An Interesting Trip to the Audiologist

In-The-Ear (ITE) Hearing Aids

I mentioned in a prior post about my hearing aids that I wasn’t 100% happy with them. This morning, I went for my 3-month follow-up, and I complained to the audiologist that they messed up my pitch perception to the point where I just had to take them out in order to play either the violin or the piano. She seemed puzzled by that, and wanted to know if I wanted to give up on hearing aids for now. Since they do help quite a bit at work, especially in meetings, I told her I would stick with them.

I also have some other things I wanted to get adjusted. For instance, the T-Coil mechanism did not seem to be properly adjusted. Whenever I put my cellphone up to my ear, the volume went to maximum in both hearing aids, which I found to be disconcerting and uncomfortable. But the Bluetooth neck-loop adapter I bought didn’t work at all. We played around with that for a while, and then the audiologist called the hearing aid manufacturer, and learned that I needed the option remote control in order to get the two devices to work together. So I requested her to put that on order, which she did.

This is the Bluetooth Neck Loop Adapter I bought through Amazon

As we were wrapping up the session, she asked if there were any other things about the hearing aid that I thought to be strange. There was. I noticed that when I am wearing the hearing aids, the beep that sounds when I set the house alarm seems to ‘warble’ instead of sounding a clear, steady tone. It was like there was some sort of frequency shift occurring, resulting in a noticeable distortion, probably a beat-frequency. She asked if the beep was high-pitched or low-pitched. It is high-pitched. She said, “Oh, yes. These units shift the higher frequencies down so you can hear them better.”

DOH! **FACEPALM**

I really wish I could find an audiologist who was also a musician. A musician would have known immediately what the problem was. This is something I teach to all of my beginning students, about the time when I explain to them why the process of tuning in fifths by playing two strings at once is the fastest, easiest, and most accurate way to tune the instrument because of the beat frequencies in the upper harmonics.

I explained to her about using beat frequencies in the upper harmonics on a violin to accurately adjust pitch — when those harmonics “beat” it means you are out of tune. All good violinists (and just about every other kind of musician) use ‘ring’ and ‘beat’ frequencies to stay in precise tune, either consciously or subconsciously. Since the hearing aids caused pretty much everything in the upper harmonics to beat, I was subconsciously (and unsuccessfully) trying to adjust. Net result, I was confused and playing out of tune. It’s really hard to even express just how frustrating that was.

She removed the frequency-shift program. I gave them a try this evening, and I noted that the problem was still there, but not quite as bad. I will be going back in two weeks, and next time, I’m taking my violin with me. Maybe this time I can get everything adjusted to my liking — or at least closer!

Postscript: For those of you breathlessly awaiting the start of my sweepstakes, I have picked out the prizes, and I am getting things ready. But I probably won’t have time to get everything ready until after Thanksgiving.

This entry was posted on November 16, 2011 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Backstories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.