The Sound Board

It adapts to the user's hearing. They’re expected to ship in April 2017.
Interview with the inventors - http://www.gizmag.com/nura-headphones-r ... iew/43792/

http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/aussie-st ... eadphones/

But is that true that ear sends sound waves out back? @1:20

Suganthan wrote:But is that true that ear sends sound waves out back? @1:20

"...... otoacoustic emission, it's a test that's used for screening newborn babies for deafness, " explained Slater. "We use it in a slightly different way. What actually happens is that when you send different sounds to the ear, it vibrates the membrane, which vibrates the three bones, which stimulates the cochlea. The cochlea then sends an electrical signal to the brain.

"But it also sends a very faint signal back through those three bones to the membrane, which vibrates it slightly.

"It's not a reflection off the eardrum, it's actually generating a sound corresponding to what you're hearing. We have a microphone in the main earpiece that picks it up. What that signal contains is basically an indication of your sensitivity to the frequencies of sound we're feeding into each of your ears. Once the system knows what your hearing curve looks like, it then equalizes the signal to each ear, to lift the levels of those frequencies you're not hearing so well".

I guess it depends on what you want your headphones to do. For people who work in professional audio, they might or might not be useful, after all your mixes have to translate to different media and also to other people's faulty hearing...! If everyone was using them, and nobody was listening in any other environment, including using speakers, I can see that they could be good. If they work....

I'm not a health professional, but it seems possibly irresponsible to me to simply boost the volume of frequencies people don't hear if the reason for that loss is damage from hearing those frequencies too loudly in the past.

stupendousman wrote:I'm not a health professional, but it seems possibly irresponsible to me to simply boost the volume of frequencies people don't hear if the reason for that loss is damage from hearing those frequencies too loudly in the past.

Isn't that what hearing aids do? I mean, I've never properly looked into how they work, but I assume they boost frequencies that the user is having trouble hearing..

Death wrote:

stupendousman wrote:I'm not a health professional, but it seems possibly irresponsible to me to simply boost the volume of frequencies people don't hear if the reason for that loss is damage from hearing those frequencies too loudly in the past.

Isn't that what hearing aids do? I mean, I've never properly looked into how they work, but I assume they boost frequencies that the user is having trouble hearing..

Good question. I've always gotten the impression that hearing aides were part of a (hopefully long) spiral into silence for precisely the reason that I mentioned. Again, I'm certainly no expert.

stupendousman wrote: Good question. I've always gotten the impression that hearing aides were part of a (hopefully long) spiral into silence for precisely the reason that I mentioned. Again, I'm certainly no expert.

I'm not sure. I know someone who had a go with a hearing aid for fun and they said that they could hear rain hitting the floor really loudly and people's footsteps from much further away than they'd usually be able to and stuff like that.. The description sounded to me like it was boosting high frequency stuff. I guess that would make sense if that's what the user they're intended for is having trouble hearing. But yeh, it's possible that it's also worsening their hearing loss at the same time. I suppose it's a trade-off/compromise.

Some current info re the project:

Nura gets AU$4.6 million in seed funding for its customizable headphones - Posted Feb 13, 2017 by Brian Heater (@bheater)
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/13/nura- ... e-funding/
http://newatlas.com/nura-headphones-rev ... iew/43792/

Daryl wrote:I guess it depends on what you want your headphones to do. For people who work in professional audio, they might or might not be useful, after all your mixes have to translate to different media and also to other people's faulty hearing...! If everyone was using them, and nobody was listening in any other environment, including using speakers, I can see that they could be good. If they work....

Good points, Daryl. In theory all that could be accommodated by using different profiles. Listening using someone else's basic profile can sound horrible. However, profiles for simulating different listening environments based on your own basic profile could be developed.

An initial production run is now underway: http://www.afr.com/technology/nura-a-pe ... 208-gu8eck

A little late to this party - yes, looks like modern hearing aids basically. However, I'm not convinced that this is necessarily a pancea for everyone, because our brains adjust to the information they get coming in. Unless we use aids, the world sounds to us all one way - speech, environmental sounds and music. If you have headphones that correct for your loss to be "perfect", then I'd expect that to sound very odd in contrast to everything else because our brains aren't used to it, and professionally that's a big problem. When we A/B with reference tracks, our brains are telling us that this is perfect sound, even though subjectively your and my experience will be hugely variable. Listening on cans vs monitors will likely sound even more different than it does already.

I was pretty shocked a couple of years ago when I realised how poor average hearing is even in 40s-50s. I did a bunch of tests of willing victims on a shoot I was on - the only people who could hear 18k were the work experience teenagers. So we're all in a spiral of decline. While cochlear implants are massively inferior to regular hearing, wearers do have this one advantage over the rest of us - as technology advances, they can look forward to improved hearing as they head towards old age.

I'd be thinking the same thing as you, Guy. But, peoples eyes can adjust to waring prescription glasses and not waring them. Over time, your brain learns to compensate for each and keep things in the right perspective and sense of space. The view will be in better focus with the glasses on, but you can definitely adapt to both once your brain has enough experience. I'm not basing this on any science, just personal experience. When I first started waring them, I wouldn't be able to step up a small wall without kicking it because I thought it was a little further from me than it actually was, then once I'd had them on for a while and my brain adapted and I'd be ok. I'd then have a similar problem when I took them off after getting used to them. After a matter of months, I could switch between the two with no issues at all. My brain is now calibrated properly for both situations.

So, I'm imagining something similar could happen with our ears with enough practice. I don't really know what the reality of the situation is and what would be wise to do. But I suppose more will be uncovered as these things are properly tested. I'm interested to find out!

Guy Rowland wrote:I was pretty shocked a couple of years ago when I realised how poor average hearing is even in 40s-50s. I did a bunch of tests of willing victims on a shoot I was on - the only people who could hear 18k were the work experience teenagers.

I did a test with "the boys" last year, and whilst their frequency range was greater than mine (although I could hear more than I am supposed to be able to hear...!) what was interesting was that I could hear much more useful things and detail than they could. In fact for some of the stuff, I had to sort of teach them how to hear, and in one particular case it took them a few days until they could hear what I heard. So, it seems that although with age one loses the range of frequencies, one becomes more discerning about what one can still hear. Either than, or I've just always been fussy and nit-picky.

I think I'm good with my own ears.

To be fair, I've played a show wearing my gun pink range muffs. Friends band drummer bailed so I covered for him - and I couldn't find my fancy little valve earbuds - so I just brought the muffs I used when I drum normally.

after I swear the other bands with units near me were stealing my muffs - I started buying pink.