Looking at a $5,000.00 upgrade to my MAIN 2 channel system.......

[customsteve01]

Well a couple of weeks ago I had an appointment with a E.N.T. (Ear, Nose, Throat) Doctor. I have been putting this off for some time cause I know what they would tell me. He told me I have a deviated septem and that it needs to be fixed to help my breathing, the surgery will be scheduled probably sometime in May. Then I went into the sound proof room for the hearing test... I have a moderate hearing lose in the 1000 to 8000 hz. If I remember right its about 40 to 50 dbs down. They also did a speach recognition test which I failed miserably at normal levels. I only got about 45% right. She cranked up the volume and I was able to get 85% right. I have been having trouble at work and home with understanding people.

Well they have sujested getting a new style digital hearing aid that is geared more to the speach recognition along with improving hearing. the aid they have sujested is the Oticon Delta 8000, here is a link,

http://www.oticon.com/eprise/main/Oticon/com/SEC_Professionals/ProductInformation/DeltaXR/_Index

I really don't know what to expect with getting these I just hope it really improves on my understanding conversations, you wouldn't believe some of the funny things I think I hear people saying. Caroline and I have several laughs a day on what I think I hear her say.

The doctor did say that the type of hearing lose that I have appears to him to be more hieretitary for the most part. Which made me feel alittle better.

Here is another link that shows the size and how somewhat invisable it is.

http://www.oticon.com/eprise/main/Oticon/com/SEC_Professionals/ProductInformation/DeltaXR/BenefitsOfRITE/_Index

Wish me luck with my new upgrade..........................

Steve

[Timmikid]

That's the prettiest In Ear Monitor I have seen. Did you discuss with the doctor how it would influence, hopefully improve, your music listening? Good luck with the surgery! Keep us posted! Tim

[customsteve01]

Actually, the Doc. said thay are very acurate and realistic in there reproduction. The way it sits in the ear canal it still allows all the sound to come in your ear normally and the speaker only amplyfies the freqs by the amount you need. The 8 channels are the number of freqs that they can idavidually adjust.

The thing that scares me is what if I don't like hearing all the stuff I have been missing.

Steve

[oldbuckster]

See, ooops, I mean hear what those La Scala's have done to your ears ? Best of Luck to you Steve.....Do what you must do, and hopefully things will work out for you................

[maxg]

"The thing that scares me is what if I don't like hearing all the stuff I have been missing."

Then you switch it off when listening to music......[*-)]

[LarryC]

My very best wishes to you, Steve, it sounds critically important to me! 40-50 db is a big drop in a key frequency range for speech comprehension.

It would a big loss in consonant definition, which is critical for understanding exact words. So, it must be very hard for you to understand what people standing on that side of you are saying, especially in noisy settings. You really need binaural hearing to tease out one person's words in the middle of a lot of conversation and noise, as well as locate sounds right-to-left. Was your speech comprehension issue due just to volume drop, or distortion, too? In my case, distortion is too severe for an aid in that ear.

I'd say go for it, and by all means let's try it out at our October 20 Fest, if you're coming!

Larry

[picky]

Steve: Sorry to learn of your hearing loss, man. It's amazing how tiny that new device is. I think it's great that you are moving forward with getting fitted for one. Will you need just one or do both of your ears require a boost? It's great that you'll have it for the Pilgrimage: Now we'll be able to sneek up on Caroline and Verna when their talking together and you'll be able to tell me what they're saying about us behind our backs! LOL [] Best of luck, buddy! See you both in a couple of months! -Glenn

[thebes]

I'm sorry Steve but we preferred used, not new, around here. I think you'll find this to be considerably cheaper. Of course if PK had designed it, the horn shape would be a bit different but still a nice conversation starter and would sound great with tubes.

Sorry to hear you're having this problem and good luck with the surgery.

[RFP]

Steve...

MY wife has had the Oticon Deltas for one month and simply could not be happier!

As a pianist for about a g'zillion years, she has would up with hearing loss which seems to be similar to yours. The audiologist actually recommended the Delta 4000s for her and it took her all of about fifteen minutes to "get used to them"... we were both amazed.

A couple of weekends ago, we were driving back to the Fort Worth area from San Antonio... the day was one of those [very few] perfect Texas days so we put the top down on her car. The surprising thing was that we could converse quite naturally and the wind noise didn't bother her one bit.

I sincerely hope that your experience is as happy as Linda's has been. For what it's worth, you might consider trying the 4000s first... if your place is like Linda's, they will let you do just about anything.... hers will run just a tad over $3,000 (when we finally have to pay for them!).

By the way, the audiologist's hubby is a audio nut just like us... 'cept he is presently Klipsch-less, poor guy!

All the best,

Rob

[customsteve01]

OK,

I went and picked up the aids today and the audiolagist had me put them in before she turned them on. She still had them wired to her computer so she could tweek them and let me listen to some noises that they make when the battery gets low. Well when she flipped the switch and turned them on all I could think was OMG this room is noisey (we were in her quiet office by the way). I have now had them for less than 12 hours and can't believe the differance they make. The speech comperhension is so much better. I was watching TV earlier and I reached up and turned them both off and closed my eyes and could not understand very much of what was being said, I turned them back on and I could then understand every word. I really had NO CLUE what I was missing.

Oh, another thing is that I also realized we live in a Noisey World, I had no clue.

The aids are able to be programed so they gradually come up to full volume, what I am hearing now is not where they will be in two weeks. I had the Audiolagist let me hear what the final volume would be and I quikly asked her to turn it back down, it was just a little to overwhelming. She said that with the gradual increase it was easier to get adjusted to wearing them.

So far I am really glad I did this, Just don't know why I waited so long. I will keep yall posted on how it goes over the next few days.

Steve

[DrWho]

Wow, that is very cool! Is there any possibility of increased hearing damage by amplifying the frequency ranges you're already having trouble with?

[LarryC]

I am thrilled for you!

[RFP]

I am thrilled for you!

I am too, Steve... Good for you!!

Rob

[picky]

Steve: Wow, what a well-described testimonial! Your words really help the rest of us understand what you are going through. It appears the aids were the right thing to do. The technology certainly has come a long way. I'm really thrilled for you Steve! Now Caroline won't think you were just ignoring her when she spoke to you! LOLOL! Great news! -Glenn

[getech]

You owe it to yourself to buy an Earthquake Amp and a JL Audio Fathom F113. Even though your hearing is F**ked, at least you can feel the damn thing, eh?

Good luck padre...........

[dtel]

Hope it works out great for you, I was wondering the same thing DrWho asked ? The increase in volume will not any extra damage ?

I know without a doubt I need some myself.

[customsteve01]

Well I had my nose and sinus operated on the 5^th. I went in at 05:30 to the hospital and was in the operating room by 07:30, woke up in the recovery room at 09:30 and was released to go home at 12:30. We went to the pharmacy to pick up the prescriptions they had given me and pick up some groceries we needed. For the first couple of days I was wondering why all the people that I talked to about having this operation had nothing but horror stories to tell. I wasnt really experiencing any really bad pains but I was very congested but that was to be expected with having the stints in my nose and sinus. Then on Friday I had the stints pulled out. All I can say is OMG how was something so big stuffed up in my nose; these things were at least as long and big around as my index finger. When he was pulling them out all I could think of was the scene from Total Recall where he pulled the tracking device out of his nose. After the stints were out then the doctor stuck a suction tube in my nose and tried to suck my brains out, well thats what it felt like, he was really just getting all the stuff that didnt belong in there. The next few days were spent on the couch not doing much at all; I really felt lousy and didnt have the energy do much else. I was hot or cold had the shivers and sweats in bed and am very glad that week is behind me. Finally got a good nights sleep last night and went for a check up this morning and they said all looks fine and all the symptoms I was having the past week were all just part of the healing. They also sucked more gunk out of there today. The amazing thing is that I can now breathe out of both nostrils.

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Now back to my hearing. My audiologist wants me to try a brand new hearing aid that Oticon just released this month its called "EPOQ". They are going to upgrade me to this new product at no charge to me and see how I like it. The new aids have been newly designed from the ground up. They have the ability to communicate between themselves so they act more as one unit instead of two separate aids in each ear. With this wireless communication they are suppose to help with being able to locate where sounds are coming from. There is also a neat bonus with them being wireless. They also come with a device about the size of an Ipod Nano that they call a Streamer this device allows you to connect to anything with a Bluetooth signal and use your aids as a phone, speakers for your PC, or as headphones for a MP3 player. The streamer does have a connection to plug a MP3 player into it as well. I am going to get them on Tuesday so I will have them for the pilgrimage next weekend. I am also attaching the graph of my hearing loss. Normal hearing should be at around 25dbs in all frequency ranges. I dont think anyone would want a crossover built with this dip in it.

[Deang]

Thanks for the update Steve, I'm glad for you that you're through it. Tell me, how does the audiologists know where the notche(s) in your hearing is -- does it plot out on graph paper?

[customsteve01]

Do you remember the hearing tests in school? put the headphones on and push the button when you hear the tone. Well the tone is played in each frequency range as a pulse and it gradully gets louder when you hear it you push the putton and they know how loud the tone was when you heard it. You are supose to hear all the tones by the time they reach 25 decibels as you can see by the chart I hear the freaquencies at 250 and 500 ok but then have a steep decline at 750 in my right ear and my left is just alittle more gradual.

Steve

[DrWho]

You had your sinus worked on too? I had that done back on leap day in '96 (turned out to be an 8 hour surgery). I can totally relate with the unpleasantness of the recovery, but it was probably easier on me since I was so young. My doctor didn't believe in packing the nose so I had to go into the office every other day to have the scar tissue sucked out - I actually enjoyed that process since it made the headaches go away []

That is so cool cool about your hearing aid. A couple years ago I told some friends that this was the direction hearing aids should go, but they all thought I was crazy. I would be very interested in your impressions of the sound quality.