Unusual question for Dave F. (or anyone else)

Hmmm....this might be something that I can run by my audioligist friend.

-curtis

Gregisme,

Yours is a fascinating post and I encourage Curtis to run your questions by his audiologist friend.

I have no real experience with your particular situation. However, because higher frequencies are more directional and tend to be both absorbed and reflected, I would expect high frequencies to sound much more detailed and prominent from the loudspeaker closest to your perfect ear. Because of this, I would expect the stereo image to be offset towards one side of your head and thus will diminish any perceived "depth" as well.

I would recommend experimenting with speaker placement. While sitting in your listening position, use your balance control and train yourself to easily hear the difference in highs between the left and right speaker. Once you can esily hear this difference, move the speaker (the one on the side of your bad ear) closer towards the other speaker. Again listen for differences. The object is to try and find the ideal location so that the highs sound the same between the left and right speaker. Also, toeing in the speaker on your "bad side" might help improve things a bit too.

I am most curious about this so please keep me updated!




Good Sound To You!

David Fabrikant
www.ascendacoustics.com

Dave....OK, I will send this to the audiologist. It is someone we both know, Val.

-curtis

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I've had very poor hearing in one ear since early childhood. Some sort of infection or something, rendering it functionaly useless. The other ear is perfectly fine.

I know that I'm probably lacking in some dimensionality of sound, perhaps similar to a one-eyed person who lacks three dimensional depth of sight. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

My understanding is that, assuming total loss of hearing in one ear, you lose the ability to locate the source of a sound. If you think about it, volume wouldnt tell you where a sound is coming from. I believe its timing of the sound when one ear receives it relative to the other, and comparing the "clarity" or "muffledness" of the sound from one ear to the other.

You said you have some hearing left. Are you using a hearing aid? If not, you should, for safety reasons alone!

Azanon

azanon - yes, it's difficult for me to locate the source of sounds, particularly if there is backround noise and a person is calling out to me from a distance. I'll have to look in a few different direction as I can't quite tell where that person is calling from! That's really the only circumstance where I notice I have a problem though.

No hearing aid.. I hear only muffled bass tones when noise of a very high volume is directed into my bad (right) ear. It's some kind of nerve damage, which can't be remedied by a hearing aid.

Dave - ok, thanks.. I'll use your suggestions and let you know how it goes when I get my system in place, which could be delayed as much as a few months yet. (It's all been more complicated than I anticipated as I shop for loads of gear. The internet has provided lots of good info, but at a cost of added confusion as I sort through all the technology info!)

Curtis - thanks, as always. :-)

OK....here is what my friend wrote. Not sure if it helps....
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Indeed, if there is truly a difference in hearing level between this person's ears, then they would be affected adversely by location of the sound source. They probably have a lot of difficulty hearing in noise, or separating the sound source (speech) from other signals (dishes, wind, other people talking, etc.) They probably prefer to sit at the front of the room, or watch lips more closely than other people, whether they realize it or not. The brain's assimilation of perceived sounds in terms of time, phase & magnitude are off because one input source (the bad ear) is not delivering the information at the same time it should (it's delayed, or lower in level). So: where did that sound come from? This person will be turns their head more often, uses the phone primarily on one good side, and might complain that people mumble or are harder to understand.

So how to set up the room for an incredible surround sound experience?

1. First of all, this person needs to determine exactly what the historical problem was, and get a current hearing test- as boring as that may be. I recommend the House Ear Institute downtown LA on 3rd and Alvarado. This is the best place in the world for ears, and also where we designed the digital hearing aid, and worked on simulating localization with various speaker setups, etc. for various projects. The audiologists and otologists at HEI can determine the exact hearing difference between the ears, and also could investigate if anything can be done these days to rectify the problems he or she had from childhood. Yearly audios are good with any type of loss, to be able to track changes from baseline- it's just good practice.

2. Step 2: Determining speaker setup. Most surround sound systems aren't set up correctly anyway, to optimize the true surround sound effect to a person sitting in a set, consistent location with sound at ear level. Look at the millions of people (like me) who went with in-ceiling speakers because there are no wires to drape across the windowed walls and carpetless hardwood floor... etc. For this person, likely the surround sound will help them because they'll be getting more signal to both sides of the room. However, they still need to take into account speaker setup to avoid reverb, or bad placement that might give poor sound quality outside of the localization value. Also: keep in mind guests and that person watching the movie WITH you. ;) A room setup for just one person might not be the best way to go if you have company over all the time.

3. I'd consider multiple speakers with different channel manipulations...

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-curtis

Ah, but a single functioning ear can judge sound location and distance. Granted with reduced success gauging sounds off the blind side of the head.

I also read that our ears emit their own sound, or frequency pattern. I have only read speculations on why this is... Interesting stuff, and I am still reading...

John