Bounty Hunter Hearing

[audioguru]

Audio Technica makes fairly small directional electret mics. They have ports where sounds can reach the rear of the diaphragm and cancel sounds from the rear and from the sides.

 

[BrownOut]

Cool! I'm thinking it is better to adapt a working device rather than trying to make my own. MrDeb, I already have hearing aids. I wrote earlier that they actually hinder my hearing in noisy environments. I'm beginning to think: what if I used a shotgun mike along with the t-coil in my hearing aid, while the hearing aid is set up for directional hearing??? That would seem to square the directionality.

 

[MrDEB]

Look at this link

Starky hearing aids has this unit which is very directional
has 6 mics that you wear on a necklace that is connected to the telicoil in the hearing aid device.
I posted a link for electronic goldmine semines hearing aid mics.
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2009/09/j2001amicrophone-1.pdf

 

[BrownOut]

Think they could make that necklace little more hideous! LOL!

 

[MrDEB]

Looks kinda large

wonder just how large it really is.
I was playing with the idea that using the mics from
SMD Microphone (Pkg of 2)-The Electronic Goldmine
then building such an array but put the amp, filters etc into the same holder as the mics.
run a wire from the array to the Ipod sunglasses/earphones.
put tubes around the mics to make directional.
have a second pair of mics mounted in the rear of the glasses and ability to turn on n off the rear mics which have tubes for directionability.

 

[crutschow]

You've got a point, but I think it is at least a fairly high directional mike, and the description is just poorly written. I'll order from a site that has a money back gaurentee.

If a mike isn't designed to be directional then they are usually omni-directional with only a slight difference in the front to back sensitivity.

 

[audioguru]

Tubes must be very long to make a microphone directional.
If a tube is 1 foot long (30.5cm) then 1kHz would barely be directional and frequencies below 1kHz would not be directional. Just very high frequencies would be focussed. The tube must have sound absorbing material along its inside so that reflections inside do not cause sounds to be picked up from the sides.

a microphone array (or a speaker array) cancel sounds at the sides due to the wavelength difference between a mic that is a little closer to the sound from a side than another mic that is a little farther away. If the phase is 180 degrees then they cancel. Reflections of the sounds from walls, the floor and the ceiling reduce the cancellation.

 

[BrownOut]

If a mike isn't designed to be directional then they are usually omni-directional with only a slight difference in the front to back sensitivity.

I understand that. I'm saying that I believe this mic is designed to be directional for reasons that aren't pointed out in the description.

 

[audioguru]

The Super Ear microphone with a built-in amplifier might not be directional. They do not say it is directional. They say the microphone has multi-elements.

I would never buy a microphone that does not have any spec's and does not have a detailed datasheet.
My Audio Technica microphone has a frequency response curve and a graph showing its directionality at many frequencies. Its sensitivity is also spec'd.

 

[BrownOut]

This simple experiment ( see insert ) had convinced me that, although low frequencies are not much affected by tubes, higher frequency speech can easily be directed using tubes. HA!

 

[audioguru]

You will look very stupid with many pipe-organ tubes sticking out of your head.

 

[BrownOut]

But if you tickle my ribs, you might produce some pipe-organ music

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

The acoustical tube is nearly small enough to be worn. Poor directionality at low frequencies may not be a show-stopper, as hearing specialists well tell you that most of the information in speech is concentrated at the upper end of the audio spectrum.

Really? That's quite surprising. But do notice that the miniature microphone, as well as still being large, demonstrates poor directionality at frequencies less than 1kHz. Chances are you'll be able to pick out choir boys and blonde women but little else; I'm fairly confident that the majority of the tones present in my voice are well below 1kHz.


...That might have been totally out of context, I just noticed there are three pages and I only read the first. Sorry.

 

[BrownOut]

We've discussed where speech informaiton is found in the audio spectrum. Significant energy exists in speech up to 5kHz, and most of the information that makes speech understandable lies in the upper end of the speech spectrum. Most moderate hearing loss ( like mine ) is high-frequency loss. That's what makes speech so hard to discerne, even as hearing loss suffers can "hear" speech. The higher the frequencies in the specturm we try to repalce, the shorter the tube can be.

Speech is a very complex phnomenon. Actually, low voices like yours are the biggest problems for we who suffer high freq. hearing loss. You're voice is already lacking in higher clarity frequencies, and so is even harder to understand with moderate hearing loss.

 

[giftiger_wunsch]

I'm still young and have decent hearing so I'll take your word for it usually range of hearing narrows with age, at both the high and low ends of the spectrum, though given that humans can generally hear sounds as low as 20Hz, well below the deepest voice I've ever heard, it's the upper range that is more significant.

Still though, I remember using some PC oscilloscope software to analyse the frequency of my voice a while ago, and as I recall there was barely more than a flicker in the high frequency range you describe, so it's somewhat surprising that it can cause such a pronounced effect.

I also recall that the very highest note I was able to sing (or speak, but singing a note produced a easier to interpret result) was almost the same as the very lowest note I could whistle, and my whistling is perfectly capable of annoying older people with poor hearing

 

[BrownOut]

High frequencies are more pronounced in vowel sounds and a few considents. Lower frequencies give speech much of it's volumn, while higher freq's give it clarity. I didn't mkae this up. Did alot of research before I got my hearing aids.

 

[audioguru]

All the consonants sounds in speech are in the upper frequencies up to 14kHz.
Speech is hilarious when the unheard consonants are mixed up.

A telephone cuts off at 3.4kHz if you are lucky and many words are difficult to understand because most of the consonants are missing.

Polycom makes a speakerphone that uses two telephone lines for a response up to 7.8kHz for better clarity.

Speech heard on a good TV or FM radio goes up to 15kHz and is very clear for people with good hearing.

 

[MrDEB]

another fact about hearing

not to sound like a bigot but negros talk in the same pitch usually so its hard to understand them if you have hearing loss.
no up down pitch difference.
it makes a big difference.

 

[audioguru]

Many accents are very difficult to understand.
Southern US drawl, US hill-billies, English cockney and many other strains (have you tried to understand what the English announcers are saying during a Formula-1 car race?), Scottish and Irish, Australian and New Zealand, and many others.

 

[BrownOut]

Presonally, I have more than usual difficulty understanding non-US accents. I always attributed that to my poor hearing. I just think my hearing loss difficulty is exaberated when accents are present.