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.

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The dBA versus the dB SPL war

Marshall Chasin

It was a cold winter morning, not unlike the days I remember when I was a youngster back home. The troops were unusually quiet; perhaps related to the “party” we had last night. The government had announced that they had discovered yet another digit for pi. For obvious reasons, the celebration went into the small hours of the morning. It

Percussion musical instruments and hearing loss.

Marshall Chasin

The vast majority of noise or music exposure is the result of “steady state” noise. It is the almost constant level of noise or music over a prolonged period of time that results in eventual hearing loss. Research from a number of sources and “models” suggests that prolonged exposure to 85 decibels (A-weighted) for about 40 hours a week, for

Four strategies to improve music listening through hearing aids

Marshall Chasin

Because of the inherent problems with 16 bit hearing aid architecture, the “front end” of the hearing aid is frequently overdriven by intense inputs- specifically it is the analog to digital (A/D) converter and associated pre-amplifiers that is the culprit. Intense inputs frequently come from music, but a hearing aid wearer’s own voice can also overdrive the input. Normal conversational

Directivity and high frequencies

Marshall Chasin

Almost daily I am asked to make “deep-seated” earmolds for hearing protection and monitoring devices in the performing arts. Clients come in and state that this must be done, even before I get to ask them their names. I must admit to being partly to blame since I helped to write the minimum requirements for many manufacturers of earmold technology.

The Musician and Worker’s Compensation Boards

Marshall Chasin

Traditionally, occupational noise exposure has been the “diagnosis of choice” for the hearing loss division of the various Worker’s Compensation Boards. In Canada, Worker’s Compensation Boards have provincial jurisdictions and not federal. In the European Union and many other countries, a federal or international standard is adhered to. Regardless of which jurisdiction holds hegemony over hearing loss prevention and compensation,

We don’t always need to understand the problem in order to solve it

Marshall Chasin

From time to time (actually, almost daily), I receive inquiries from those in the performing arts who have either heard me give a talk or come across a paper on the Internet. I usually begin my response with “Talk to your audiologist” or if they appear to be frustrated “I would be happy to chat with your audiologist if they

A neat new earplug for musicians

Marshall Chasin

It is certainly not my policy, nor the policy of this blog, to talk about specific products in the hearing health care field. But from time to time technologies become available that are only encompassed in one product. These are technologies that cause us to say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” or, in the words of Homer Simpson, “D’oh!”

Occupational Darwinism

Marshall Chasin

The musician is an acoustic athlete. The only nonathletic thing about musicians is that they are not represented at the Olympics. Musicians suffer pulled muscles, strained backs, fatigue, depression, repetitive strain injuries, and in short, every type of injury athletes can suffer from. And on top of all that, musicians suffer from hearing loss, tinnitus, and hyperacusis, as well. A

Musicians, Audiologists, and the Media

Marshall Chasin

One of the biggest lessons I had to learn when working with musicians is that it really is all about the musician- the audiologist is just along for the ride. This may seem obvious, but it’s not. I have been working with people in the performing arts since about the mid-1980s, and while you can get a feeling of being

The vented/tuned earplug for musicians

Marshall Chasin

For the vast majority of musicians a hearing protector that provides a flat or uniform attenuation is the way to go. A hearing protector with a flat attenuation means that the lower frequency fundamental and higher frequency harmonics are all treated the same- everything is attenuated by the same amount that ostensibly reduces the sound level of the music from