Keelhauling

Signal-to-loss ratio (SNL) hearing loss

It's been along time since I've had any time to post anything here, but I came across an article I want to research further.

I have a hearing problem. It's not severe, but it's puzzling. I have really good hearing. Really good. I hear things before other people, I can tell immediately if a note on an instrument is out of tune, I can pinpoint sound location instantly, I can hear a dog whistle.

Julie and I laugh because I'm colorblind, and she's not very sensitive to sounds. She can see a thousand shades of red, and I can pick any instrument out of orchestra and follow that music.

But... in a noisy environment like a bar or a party or even a busy conference, I have a hard time hearing what another person is saying to me. I know it is a hearing problem that I have, because other people can carry on a conversation and I have a hard time following it. For a long time I thought this might be a side effect of having very sensitive hearing, that perhaps my ears were simply overwhelmed by the noise like a microphone going into feedback.

But my favorite set of earphones for music listening, the Etymotic 6i's - truly awesome equipment! - went on the fritz and I went to the Etymotic website to see what what was new and came across this paper that describes a different kind of hearing loss - "signal-to-noise ratio" hearing loss as opposed to the typical "pure tone average" (PTA) hearing loss.

It turns out that this is a common problem with hearing aids. And I'm betting that it's a more common problem than anyone realizes, but that people who have hearing aids get their hearing tested more thoroughly - and more often - than most other people. And the test is recognizing sentences in a background of noise.

Next time I go in for a physical, I'm going to ask about this, see if I can get tested. I doubt if there is anything I can do about (yet), but at least the mystery may be resolved. Here's what I suspect: I think I have some SNL loss that manifests at higher sound levels. I'll bet I score well on the QuickSIN test at low absolute sound levels and terribly on the test at high levels of background noise.

Posted by John at December 19, 2005 10:49 PM