Age Related Hearing Loss - Signal Frequency Test

Try this test

That’s a weird test to listen to. I could hear a kind of ‘beating’ sound from where the clip starts at 21Hz (similar to when two separate tones are very near in frequency, but it sounded more akin to just noise), which turns into a steady tone at about 23Hz. The beats (or noise) are still present up to about 30Hz. I could then hear up to about 12600Hz (but I had turned the sound down to 24/100 by the time the frequencies got up to about 8kHz. What I really noticed is the non-linearity in the perceived volume as the tone increases.

Probably in your 50s? I get a similar result, 57 year old.

I’m 61. I’ve been trying to find out if my HF cut-off point is fairly typical for my age. I came across this web-page Listening and Hearing - Roger Russell by a respected audio engineer (former director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh).

I’m 67 and from testing am definitely suffering from age-related high frequency hearing loss. I’m very interested in whether we can use Roon’s DSP functions to compensate. However, I don’t really know where to start. It would be great if someone knowledgeable could take an audiogram and have an initial stab at the required DSP settings. If you start a new thread, I’ll certainly contribute! If you don’t (or haven’t already), I’ll start one myself.

In Listening and Hearing it is indicated that a typical male from age 35 is already about 11dB down at 8kHz, so this thread may be relevant for everyone who enjoys listening to music rather than just us older fogies.

Hearing sensitivity is not linear, we are particularly sensitive to frequencies at 4kHz. In this webpage graph (which may seem counter intuitive) our most sensitive frequencies are depicted by a trough in the Fletcher-Munson Curves).

I suppose those of us who are concerned that our hearing is poorer than is typical for our age should have a hearing test carried out. I think that may be the next step for me.

So my question is, given a hearing test audiogram, can anyone have a stab at some Roon DSP filters to compensate for loss at certain frequencies?

I would assume that it is possible to take the information from a personal hearing test audiogram, and use equalisation, (DSP or similar) to bring your hearing back in line with the appropriate Fletcher-Munson curve.

However as hearing loss is a gradual thing, to some extent we get used to what we are missing, unless the loss is very bad. I would be wary of trying to equalise out my HF loss because I fear I could be doing more harm than good in lifting HF frequencies too much. It may also put excess strain on the speakers, and agitate any canine friends:smiley:.

The best advice must be to discuss it with your audiologist.

I’ve spoken to 3 audiologists, and, without exception, they know very little about the music side of things, other than to say that modern hearing aids, no matter what the marketing says, aren’t good for music. That ADC/DAC process is not good in such a tiny device. My hearing loss is mild-to-moderate, probably not bad enough for hearing aids in normal activities. It is down 35db at 3KHz, 50db at 4kHz, 55db at 6kHz, and about the same at 8kHz. That’s as far as they test. This is enough of a loss to completely ruin the serious listening side of music for me. Familiar pieces are just completely missing things I know I used to be able to hear. I’m hoping that a mild DSP curve adjustment will restore some pleasure. As you say, probably not good to overdo the treble boost because that might make things worse in the long run.

You might contact Marshall Chasin marshallchasin@rogers.com. Marshall is an audiologist in Toronto who works with a number of musicians and understands your pain. Turns out a few hearing aids have improved DACs which, depending on your hearing loss could be beneficial listening to music. The pair I’ve been wearing for the past few years, Bernafons, certainly helped me. According to Marshall another newer brand, Widex, has DACs improved over mine. Good luck.

Does your latest audiogram, show your hearing loss at numerous points across the audio spectrum from 50Hz or so to 8kHz? If so you could always try experimenting with a graphic equaliser as a starting point (I have never used EQ or DSP). I only say start with EQ (digital EQ) because I understand what that does, and would be more comfortable using EQ as a starting point. I am less sure about DSP. It has more connotations for room correction to me than EQ. I hope that those more familiar with using EQ and/or DSP chime in here to help you out. They may well advise that using DSP is easy and you should go straight for that option, so you can correct for your room as well as your hearing together.

My point about consulting with an audiologist was that you let them know what you are intending to do (EQ/DSP) for your enjoyment of music playback. At least they should have the knowledge to let you know that what you propose will not accelerate further hearing loss.

It may help others if you post here to let people know how you get on. There must be many who would benefit from what you propose, but are waiting for someone else to dip their toes into the water first. Good luck.

@evand did an interesting poll on hearing here:

I can hear up to 12k in left ear and 11k in right, according to that test.

KenS - so do you wear hearing aids all the time, and find that they’re good for music?

Jeff_C - I’m using the term DSP to refer to anything that alters the signal in the digital domain. As far as Roon is concerned, i’d be looking at the parametric equalisers. I’m just not knowledgeable enough, though, to know what types to use to create a compensating curve for my hearing. Yes, my audiogram has various points of test, but I understand that parametric equalisers would create a smoother curve then just applying some kind of “graphic” EQ.

Coincidentally, I saw an ENT specialist today about an unrelated ailment, and discussed this idea with him. He seemed to think that as long as I didn’t boost unreasonably and/or listen for too long, things would be fine.

I’ve tried a couple of devices others may be interested in. Weareven.com has some clever headphones. They do a test of your hearing by playing “musical” pieces in each ear, and you press a button when you can hear each one. They then store a profile of your hearing in the headphones and boost frequencies accordingly. They definitely work. You can turn the profile on and off to compare the audio. A similar device is Aumeo, but this is a little box that you can plug any headphones into. I think we’ll see more of this sort of thing. However, I’d rather use Roon to play my music on my main hifi system and Stax headphones!

I’ve attached one of my audiograms in the hope someone out there can design some equalisers for me…

Hi, I found this interesting conversation from 2017. As I am 60 my audiogram is very much the same as presented here. My audiologist said this is average for my age. Using headphones I still feel that my right hearing is in the higher frequencies (4 kHz) a little bit weaker. The parametric DSP allows to correct for that hearing loss - but only for both ears at the same extend. Balancing left/right channel helps somewhat - but depending on the amount of high frequencies in the mix it is still not perfect. In iOS 15 there is a feature where an audiogram can be toggled to adjust the music to the hearing loss. For me that works perfectly well. No balancing of left/right channel necessary… @Roon people: Is there a workaround in the DSP to correct frequency response of left/right channel separately? Or is there any plan to implement audiogram corrections in the software - that would be really a nice feature - I think a big share of roon users would profit.

Procedural EQ → Parametric EQ and there you can select Left/Right channels seperately.

Hi Anthony - got it - thanks a lot! You made my day!

I tried to convince Bob Stuart at Meridian over the years to offer a custom set-up for the DPS systems that was compensating for hearing loss.

I’ve had a deteriorating hearing for the last two decades (too much playing in bands back in the day) and as such with DSP I thought it would be cool to offer the “opposite” to my deteriorating hearing charts so I heard the flat sound. I’d say it “fell on deaf ears” but that would be one step too corny :wink:

“fell on deaf ears” - haha. I’m pretty sure that mean age of Roon users is around 55-60. According to my audiologist the majority other these users need correction to a certain extend (Bob Stuart will be no exception).

Most of the music is below 11k, so not sure why people are so concerned. It’s what you hear up to that point that is important. I would rather suffer from HF hearing loss than being tone-deaf. :wink: