Hear The Music

Our first knee jerk reaction is that the word “music” and the word “distortion” should not be uttered in the same sentence.  Music is good (or at least should be of high fidelity) and distortion is, well,… distortion. But if it weren’t for distortion, music would be thin and boring, and speech would be completely unintelligible.  Without distortion, music would

This week’s blog is written in the form of a one page information article that can be given to our patients, or in public education materials about hearing loss prevention.  I would suggest leaving out the first paragraph that talks about the recent retirement of Dr. Donald Henderson and start with the paragraph “All cells have a …” Last week

Jim Marshall, also known as the “Father of Loud” passed away at the beginning of April.  You don’t need to be a musician to know that the name Marshall is ubiquitous in the field and is a popular music amplifier and loudspeaker combination. Marshall was born in London, England, on July 29, 1923.  As a child he was struck with

The -6 dB / octave microphone is less sensitive for the lower frequencies of speech and music.  And many of the lower frequency components are also the intense ones.  The net result is that a lower sound level reaches the analog-to-digital (A/D) converter.  The net benefit is that the A/D converter is not as easily over driven.  There is less

In part I of this blog we will overview the basis behind the use of the -6 dB/octave microphone.  In part II we will talk about whether it should not only be used for music, but perhaps for both speech and music.  Should the – 6 dB/octave microphone be the standard of care and a broad band microphone be the

When it comes to music, is an extended low end better? The energy spectrum of speech is from roughly the middle of the piano keyboard to a little higher than the highest note on the right side.  The entire left side of the piano keyboard is unknown to speech and questions arise why we even have a left side of

Clearly the most important stimulus that a hearing aid design engineer needs to be concerned about is speech.  Understandably music is a secondary concern.  There are many similarities between music and speech, so designing something for speech will not actually be that different than a circuit or a software program for music. Both speech and music are wide band spectra

There are many myths about music and how hearing aids should be fit.  This is about three of those myths. As technology gets better so will music fidelity Wider is better More advanced features are better Every single hearing aid design engineer has to come to grips with the similarities and differences between speech and music. Although this has always

There was a recent presentation given at the National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA) conference last month questioning the integrity of the ER-15 uniform attenuator for musicians.  The ER-15 custom made earplug has been available since 1988 and provides a much more uniform attenuation (lessening of sound energy) across the frequency region than other types of hearing protectors that have been

Several hearing aid manufacturers have a tab on their fitting software that allows the hearing health care professional to adjust the parameters of the “music program” for various music genres.  For example, one manufacturer specifies less gain for rock and roll and more gain for jazz and blues.  The rationale is that they want to obtain the same output regardless