Oh, My Ears

Trade shows can be murder on your ears. Especially music shows like NAMM, where every booth is trying to out-crank the next. This year, I made two discoveries there, one scary and one pleasing. First, the scary one.

My first stop, at 9:30 on the day the show opened, was at the House Ear Institute booth, where they were giving free hearing screenings. I see this booth at every audio show, but it's always booked up. This time I got right in, and was sent back to the soundproofed trailer with three other guys. One said he made the booth his first stop at every show.

After peering into our ears with an otoscope, a technician sent us into the next room, where we sat down with headphones and a button. He didn't explain the test very well, but I soon realized the goal was to click the button whenever I heard a series of three beeps, which played back at different pitches and levels in first one ear, then the other.

The headphones, which looked like something out of a grade-school library, didn't fit too well. And the trailer wasn't soundproofed enough to keep out the piano demo in the next booth (coincidentally playing the same frequency range as the test tones). So I wasn't confident in my guesses, but I figured the test would still tell me something.

This electron microscope image of an inner ear shows the hair bundles projecting from the surface of the cell. (Courtesty HEI.)

Leaving the trailer, I received a graph of my results. As I stared at the slight dip in the 4–6kHz range (still within the normal range for my age), the guy next to me said, "Want to see a bad one?"

His graph looked like a ski slope. "That's what 25 years of mixing live bands will do to you," he said, wisfully.

Another guy noted that his hearing performance had actually improved since the previous year. (HEI keeps your results on file so you can compare graphs.) We wondered if he'd taken the test later in the show last year, when his ears had already become fatigued.

Looking back at my graph, my first thought was, "Oh $#!+! My audio career is over if my hearing isn't perfectly flat." I wondered wildly if I should reduce the 4–6kHz range in my mixes to compensate for the deficiency. I later learned it doesn't work that way:

"In sensory hearing loss from age or exposure to noise, the apparent loudness does not shift with thresholds," writes Dr. Halpin. "You just lose the quiet tones. To adjust mix EQ based on thresholds is not a valid concept. Instead, you should be thinking that when it sounds good to you, it will sound good to the audience."

Which brings me to the happy hearing discovery of the show. In his booth, sound designer Gary Garritan was demonstrating his new software synthesizers using Direct Sound Extreme Isolation headphones. Designed for drummers, these hearing protectors with integrated speakers reduce ambient noise up to 28dB. Putting them on, I was enveloped in an oasis of quiet. It was hard to ignore the bear-like grip on my skull, but reviews say it relaxes over time. They reminded me of some industrial ear muffs I wore while mowing lawns as a teenager — very likely the reason my hearing hasn't deteriorated more.

The Extreme Isolation headphones are now on my shopping list, and I know what my first stop will be at NAMM 2008.