volume. I was using volume of a 7.5K signal as reference. I was playing HF signals through the speakers, and a young person winced at a 12.5K tone that I could barely detect.

So I'm not sure if my hearing has deteriorated much in this time - the results using headphones seem about the same as the last time I was testing.

What brought this about, however, was a digital watch alarm that I can not hear until the watch is close - doesn't seem like a very HF sound, but I'm certainly not hearing it as well as others in the house. My ears ring as well - more in the past year than before - it's around 8.5K. Masking could be part of the issue with the watch.

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 2:34 pm

TV,

Yes, I have the ringing.
It's more pronounced on the right side.
I attribute it to two factors.

One - when I was a kid I had my guitar amp on my right side and would play it at 11 when I could get away with it.

Two - When I was younger I worked alot of construction jobs, around saws and such. I used hearing protection, but there were times when I didn't have any available...

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:29 pm

Ive had about a billion rounds fired near my ear when I was in the army and in iraq. The tinnitus thing goes away...

If you think an amp at 11 for a few minutes is loud try riding in the back of an old bradley across a dry country for a year. Talk about wicked-damaging frequencies...

Anyone else want a meatball sub right now?

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:54 pm

Quote:

The tinnitus thing goes away...

No it doesn't!!!!!

Here's a hearing quiz, when you were exposed to the gunfire, did you feel the inside of your ears tickling?? If yes, the damage has been done, it will come back later. Sad

Ironically, maybe it was fate, my daughter is working on her Doctrate in Speech Pathology/Audiology. I'll be using her services soon!! Rolling Eyes

Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:55 pm

Quote:

The tinnitus thing goes away...

No it doesn't!!!!!

Here's a hearing quiz, when you were exposed to the gunfire, did you feel the inside of your ears tickling?? If yes, the damage has been done, it will come back later. Sad

Ironically, maybe it was fate, my daughter is working on her Doctrate in Speech Pathology/Audiology. I'll be using her services soon!! Rolling Eyes

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 3:42 am

Zem,
What kind of work do you during the day that is contributing to this (if it is)?
I have tinnitus, it comes and goes, but NEVER LEAVES! And the doctors will tell you this is the case-there is NO cure. It gets aggravated by loud noises. If my live mixes the night before stay under, say 97dB, no problem. If they go over that, I hear it the next day. What's weird is that I can still hear that subtle HF whistle from my TV or a CRT monitor, as well as feedback in the stage monitors (thank God!). Just not my ex-wife's phone calls...

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:12 am

TVPostSound wrote:

Ironically, maybe it was fate, my daughter is working on her Doctrate in Speech Pathology/Audiology. I'll be using her services soon!! Rolling Eyes

Ask her if she's heard of a Dr. Zemlin. He was a biggie in the field some years ago - #1 text book for MANY years and lots of key research. I'm sure his legacy is fading as he's not around any more. He's my dad.

http://zemlin.shs.uiuc.edu/zemlinBio.htm

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:30 am

moonbaby wrote:

Zem,
What kind of work do you during the day that is contributing to this (if it is)?

I'm a mechanical engineering - spend most of my days pushing a mouse around. The biggest noise I generally encounter comes from a few of the sales guys. That can be pretty painful, but I don't think the damage is permanent. Laughing

On occasion I'll go into a bottling plant (Coke, Pepsi, etc) and those are noisy, but I always wear hearing protection when I'm in loud areas.

I worked as a machinist and sheet metal fabricator when I was just out of high school, and hearing protection was not as high a priority in the early years when I was going into industrial facilities, so I attribute that exposure to my hearing loss.

These days, I don't think anything I do (without ear protection) would do any damage.

As far as the tinnitus, I'm beginning to think I know what happened there. I'd had light ringing for as long as I can remember. A year ago I was cutting the grass and listening to my iPod. I was using in-ears with molded inserts and assumed that they would block out enough noise that listening level would be safe. When I shut off the mower I recall being surprised by how loud the music was. Not LOUD, but above my usual listening level. When I unplugged I heard the ringing, and it basically hasn't stopped since. I've seen all the warnings about in-ears and volume levels, so I figure I must have exceeded the limit. I still have trouble accepting that the volume level was that high (iow, still in denial), but that's the day the ringing started. There are times when the ringing quiets WAY down, so I'm still holding out hope that it will fade, but I've about given up on that.

I now wear my in-ears under 31dB muffs when I want to listen to music and make noise. My live mixes are never loud - well there was that punk band, but I used ear plugs that night. Otherwise it's folk music or girl singers.

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 11:02 am

Zemlin,

My daughter is home for the weekend, I asked her a bout Dr. Zemlin, and it was required reading in her early audiology courses!!!

Cool!!!

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 12:38 pm

here's a few things to keep in mind.

The ringing is not masking anything. (I thought the same thing)
The ringing is the result of the hearing loss. In other words, even if the ringing went away, you would still not be able to hear those freq.

Pretty much everyone gets hearing loss. But not everyone get's the tinitus.
I have the ringing, as well as my mom, but my dad doesn't have any ringing. He's 81. He can't hear the little beeping indicators any better than my mom.

Don't bother checking your hearing using conventional headphones. I also tried this. headphones can have dropouts at certain hi freq.

At my last hearing test my hearing in my left ear starts to drop off as early as 4K and while it comes back up in my left ear, my right continues to decline several db to 8k.
As mentioned above, they usually only ck to 8K. I'm assuming that there's some element of error in their headphones above that. Not sure.

Anyway, the point is, is that even though my hearing has been on the decline since my mid 40's, I don't really notice or 'feel' that there's any difference in the music that I listened to 30 years ago. Abbey Road still sounds as full now as it did then. you would think that I should be complaining that everything sounds dull. But it doesn't.
That's not to say that my younger clients don't hear an occasional sonic anomaly that I miss.
The conversation usually goes like this:
" can you edit out that little tick?"
" I can edit it out, but I don't hear any tick- the good news, is, that in a few years, you won't hear it either"

In the meantime, my audiologist gave me some Lipo-Flavinoids, which is supposed to reduce and/or eliminate the ringing. (it won't restore any hearing in those freq though). So far, I don't see any change.

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:09 pm

zemlin wrote:

He was a biggie in the field some years ago - #1 text book for MANY years and lots of key research. I'm sure his legacy is fading as he's not around any more. He's my dad.

http://zemlin.shs.uiuc.edu/zemlinBio.htm

Would I be out of line in shining the light on the irony of decreased hearing and your fathers highly regarded dedication and work in the same field?

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