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Stick THAT in Your Ear

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About seven years ago, my mother decided to move into a retirement community and has been living there ever since that momentous decision. I say momentous only because most decisions my mother makes come after long hours, days and months of weighing all her choices and options concerning the required decision. She is meticulous in her research regarding her preferences and all the alternatives are explored in depth, again and again, over and over until she manages to narrow the fine point to a very fine point.
Getting an Earful

 

One of the methods she employs to narrow the fine point of any decision is to run it by her family, friends, acquaintances and even strangers she meets on the street. It's a process that enables her to debate all sides of the argument, either for or against the resolution at which she is required to arrive. Therefore, I was a bit shocked to learn that she purchased a hearing aid without discussing it with me first.

 

As much as she did drive me a bit nuts other times by asking for my opinion and then refuting whatever I said, I did enjoy giving my opinion, and once or twice my judgment would even be accepted.

 

Usually she would ask me about things of which I know absolutely nothing. Cars, homes, curtains, retirement homes, stock options and whether or not she should be cremated or buried have been topics of discussion with my mother. I am opinionated, but definitely not knowledgeable regarding these subjects, and these conversations would mostly end with notable frustration on both our parts.

 

Now, even though hearing aids are not in my scope of expertise, I am surprised that my mother did not consult with me in regard to her purchase. After all, unlike some of the other topics she has discussed with me, here is a subject that is at least remotely related to what I do. Be that as it may, my mother went out and purchased a very expensive, top-of-the-line hearing aid, and, coincidentally, she received her hearing aid on the same day that my very first pair of personal monitor molds arrived. Go figure.

 

Similarities and Differences

 

Since it appears that my mother and I are on a parallel course of sorts, I would like to take this time to point out some of the similarities and differences of our respective situation: She wears her hearing aid in both ears; I wear my molds in both ears; we both went to an audiologist; her audiologist tested her and measured her hearing loss, but did not shoot her ears for a mold; my audiologist did not test my hearing and shot my ears for molds; her "buds" are, to my knowledge, not fitted specifically for her ear canal, whereas mine are an accurate measure of my ear canal; her aid does not have a noise isolation of -26dB when in her ears, while mine does provide that feature; her aid requires batteries and has a microphone and amplifier built into the processing unit; my molds are passive and connect to an audio source such as a belt pack or iPod; her aid is tuned to her hearing and has one driver per ear while mine are not specifically tuned to my hearing, but each of mine has six tuned armature drivers in each mold; her aids are discreet and barely noticeable while mine are cranberry red and fill my whole ear; she paid a lot of money for her hearing aids, and while mine are relatively expensive to buy, they were given to a few of us at S.I.R. for evaluation by the company, Ultimate Ears.

 

Getting Acclimated

 

My mother is a classical pianist and is still adjusting to playing piano with her aids in her ears. She says it sounds brittle, but she only has a volume control at her disposal and not an equalizer, so when she plays, she turns her aids down or takes them out altogether. My assumption is that they tuned her aids to compensate for high frequency hearing loss and probably gave a boost at 1k and above to help her hear speech. After years of hearing herself play with a dip of 3dB at 1k and above, I would assume it would take a while for her to get used to hearing those amplified frequencies once again.

 

Her audiologist recommends that she leave her aids in while playing so that she can acclimate herself to the sound, and that once she does get used to hearing music with all its restored frequencies, it will be difficult to play without the hearing aid.

 

UE generously gave me two sets of IEMs to evaluate, with the one model being the 18 Pro and the other model being their newly released "In-Ear Reference Monitor." UE has quite a variety of different models ranging from those with a dual armature speaker to the 18 Pro which has "six individually tuned drivers in each ear," and I regret that I cannot hear them all and A/B them to each other to aurally compare the differences, but that said, I am enjoying the experience with the molds I now have in my possession.

 

From what I understand, other than the amount of drivers in each mold, some of the variables between models include frequency response, input sensitivity, impedance and noise isolation, not to mention the different equalization curves of each one.

 

The spec sheet for the UE 18 Pro model lists a frequency response of 20Hz to 18kHz with a noise isolation of -26dB, whereas the UE In-Ear Reference Monitor frequency response is noted as being 5Hz-17kHz with the noise isolation rated at a -32dB. While I could use and get used to each of the UE IEMs, I must first say that I probably don't hear – at best – below 50Hz or much above 13kHz, nor have I heard a great difference in isolation between -26dB and -32dB.

 

After taking some time to A/B the two sets of ears, I do think that the UE reference monitor has a flatter response than do the 18 Pros. I would rather use them for mixing and use the 18 Pros for when I am on stage and playing since there seems to be a bit of a boost in the low mids in the 18 Pros, thereby adding a bit of warmth to the sound. Personally, I would opt for the ambient feature which allows for some of the stage volume to bleed through, but only for the 18s and for onstage work. I wouldn't want bleed in the reference monitors, as I like the isolation when I mix.

 

The Occlusion Effect

 

Like my mother with her hearing aid, most musicians have trouble at first adapting to wearing ears on stage due to the isolation, which often causes something called the occlusion effect. The occlusion effect is akin to sticking your fingers in your ears and trying to sing. This effect is the main reason singers take off one headphone in the studio. or remove one IEM on stage.

 

I have spoken to quite a few people who swear by their UE ears and others who swear by different models, and I have seen monitor engineers who just swear, because they have four different sets of molds that they use so that they can mix for a band that is all on different sets of ears.

 

Technology impresses me, and as technology becomes more refined, we, as engineers or players, have to fine-tune our skills to keep up with the new and improved tools at our disposal. One thought I had while comparing IEMs is that many of us, due to the business we are in, are getting older and suffer from some form of hearing loss at one end of the spectrum or the other, and that the next step in IEMs would be to equalize each IEM in accordance with each user's hearing loss.

 

Blending in ear monitors and hearing aids for the aging soundman or musician might just be the next big thing for us baby boomers. I can see it now: In a few years, we will all be carrying a touch pad and mixing our own personal in-ear hearing-aid monitors. Eh?