[bdp24]

I've wondered about this myself and about the utility of a multiband equalizer that a person could use to offset their hearing loss. For instance, if my hearing started dropping of at 13k so that it was -3dB@14k, -6dB@15k, -10dB@16K ... I could set the equalizer to be +3@14k, +6@15k,+10@16k ...

This would have to be strictly a one person system since it would probably sound weird to anybody else but would such a thing have any real value and even be practical?

Mike

Many equalizers create unintentional (and unwanted, of course) phase shift in the signal passing through them (steep filters "ring"). But regardless of that Mike, your logic on the use of an equalizer to counteract hearing loss in the listener suffers from a fundamental flaw, I believe. If one wants reproduced music to sound as live music does, it would be the listener's ears that need to be equalized (a hearing aid), not one's system. The same ears hear both the live sound and the reproduced. If you boost the high frequencies of an otherwise accurate system, it will produce sound different from that which instruments and voices naturally do. Since the same ears hear both the live and reproduced sound, the boosting of the high end response of the reproducing speakers only and not the source (the natural sound of instruments and voices) will create a disparity between the two, if you see what I mean. You want the speakers to treat all frequencies equally, regardless of whether or not one can hear all those frequencies. There is another issue involved with equalizers though, one discussed years ago in Audio Magazine. The relationship between the high-frequency equalization done to the signal, and the resulting sound of the direct output from a speaker versus the total high frequency energy (including reflected) in the room is not linear. Direct sound from the loudspeakers, and the sound reflected off the walls etc., must be treated differently, hence the necessity and correctness of acoustic treatment of listening rooms in preference to electronic---with an equalizer, the two cannot be separated. The exception to that is in the area of low-frequency room modes, which can be very well dealt with via electronics, in both amplitude and time domains.   

[JLM]

Yep, another aging audiophile.  Dad was always around noise on the farm and of course never wore protection, couldn't even hear crickets by age 50, but knew what each piece of the farm equipment was supposed to sound like and could hear something was wrong before any of us could.  So I've listed OSHA protection on my system profile and religiously use it. 

Love the charts, had previously saved the 2nd one.  Note how low harp goes!  I could quibble over the specified sub-bass and midrange driver ranges.  Michael, you've stumbled (back) to the single driver mantra: "Midrange is king".

But we hear with both ears (intake) and mind (interpret).  Come to find out a nearby elderly music professor had been "enjoying" a blown tweeter for years.  He was familiar enough with the music to fully extrapolate and reconstruct the event with much of the information missing.  Note that Beethoven suffered hearing loss starting at age 30 (died age 56).

Remember the game show, "Name that tune?"  With minimal information the mind can fill in the blanks.  But it can be hard work and if the music/performance is new/unfamiliar to us it becomes increasingly difficult.  This leads to one source of listener fatigue (another is trying listen through "mistakes").  Those intimately involved in music need less of a crutch, the rest of us untrained amateur audiophiles need/want help to learn/know what the musical performance was supposed to sound like.  Thus the purpose of high end systems.

I would at least try high frequency EQ (not sure digital has the same phase issues).  And surely I'd try that long before hearing aids.  Does anyone know the sound quality of hearing aids?

[S Clark]

I would at least try high frequency EQ (not sure digital has the same phase issues).  And surely I'd try that long before hearing aids.  Does anyone know the sound quality of hearing aids?

Hearing aids can be of excellent quality, but they aren't cheap; expect to pay >$5K.  They can get tonality and even imaging absolutely correct.

[Photon46]

Interestingly, the pool of engineering talents and manufacturing resources that have made Denmark a source of high quality audio manufacturing also have led that country to be a leader in high end hearing aids that do have excellent musical fidelity. I remember reading an article about Ortofon and the engineer the writer was interviewing mentioned how the two industries shared talented designers with experience in both types of audio technology. My wife has had a pair of high end Danish Oticon hearing aids and has been extremely pleased with their musical reproduction capabilities. (As S Clark mentions, they are unfortunately very pricey.)

[bdp24]

Interestingly, the pool of engineering talents and manufacturing resources that have made Denmark a source of high quality audio manufacturing also have led that country to be a leader in high end hearing aids that do have excellent musical fidelity. I remember reading an article about Ortofon and the engineer the writer was interviewing mentioned how the two industries shared talented designers with experience in both types of audio technology. My wife has had a pair of high end Danish Oticon hearing aids and has been extremely pleased with their musical reproduction capabilities. (As S Clark mentions, they are unfortunately very pricey.)

Finland too, the home of Gradient, who make the DSPeaker Anti-Mode products, and do a lot of research in acoustics. Gradient also was a pioneer in OB/Dipole subs, making one (very similar to the GR Research design, but without the Rythmik Servo circuitry) specifically for the Quad 63 loudspeaker.