Thorough Hearing Tests?

[Lee]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a person/company that specialises in offering thorough and useful hearing tests in Sydney as I was very underwhelmed when I used a particular company. As that was my first hearing test as an adult, I didn't have anything to reference it against so I'm not sure wether
a) I had false expectations,
b) I didn't communicate effectively enough what I wanted to find out,
c) The test or the tester was ineffective for my needs.
We basically came to the conclusion that I don't need a hearing aid just yet, which I already knew. So are listening tests at hearing specialists only designed to find out if they can sell you a hearing aid? What's the take on tests?

[Drumstruck]

So are listening tests at hearing specialists only designed to find out if they can sell you a hearing aid? What's the take on tests?

I think you've hit the nail on the head there - do you just want a medicare funded $800 aid, or can we interest you in the $5K "hidden" aid, or perhaps the $8.5K special aid? O, and we can apply a special frequency curve in case you want to listen to music..... (and I'm not kidding)

Methinks the best hearing test wil be with your own oscillator in your studio.

[Lee]

Surely this cynical view cant be true? Are they all generally like this or is there someone people are using that they dont advertise? If so PM me, I can keep a secret.
I wish to find someone who is the best at what he or her does, and like a good set of monitors, stick with them over the years.

[GlennS]

An ear, nose & throat specialist would do thorough testing. Not sure how you would get a referral if nothing is wrong.

EDIT: I saw Dr John Tonkin at St Vincents, Sydney, many years ago. He was very good, but expensive of course.

[rick]

having just been through it and having to go through it with my daughter
it is really a case of finding an e.n.t specialist that has a testing service attached if you want to "fix" something or in my case just getting some molded plugs

but the tests they do for the standard joe are all about - can you hear speech ..?
do you have masking issues stopping you hearing speech

thats the way it is - thats what they do

if you want yourself "mapped" then you simply have to ask before hand

but mapping yourself ... is no "test" of anything

except you own level of self awareness

my hearing reads off the scale on the tests but .. what does that mean ?
well next to a bricklayer that has never heard a test tone
i am a bat ... great ...really not so useful information

my advice is if you dont need a hearing aid ...
if your pressure was good
and you left right was in spec

be thankful
get some earplugs and keep that way
a third of the population dont even pass the basic test
that is why it is basic

[ChrisW]

I went to St George Private about 4 years ago. This was for moulded earplugs, but also a full test to see where my hearing was at at that stage.
I found them to be very professional and very keen to do the right thing by me. I had a full series of tests with high-tech equipment, followed by a full consultation from a knowledgeable and skilled E,N & T specialist. Aside from sizing up, then fitting the plugs for me, they gave me a full evaluation of my hearing and gave me good advice on what I should be doing, what I should be concerned about.
It cost me money, but I wouldn't say it was excessively expensive given the importance of my hearing health.
I'm sure the ST Vincent's set up that Glenn describes is very similar.

[rick]

oh yes lee - referral
my guy is so hard to get into i wont bother you with his details

i only get in quickly because i bluffed him into thinking i was a "somebody " he should see ( ha )
i can tell every time i am there - my line jumping is not normal
but i get ear infections maybe once or twice a year and i need them stopped on the spot !

but you are not trying to get anything fixed right ..?

contact some of the in ear or molded earplug companies i reckon

[ChrisW]

My GP referred me to St George.

[Drumstruck]

Surely this cynical view cant be true? Are they all generally like this or is there someone people are using that they dont advertise? If so PM me, I can keep a secret.
I wish to find someone who is the best at what he or her does, and like a good set of monitors, stick with them over the years.

I certainly won't say that they're all like this, but my comments were factual - I was there when my mother was tested and I observed their processes and their PC application. The prices cited are correct and the testing application was limited to a bandwidth between 400Hz and 3KHz. They had a pseudo anechoic chamber - a steel box with walls about 8cm thick. The test speaker was a single doover of about aurotone quality. The M.A. qualified audiologist did not like the questions I asked and looked decidedly nervous when I used jargon which in turn made me feel very uncomfortable about their ability and motives.

Note that there are many retirees in my area so the hearing "specialists" may tend to focus on the need to hear speech rather than our more specific audio requirement.

[Milo]

You're right, they concentrate on the speech zone.
If you get an honest hearing-aid specialist, they will admit that they're not good for music: they map the frequency response OK, but the tone quality of the mics they use is not good for music.
Unless Neumann make hearing-aid mics - forget it.

[rob]

a "standard" hearing test should use headphones, not a speaker and testing is done from 125Hz to 8KHz in octave steps with 5dB resolution. Each ear is mapped separately.
But this is a threshold test and while it is an indicator of hearing loss / damage doesn't say too much about how "flat" your hearing is at a given acoustic level.
here's an article from AT which discusses hearing etc: http://proharmonic.com/articles/AT75_ON_THE_BENCH.pdf
In the article are a couple of examples of test results.

[The Tasmanian]

I'm sure if your ears have even L & R equality - and you look after them from now on,
then using them in critical situations on a fairly constant basis in a moderate level situation, they should perform well until you are too old to work (with your ears as a job).
All of our hearing is depreciating as we age.
Using them every day you will exercise the muscles and have a direct brain/ear relationship so that as they deteriorate your brain makes adjustments to compensate as the loss takes place over time.
(especially as a mastering engineer/ or mix for a living IE: critical listening nearly every day)
So basically we need to "use them or lose them"

There has been a few times when I've been out of the city for a few months, and not using my ears on a constant day to day basis, I have noticed when I did get back to work that they did not work as well, they felt fatigued in a very short time. And it was harder to make critical decisions - it took more brain power to do what I normally could do in a quick time
But when I am doing sessions back to back,month in month out, then they are so much more accurate - can work for very long periods of time without tiring.
bugger the tests unless you feel you have serious problems to deal with.
lift weights with your ears!

[obutcher]

Rob is right, they only test between 125Hz-8Khz and if your hearing is pretty much flat around those frequencies then they say you have 'normal' hearing (whatever that means other than yes, you can hear). The 5dB steps can be a bit misleading because there may be just a tickle of a sound (enough to make you think 'did I hear that?') for the first level but you may definitely hear the sound on the second play so it can look like a -5dB drop in level in some parts even though it may only be 1-2dB.

First time I had my hearing tested there was a truck with a compressor running out on the street. Inside the box they put me in the vibrations of the compressor were being amplified and the tester didn't believe me until I convinced them to step into the box them self to see!

[Drumstruck]

Have you also noticed the effect that long exposure to low level noise has? e.g. driving a car all day tends to leave your hearing a little "foggy". I find that when the ocean has been crashing all night and I wake up in the morning everything sounds "tunnelly".

[ChrisW]

FWIW, I felt the tests I had at St George were hard work.
They had a machine that activated my ear drums and measured their response. The hearing test itself was taken with headphones. The sound levels and frequencies were very mixed and I was sweating trying to hear them and click the clicker.
They found I had degraded hearing on my left side and advised me to check for a brain tumour which sometimes presents as a fault in one ear not present in the other. Of course most people don't have a stack of PA speakers set up on the left side of their drum kit.
So, in short, I thought the test was professionally set up, taxing enough to properly test my hearing health, resulting in an accurate assessment of my situation with good advice to take on board.

[Lee]

Thanks everyone for your input it's put me on the right path and gives me a few things to think about. That's a great article Rob I remember reading it at the time so I found my copy of AT and reread it again today at work. I especially like the comparison between the ear and audio equipment. There are no problems at the moment but I wish to get "mapped" and monitor my hearing as well as ask a few questions.
I would also like to get some moulded plugs down the track too but I'm not sure what amount of attenuation I want them to have. What's a versatile level to use for on stage and live sound?

[ChrisW]

You can purchase more than one level of filter. They are pretty easy to remove and change.
I have the maximum, 20db iirc?. My audiologist knew I was a drummer and absolutely insisted I had to have that level. I think that makes them extremely professional. On the other hand, they aren't that fun to wear. You feel a little distant from the music, the high end does seem to be rolled off (even though it isn't supposed to be) and it protects against the loudest barrage, and as such makes quieter music and speech harder to hear. On the upside I don't have any ringing in my ears when I go to bed that night.
MInd you, I would probably trust the advice of an audiologist because they are impartial. It would be too easy to take the comfortable route and choose the lower value filters.
If your exposure to loud noise is less than someone playing drums for two or more hours, then you could probably go with a much lower filter number.

[Drumstruck]

I used to wear earphones when I was young - as a forklift driver, a tractor driver, a metal press operator ..... people laughed at me then because it looked funny but I couldn't hear them - I can now and I'm the one laughing

[petermulas]

i am an audiologist

if you want to go to a place that will not push hearing aids, go to a university based clinic, there should be one in each state. for NSW/sydney region Macquarie University is the best private clinic, there is a friend of mine that works there that actually studied audio engineering with me a few years ago. university clinics have strong ethical rules they abide by and there won't be any financial agendas. there are a few functions of an audiologist, yes we look out for people who could benefit from hearing aids but there are other reasons for hearing tests. some companies are a little more focused on hearing aids than others.

everything everyone else has said seems to be accurate (except the oscilloscope comment which definitely isnt the best test of your hearing). hearing tests are speech focused so we dont do a 20 Hz - 20 kHz test, it's generally 250 - 8 kHz, and these are worldwide accepted standards. in some cases higher or lower frequency testing is appropriate (e.g. testing to see if medications affect hearing cells). as speech is harmonically complex, pure tone testing cannot predict a person's hearing difficulty or speech discrimination ability (we have tests for that as well), however hearing aid selection and prescription research and methods have all been built around pure tones, so they are still quite important.

with regards to rick's comment, the normal range of hearing was developed as an average range of a group of normally hearing people, and im willing to bet none of the original sample group would have had auditory training. so i guess this means people with musical or audio backgrounds will naturally do better at pure tone hearing tests than people without training. I guess this also means they can do better at a hearing test but have worse hearing.

however one of the lesser known implications of hearing loss is a decreased ability to hear small differences in frequency (auditory filters broaden). i've often wondered this loss of frequency discrimination would affect engineers, as it is an essential part of mixing/mastering.