How naive am I?

[Bob LaFrance]

I am semi retired EE with NIHL. I spent quite a bit of time in a 5" gun mount. The doctor asked me when the tinnitus started. I answered when the first shell was fired. It lasted a long while afterward and would take a few days for hearing to return to normal This was almost 50 years ago. I had the typical notch at around 4kHz and now it is much worse. -10dB at 1kHz and down to -60dB at 4kHz. I would like to experiment with amplifiers to correct. Enough about me.

Would an amplifier with an inverse response to my hearing curve be a good place to begin with an ampifier design? I can get fairly close to +60dB at 4kHz. I can put a tilt control in which changes the slope from flat to the +60dB gain at 4kHz.

I've tried low cost designs off of Ebay with less than stellar results. I'm about to put some hardware together and thought I would throw this out there. The VA is quite stingy with their hearing aids so I thought I would plug along on my own. I'm hopeful that my design may be copied very inexpensively and provide some relief to others who can't afford $6k for a hearing aid. I know I'm over simplifying the problem - just looking for opinions on my sanity.

thanks
Roswell Bob

[David LaRue]

Bob LaFrance <powersu...@netzero.net> wrote in news:9e5de220-1022-
421a-aa3d-c...@googlegroups.com:

> I am semi retired EE with NIHL. I spent quite a bit of time in a 5" gun
mount. The doctor asked me when the tinnitus started. I answered when
the first shell was fired. It lasted a long while afterward and would
take a few days for hearing to return to normal This was almost 50 years
ago. I had the typical notch at around 4kHz and now it is much worse. -
10dB at 1kHz and down to -60dB at 4kHz. I would like to experiment with
amplifiers to correct. Enough about me.
>
> Would an amplifier with an inverse response to my hearing curve be a
good place to begin with an ampifier design? I can get fairly close to +
60dB at 4kHz. I can put a tilt control in which changes the slope from
flat to the +60dB gain at 4kHz.
>
> I've tried low cost designs off of Ebay with less than stellar results.
I'm about to put some hardware together and thought I would throw this out
there. The VA is quite stingy with their hearing aids so I thought I

equilizers.would plug along on my own. I'm hopeful that my design may be

copied very inexpensively and provide some relief to others who can't
afford $6k for a hearing aid. I know I'm over simplifying the problem -
just looking for opinions on my sanity.
>
> thanks
> Roswell Bob

Hi Bob,

Gettng your hearing back is important. It so helps with communicating and
your sanity and connection to the world. I agree that hearing aids are
expensive and take much time to get tuned up right.

Before hearing aids I messed with car and home sterios with 12 band
equalizers. That sufficed for many years for at least keeping my love of
music and talk radio alive. My loss is all along the human speach range.
I'm a bit younger and have relatively expensive aids. It was worth the
investment.

I've heard about cheaper aids that you can tune yourself. You might try
looking into that too. It certainly helps with talking with others to
have decent aids. Perhaps someone can recommend them. I've not tried
that route.

Thank you for serving! We live in a better world because you and others
fought.

David

[Bob LaFrance]

> Hi Bob,
>
> Gettng your hearing back is important. It so helps with communicating and
> your sanity and connection to the world. I agree that hearing aids are
> expensive and take much time to get tuned up right.
>
> Before hearing aids I messed with car and home sterios with 12 band
> equalizers. That sufficed for many years for at least keeping my love of
> music and talk radio alive. My loss is all along the human speach range.
> I'm a bit younger and have relatively expensive aids. It was worth the
> investment.
>
> I've heard about cheaper aids that you can tune yourself. You might try
> looking into that too. It certainly helps with talking with others to
> have decent aids. Perhaps someone can recommend them. I've not tried
> that route.
>
> Thank you for serving! We live in a better world because you and others
> fought.
>
> David

Thank you for your response David. I was fortunate to be stationed in Pearl Harbor so that was a big plus. Even though my ears were destroyed I would do it all over again. I was happy to serve and am thankful that I wasn't harmed as bad as many others who served at the same time.

I am interested in the design of a hearing aid. Us engineers are a curious bunch and usually up for a challenge. Since VA is not being as cooperative as they should be I have decided to try my hand at building my own hearing aid. I could spend the energy to fight the VA, but for now I have decided to use that energy to attempt to design one myself. My goal (at the moment) is one device to help myself to hear better.

Yes, you are right, hearing loss isolates and causes depression anxiety and I'm sure a bunch of other issues. If I am successful with one then maybe more down the line. If I can help others then the time spent will be so much more worthwhile. There has been a lot of research over a very long time for me to try to compete in any existing hearing aid markets. I would be perfectly happy with a unit that fits in a shirt pocket and has wires up to earbuds or headphones. If better conversation is all I am able to realize then I will be happy with that. I had to leave the last concert I attended because it was very disturbing with my hearing problem. Maybe I can do a little better and make music worth listening to again. I had a high end audio system many years ago but my ears aren't worth it these days. I actually worked for Mark Levinson a long time ago so was exposed to some nice designs.

I have done some circuit simulations and have what I think a workable design using a few op-amps. I can lay out a pc board and have a design up and running in a few days. I will put that on hold for now. I have a couple of equalizers kicking around that I thought I would experiment with. If I can tailor the audio chain (to something that works for me) with an equalizer in the path then that would give me some hope. If I have some success with that then I can finalize design.

I remember when I was a little kid (over 50 years ago) that my grandfather had a hearing aid. Obviously it was an analog design, and it worked. Today we have great analog components available to work with. Very fast op-amps that run on microamps, electret microphones, ear buds and head phones with flat response and so forth. Cell phone battery packs are available and with a simple micro USB connector can be charged with existing chargers. I just bought a watch that is solar power so that is an option as well.

Thanks again for your comments.