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Re: high frequency birding hearing aid



Dear List,

I too have high frequency hearing loss and have used a hearing aid product (in which I have no financial interest). It is called The Birder. It serves as a regular hearing aid and works very well in noisy social situations. I took my pair to UNC Hospitals Audiology Clinic and determined that they provided 30 db amplification at 6,000 hz. To put this in context, the high end digital hearing aids do not amplify beyond 4,000 hz. The birder claims to amplify to 15,000 hz, but clinical audiograms do not measure above 6,000. The birder amplifies, does not "pitch lower" to lower frequencies.

I have not tried the Song Finder Product so cannot do a side-by-side comparison of it to the birder.

I think that we as a group need to be careful about product endorsements by people who have a financial interests in their products .

If anyone is interested in additional information about The Birder feel free to contact me directly.

Tom

Tom Krakauer
Bahama, Durham County, NC
tkrakauer@mindspring.com







At 07:06 PM 03/01/2003 -0500, Robin Carter wrote:
Hi C-Birders,

Lang Elliott has just posted the following announcement on the nature
recordists' email forum. I don't usually recommend products. Indeed I have
not seen this particular product and fortunately I do not need it yet. But I
do know lots of CarolinaBirders who complain about not being able to hear
birdsong. This product might help. It is not cheap, but check it out if you
need it. Lang is a very reputable guy, and I trust his claims.

Robin Carter
rcarter@sc.rr.com
Columbia, SC

If anybody in this group has high frequency hearing loss and cannot hear the
high pitched birds and insects, then you must check out the new SongFinder,
a Digital Bird Song Hearing Device:

www.naturesound.com/songfinder/songfinder.html

As many of you know, I myself have severe high frequency deafness and I have
been active for years in developing a solution to my own problem. The
SongFinder is the invention of myself and my engineer partner Herb Susmann.
It is designed for birders who are high frequency deaf but who can still
hold a conversation without using hearing aids. It takes high bird and
insect sounds in the 3-10 kHz range (and higher for the SongFinder Plus) and
then pitch-lowers these sounds into a range where one's hearing is normal.
There are three "divide-by" algorithms employed in the Basic unit: 1/2, 1/3,
and 1/4.

The device is absolutely amazing in the field. Utilizing a binaural headset
fitted with full range condensor mikes, the user is not only able to hear
the high bird sounds but is also able to determine the location of singers
in the surroundings. The pitch-lowered sounds are clean and natural, and
seem to come from "out there" in 3D space.