The project is well underway with first round of parts on order. This phase of the project is considered pre-breadboard
To recap; THIS IS NOT A HEARING AID. Hearing aids are most likely highly re gulated by some gubbament kommitti in charge of such matters. This device is solely intended to enhance bird listening and IS IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM intended to be any type of hearing aid. Or else it it to be used for educ ational purposes only.
My purchasing department has ordered the adafruit microfone paddywhack. lin k below. I will instruct my project manger to connect microphone paddywhac k to boss audio equalizer for mobile applications. Eq will then drive head phones or earbuds. This setup will fit into fannypack for field testing of the bird listening prototype.
Bah, humbug. Get this 4mm electret, used two each in my beehive monitor. Smaller, lower-power, higher output. Amazon: uxcell 4mm-dia electret 10pcs - $0.38 each China, a14061800ux0615 $0.63 each, 2-day shipment Amazon PRIME. Straight from uxcell in China, 26 cents if you're brave.
If you plan to sell it, you might want to have your legal department look into the validity of your disclaimer. What you're trying to describe is a PSAP (Personal Sound Amplification Product). Besides the intended use, I believe the legal distinction is whether the device can be adjusted for the frequency response of the user, which would make it a hearing aid, or has a fixed frequency response, with would be a PSAP. The applicable laws also vary by State.
Something on PSAP's: Not Ready for a Hearing Aid But Need a Little Help? Personal amplifiers are inexpensive and powerful. Just don't call them a hearing aid.
I've had good luck in setting up several friends with rechargeable PSAP's purchased on eBay for about $10/ea: Build quality sucks, but spares are cheap. Biggest problem seems to be ear wax clogging the sound tube. Biggest complaint is too much background noise.
Incidentally, in California, the "gubbament kommitti in charge of such matters" is: The Department of Consumer Affairs, Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology & Hearing Aid Dispensers Board.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Most Hi-Fi amplifiers have bass and treble controls, and you can buy equalizers too. So you might be okay as long as you do not claim the device is for correcting hearing losses.
On 5/4/2019 12:56 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote: I believe the legal distinction is whether the
Well that sucks! My hearing goes downhill after 4kHz in both ears. At least you saved me buying something that had little chance of helping.
Recently at a family gathering, discussing politics with a nephew, Me, "oh, I forgot what I was going to say". Nephew, "that's a sign of old age". Me, "What?". Nephew, "that's a sign of old age". Me, "what? Nephew, "now you're just screwing with me!" Me, "no, no, I didn't hear you said!
A PSAP (Personal Sound Amplification Product) will sorta work, but not very well. There are all kinds of features in real hearing aid that make life more tolerable. Things like custom fitting, gain compression, loud bang limiting, low level noise squelch, multiple equalization and gain settings, wireless remote control, BlueGoof interface for phones, frequency shift to eliminate feedback, noise reduction, custom compensation for hearing loss, etc. The cheap PSAP have none of these features.
One of my impoverished friends needed hearing aids but couldn't afford the real thing. So, I bought him a pair of the absolute cheapest PSAP from eBay. They worked, but he complained about the fit, sound quality, background noise, difficult to use with a phone, crappy controls, and most important, cost of the non-rechargeable batteries. After he destroyed two pairs of these earphones, I elected to buy him two behind the ear rechargeable devices. Much better and cheaper to operate, but the sound quality still stunk.
Then, we got lucky and were given a pair of Siemens (Rexton Costco Kirkland Sivantos Signia) hearing aids by a mutual friend. After some testing and tinkering, I got both of them working. Even though the 4 preset settings were optimized for another persons hearing, the difference in audio quality was obvious. The background noise was mostly gone, they were comfortable to wear, the remote control made them easy to adjust, zero feedback, and the rechargeable NiMH batteries were cheaper than the disposable Zinc-Air batteries. I'll probably get stuck with buying my impoverished friend a proper hearing test and paying Costco to tweak the presets.
One of my friends told me of a similar problem that he had with his grand-brats. At their young age, the concept of getting old is beyond their understanding. So, I suggested a bit of artificial empathy. Cram a cotton ball in each ear, and offer them some manner of bribe to leave the cotton in place for a few hours. You can tell that it's working by the number of "what??" that they add to their conversations.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Nobody is going to drag around a Hi-Fi amplifier, microphones, and earphones in place of a proper hearing aid. Even if they did, the adjustable base and treble are not suitable for correcting loss of high frequency hearing. A half-octave equalizer would probably work better, but still does not provide noise suppression, overload limiting, feedback elimination via frequency shifting, BlueGoof phone interface, etc. Even if you added a PCB to your Hi-Fi that provides the missing features, I suspect that a potential customer would not consider it a suitable hearing aid. The state board would probably consider it more amusing than a threat to their monopoly on hearing aids.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Cotton may not highlight your point, I've been installing a metal roof and had to cut some pieces with a skil saw, it was very loud, so after the first time, I wore 3M express ear plugs. I see the rating is MMR
25db. Not the best, but probably better then cotton. What I noticed, they knocked down the saw noise a lot, but I didn't need to remove them to talk with the wife or my neighbor. Maybe because I only hear lower frequencies anyway and don't miss the high frequencies they attenuate.
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At the same family diner was a 5 year old unknown to me girl that took a liking to me, but I had great difficulty understanding her high pitched voice. Mikek
I was not suggesting carrying around a Hi-Fi amp. Merely suggesting that a Hi-Fi amp was capable of changing the frequency amplitude to suit the listener. And therefore showing that being able to suit the listener was not sufficient to say a device is a hearing aid.
Been there. Trying to find child size hearing protection is a bit difficult. With cotton, one size fits all. There's also foam, but we didn't have any handy:
Most DSP based hearing aids have a frequency lowering and frequency compression feature, which moves the high pitched female voice down in frequency to where you can hear and understand them. It's weird listening to a female talking with a male voice, but that's what it takes to fix the problem: More: If you listen to someone talking on a SSB (single side-band) radio and tune the receiver so that the audio is shifted down in frequency, you can get a rough idea of what it will sound like. There are also features in PC audio programs that provide the same effect. or:
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
You actually want a digital hearing aid with the right adjustments made for your hearing losses. I cannot understand why these are not available to US military veterans. I thought one of the few things that they could rely on after having served their country was decent free medical care.
Definitely get a decent quality digital hearing aid (or possibly a pair). Progress in digital technology pretty much kept pace with my father's failing hearing. He fired AA guns a lot during WWII.
Likewise. I see quite a bit of that. 65,000 colors available and the web designer uses all of them. To get around that, I use "reader view" in Firefox on sites that support it. On the keyboard, it's V followed by R.
For other web browsers:
However, many cluttered and badly designed web piles don't support reader view. There are some add-ons that allegedly will force reader view mode, but I hadn't tried them: "Is There a Way to Force-Enable Reader View in Mozilla Firefox?"
You can also use the "mobile" version of the web pile, which is optimized for use on smartphones and tablets with small screens. For example, is far more visible than the regular web pile. However, you may need to force your browser to identify itself as a smartphone. There are add-ons for that:
I don't have that problem at the markets that I frequent. This is a more common problem:
Yep. It's the old form versus function, or style versus content battles. As the internet becomes more consumerized, style seems to be winning.
I could tell that I was getting old when I began to enjoy watching Midsomer Murders:
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
They're available for free after an ordeal process that requires one prove to the VA (US Veterans Administration) that the desired features are needed and preferably that the hearing loss is service related:
The hearing aids supplied by the VA are top of the line:
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
YouTube, Netflix, Acorn TV, and Amazon Prime streaming on a Roku 3 player. Mostly Netflix. Acorn TV is all British movies and TV. However, not all episodes are available, and typically cost $50 to $100/year for each service. I do ok with YouTube and Netflix on my slow 1.5Mbit/sec DSL internet. However, the others require more bandwidth. There are also some not-so-legal ways of obtaining the movies, but I don't want to discuss those in a public forum.
Some random streaming links:
Foyle's War:
Midsomer Murders:
Amazon:
Britbox:
Roku channels:
etc.
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Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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