Marshall Chasin

Marshall Chasin, AuD, is an audiologist and the Director of Auditory Research at the Musicians’ Clinics of Canada, Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto (in Linguistics), Associate Professor in the School of Communication Disorders and Sciences at the Western University. He is the author of over 200 articles and 7 books including Musicians and the Prevention of Hearing Loss. Dr. Chasin has been the recipient of many awards over the years including the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award for service to Canada and the Canada 150 Medal in 2017. He has developed a new TTS app called Temporary Hearing Loss Test app.

An extra 4 decibels

Marshall Chasin

An extra 4 decibels does not seem like a lot but it is when it comes to the new hearing aid microphones. Recently modern hearing aid microphones could only transduce up to 115 dB SPL (with 3-4% of distortion). Actually that had been the case since the late 1980s. However, the newest incarnation of microphones can transduce up to 119

a, i, and sometimes y

Marshall Chasin

Well, not “y” but it sounded better that way. Y is actually a confusing letter with a long history of stupidity. It was frequently interchanged with the old English consonant “eth” which looked like a backwards “p” but when the printing press came along, the top part of the “p” had a splotch of ink which destroyed the entire letter.

Our heads are finally above water!

Marshall Chasin

Up until very recently, our collective amplified heads were submerged in a fog of front end distortion. Sounds, including music and that of the voices of hard of hearing people who wear hearing aids, caused their own hearing aids to be overdriven even before the transmission reached the stage of the brilliantly designed software programming. Even the best of algorithms

Panic in His Eyes!

Marshall Chasin

It wasn’t really panic, but I saw eyes full of shock. It’s the type of shock that slowly comes on after knowing that something is not quite right, but we’re not sure what is wrong. Suddenly it dawns … all of the senses become hyper-aware. The lights suddenly go out and there is an ear piercing scream… There was a 30 dB notch

Impressions made with the jaw open- Part 2

Marshall Chasin

In last week’s part of this two-part blog series, the one benefit of having a long mold made for in-ear monitor impressions was discussed. It had everything to do with minimizing the occlusion effect and absolutely nothing to do with ensuring that higher frequency sounds are properly transduced to the eardrum. In this week’s part, we discuss Dr. Robert Oliveira’s

Earmold impressions for in-ear monitors- Part 1

Marshall Chasin

On the acoustics advice from the world’s leading cat audiologist, Dr. Snicker’s McFeline, it became apparent that what is seen in the sound field, such as my living room, does not necessarily occur in the small occluded volume of an ear canal plugged with an earphone or in-ear monitor. This was discussed in last week’s blog. Specifically, even though higher

In-ear monitors need to be aimed at the eardrum: true or false?

Marshall Chasin

I went to the vet for my regular check-up… actually it was for my two new kittens, Broccoli and Feather, not for me. I still get the cats mixed up; they are both 4 months old, long haired female tabbies from the same litter, and to my untrained eye, look identical. While sitting in the vet’s office, and while trying not

Att tänka på om musikhörlurar

Marshall Chasin

Marshall Chasin är forskningschefvid musikerkliniken i Toronto, Kanada. I en artikel publicerad i Hearing Review ger han råd om sakeratt tänka på när man skaffar musikhörlurar.Som arbetande inom hörselvården för musiker är det en fråga jag alltid brukar få: ”Jo förresten, vilken är den bästa hörluren för min mp3-spelare”. Ofta på ett dröjande sätt när klienten är nästan halvvägs genom

American Pharoah and Hearing Protection

Marshall Chasin

This past week, American Pharoah won the third leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. The last time that this was accomplished was 37 years ago, and the time before that was 41 years ago by Secretariat. (Secretariat’s trainer was a Canadian, eh?) The difficulty of the Triple Crown lies in the fact that the first two legs are shorter

The rest of the stuff- part 7 of 7

Marshall Chasin

The music program is similar to the speech-in-quiet program In previous entries of this 7 part blog series, the problem and some clinical and technical solutions were discussed. ASSUMING that we now have a hearing aid that can handle the higher sound level elements of music without distortion, what constitutes an optimal music program? In previous blog entries the benefits