Re: [AUDITORY] Music specific hearing loss

[Rémi Marchand <remi.marchand1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ross,

Some hearing aids include frequency compression algorithm. Basically, what these algorithms do is to shift frequency components at higher frequencies to lower ones in order to shift frequency components at the frequency region were the hearing loss is most prominent to audible frequency regions. While this concept presents some clear advances for speech perception it may distort the music especially regarding pitch perception. 

Maybe your friend could ask her audiologist to disable this feature if it is implemented in her HA? 

Regards, remi

On 20 July 2018 at 12:51, Ross Alexander Hendler <rah232@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

I have a good friend who has moderate to severe hearing loss and although she can hear speech pretty well, thanks to her digital hearing aids, she is having big issues with hearing music. She claims that music sounds flat and distorted and that she can't hear melodies.

She feels that part of the problem may have to do with bandwidth as hearing aids are designed for speech. She also says that if a piece of music is in a certain key such as C she will hear it as a Bb. 

As a music lover this has become a big issue for her and I wanted to see if anyone might have any ideas or any engineers I might be able to refer her to.

Regards,

Ross