The Hearing Blog

July 13, 2010

Series on FM: Soliciting User Experiences&c.

 The project of rating two new digital FM systems, the Bellman & Symfon Audio Domino (PDF w/specs) ($495 street)  and the Etymotic Research Companion (specshow it works) system ($699 street w/three transmitters and ER-6i isolator earphones) is turning out to be a three-part series of articles, taking much more time than I expected… And I am soliciting comments on any FM system about your user, parent, teacher or hearing healthcare professional experiences — Good .AND. Bad. Please post your experiences in either the Comment section below, or email them to me at Dan@Snip.Net

The first of the three will be how and why FM — When it’s done properly — is a tremendous help to the hearing impaired and others, from infants & toddlers receiving auditory therapy, to children (including those with cognitive impairments), to high school & college students in large classrooms & lectures, to adults on the job, and in noisy social situations, to the elderly watching TV.

Most of the first article in this series will center upon the discussion on these 4 pages in Jamie Berke’s About.Com Deafness Forum.  [And Yes, the story about the beer is true!]

The second article in the series will deal with the situation when FM is .NOT. done properly, and interference or other issues result. Phonak’s FM system appears to be a serial offender, but there are other culprits. This article will go into the techno-details on things like multipath distortion vs dropouts, transmitter power, and other things a computer geek or Ham Radio operator would understand… So the challenge is to make it readable for the average parent.

The third article in the series will be test results from these three systems:

§ The Bellman & Symfon Audio Domino (PDF w/specs) ($495 as tested with earphones) is a flexible single transmitter system, with excellent audio quality, decent range, and highly directional microphones on both the transmitter & receiver;

§ The Etymotic Research Companion (specshow it works) system ($699 as tested with three transmitters and ER-6i isolator earphones) ships with either one or three transmitters, and is the only system (besides the Phonak DynaMic extension to the troublesome Inspiro) that provides many-to-one capability;

§ The Comfort Audio Contego ($795 as tested w/neckloop) is a single encrypted transmitter system; and was screened by the author at the HLAA Convention in Milwaukee.

As they say on the news, Stay Tuned!


Short URL for this page: http://tinyurl.com/FM4ALD

June 25, 2010

Hearing Loss Ass’n of America Convention summary (updated)

The annual convention for the Hearing Loss Association of America wrapped up Sunday morning, following a busy three days of meetings, workshops, speeches, receptions, and a symposium.

Shortly, I’ll be posting the revised and extended notes from the workshop Martha Jones CCC-SLP and I presented on (class)room acoustcs.

There were a few Cheers and Jeers at the Convention worth mentioning:

Cheers to audiologist Tina Childress: She saw the CI processor blinking light on a little old lady sitting next to me, came over, and troubleshooted it, including swapping out coils with her own.

Jeers to HLAA executive director Brenda Battat, who preaches installing loop induction systems (which do .NOT. work well)… But only two of the meeting rooms had loops! The convention center ballroom, where the keynote and hearing aid technology symposiums were held, and the banquet hall in the hotel did .NOT. have loops installed, instead relying on wide area infrared ALD’s (assistive listening devices).

Cheers to Williams Sound for donating the wide area infrared ALD systems actually used. Gee, I wonder why it worked so well?!

Jeers to the unidentified vendor supplying the induction loop ALD system for the reception in the Harley-Davidson Museum: It was not set up properly, since it was too weak; and also there was no high frequency boost to compensate for the steel decking below the concrete floor, the roof decking, and the perforated sheet metal walls.

Cheers to Patricia Trautwein of Advanced Bionics, who booked a much quieter venue  for their reception this year. Sound meter readings were in the 70-75 dBa range, which makes it easier for the hearing impaired.

Jeers to exhibitor Phonak for not having their new Dynamic Soundfield system in their exhibit booth, even though their US headquarters is only 90 minutes away near Chicago.

Cheers to my co-presenter Martha Jones, CCC-SLP for putting on a superb first half of the From Mouth to Ear: Acoustic Architecture, Assistive Listening Devices and New Room Acoustical Standards Workshop.

Jeers to Hearing Aid Research & Development Symposium moderator Dr. Catherine Palmer of Univ. of Pittsburgh: When a fellow Member complained about how her audiologist was not competent in helping her set up ALD’s, she (Palmer) made excuses for the professional incompetence, rather than offering to investigate. In fact, it is incumbent on professors just like her to assure that their audiology schools graduate professionals who are competent in dispensing hearing aids & ALD’s. If these “professionals” can’t — or don’t want to — do the job properly, then they should get out of the business. And if these Ivory Tower professors and schools can’t — or won’t — weed out these inept students, then they should lose their accreditation.

Cheers to HLAA’s Nancy Macklin, flying solo for the first time, for putting on a successful convention, and working to contain costs for the Members.

Jeers (again) to Hearing Aid Research & Development Symposium moderator Dr. Catherine Palmer of Univ. of Pittsburgh: The top hearing aid engineer in the world was only 90 minutes away, yet the Big Bald Guy wasn’t even invited. Besides the late Sam Lybarger, Mead Killion has probably helped more people hear better than anyone else in the industry.

Cheers to the management at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee for keeping the temperature at a comfortable 72 degrees (I measured): This was much more pleasant than the noisy, hot & humid Opryland venue last year.

Jeers (yet again!) to symposium moderator Dr. Catherine Palmer of Univ. of Pittsburgh: This time for her poor quality control in allowing one of the seven hearing aid manufacturers (not Phonak or Starkey) to show a five minute movie to the Members without captions! This is the Cardinal Sin, coming in front of an audience of over 500 hearing impaired users, yet not captioning their video. #FAIL!

Cheers to AOS President and crack cochlear implant surgeon John Niparko, MD, incoming AAA President Patricia Kricos, PhD, VA Chief Audiologist Lucille Beck, PhD and IEC Chair Conny Andersson for taking time out of their busy schedules to fly to Milwaukee to address our Convention. Second cheer to Pat Kricos for spending parts of three days and conducting a workshop: She “gets it” with her excellent attitude towards us in the hearing impaired community.

~edited 11:30PM 6/27/2010

June 13, 2010

Hearing Loss Association of America Convention

There are many reasons to attend this year’s annual Hearing Loss Association of America Convention in Milwaukee, June 17-20. Yes, there are 19 hours of workshops that offer 1.9 CEU’s for ASHA & AAA (and by extension, IHS for hearing aid dispenser licensure) — And some of these workshops are hosted by the likes of Pat Kricos, PhD, Sam Trychin, PhD, and even crack CI surgeon John Niparko, MD, from Johns Hopkins.

All that being said, Christie Nudelman wrote a brilliant blog entry on her experience at her first HLAA Convention, last June at Opryland. Rather than opine, I’ll let Christie say it in her own words:

My First Time at an HLAA Convention

By Christie Nudelman

Last year I attended the HLAA convention in Nashville for the first time. I was the proud recipient of a grant from the Rocky Stone Scholarship program. This was a GREAT to help me offset the cost to get my feet wet with HLAA.

You see, I joined HLAA, Boulder chapter, in March 2009 for my first meeting ever! I got information about the conference and I wanted to connect with others LIKE MYSELF. I heard there was an effort to get younger people to attend, in addition to workshops and fun activities; so I said why not? The conference venue was amazing in itself. It was HUGE, too!

The schedule of events allowed you freedom to attend what you wanted, when you wanted and then some (i.e. after hours get-togethers). The keynote speakers were great, the workshops were well thought out and the parties were always fun! In addition, the people were all so amazing and accepting. At the conference, you are amongst a “like kind” – they don’t ask you about “your accent”, or look strangely at you when you ask them to repeat 3 times! I was amazed to be around so many people who “got me” – they understood me and I could just be myself! I remember one profound moment when I was in the exhibit hall trying out the CapTel phone and I called my mom. I told her, “I feel like I found a home here at this conference!”

Key takeaways I got:

You have to go to her blog entry to see what she took home!

Now, back to those workshops. As it turns out, Martha Jones, MS, CCC-SLP and I are hosting the workshop on (class)room acoustics this Thursday at 1PM, titled From Mouth to Ear: Acoustic Architecture, Assistive Listening Devices and New Room Acoustical Standards (click link for syllabus). What works out well is that Donna Sorkin, PhD is teaching What Children with Cochlear Implants Need at School (Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5); which is a nice primer to what Martha & I will be teaching.

Hope to see everyone in Milwaukee in just a few days!

Welcome to The Hearing Blog!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Supervisor @ 2:02 pm

Welcome to The Hearing Blog! I’m Dan Schwartz, your host; and we will be discussing issues related to Hearing and Deafness, with the occasional detour into related topics such as acoustics, noise control, and high fidelity audio. In short, if it deals with sound, then it’s fair game!

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