http://theflowfieldunity.com/2008/02/04/hearing-not-listening/

What kind of malice? Someone tackling you, plugging their iPod into your head, and looping Lady Gaga into your cranium?

The device itself is one of the old analogue ones, which I think needs a bulky (and expensive) adaptor to do the iPod thing. It’s fairly ineffective when there’s a lot of high-frequency sound, and prevents the wearing of hats, but after a lifetime of semi deafness I’m glad I’ve got it.

There’s a site with audio files that gives you some idea of what they sound like; search for “cochlear implant audio” – you’ll get the House Ear institute as one of the top results.

It’ll be a while before these hit anything near audiophile standards.

Of course that also had a gun in it which would have pretty near instantly caused permanent Cochlear damage, rendering the ‘phone pretty useless.

Love Neil Stephenson though – congratulations to him on his recent Hugo. Must get round to reading Anathem…

Have to say that direct audio input for these devices is old old news, having been available on the analogue devices for approx 15 years…

Utter nonsense about it ‘shutting out background noise’, no matter how advanced no hearing aid (as yet) is patched in to the auditory pathway so they cannot know what you consider to be background noise at any given moment. All it has is a switch that gives a low frequency roll off and the same sort of phase-inversion noise canceling at low frequencies that you find on a £50 pair of headphones.

That said the people I fit these to frequently have their lives transformed. The evidence isn’t great for single sided deafness, those guys are usually fitted with CROS/BICROS aids that wirelessly route the sound from the dead ear to the better one, as with #11 some people get little benefit but others really feel connected to the world again.

Why should I be limited to 200-5000hz by my hearing aid?
Why should I not enjoy the details of the surrending sounds?
Why could not the sound quality be much better in my hearing apparatus?
I am born deaf with 100db hearing loss, I speak good, but I cannot enjoy the music as much as I want.

That sucks. I love music.

Why it’s so important to “hear peoples talking crap” while the sound is so much more than talking. When I talk with peoples I only uses my hearing as a support, I cannot barely understand them trought hearing so I have to read at the lips. Thats is fine, as I am good, but I have not learned to LISTEN. It’s really beautiful to enjoy the sounds. The music made me more consicous of the sound, but it took me over 10 year before I became consious. For few years ago I heard the birds sing. It was a weird sensantion. :)

A small tip:
Put your hearing aid on T, and put on a good quality headphones (big with low impedances or a lot of power, the magnets have to be close to your hearing aid, bigger is better and gives a more open sound) and enjoy the sound. You’ll may have to play it louder than usually. It’s usually better than these crappy mono-sounding inductive loop who cost too much. I want a stereo sound! I want to learn to be better at hearing differences between left and right!

(Currently are I am playing from my computer connected from USB, to Beresford headphone amp with olds Denon AH-D750 who are slightly uncomfortable wearing on.)

Agree. According to my MD, cochlear/bone implants are a last-ditch effort for people who are really, truly deaf. If you aren’t, it’s much more likely to do harm than good.