Both of my ears have a different perception of pitch lol.

@XerTheSquirrel omg I i need to know more xD. As an autistic audio engineer with a fascination about how we percieve sound, i could ask so many questions omg.

Just like, is this an all the time thing?

@eclectic It is all the time yes! The pitch in my right ear is higher. If I play a 440 Hz sine wave in my hearing aids for both my ears, my right ear has a distorted sine wave and it sounds like a rapid change in pitch going up and down I guess?

If I do a square wave, I think it goes up an entire note on my right ear.

@eclectic I guess for my right ear, I guess it is called a beat or something? Like the sine wave on my right ear has binaural beats.

But I am not an audio engineer and I do not know much about audio.

@XerTheSquirrel fascinating! 🤓

Have you talkes to your hearing aids team about it? This could be an issue with calibration, but if its not its friggin cool!

Does this then further affect the music you like? For example, would it be harder to listen to music heavily based in square waves as the pitch would be off?

Thanks for sharing btw, this is so frickin cool

@eclectic I have not talked to them at all, it is not really much of a concern for me at all. With my hearing aids off, my right ear is still higher pitched. It is more noticeable with hearing aids on due to the amplification of sound to normal.

As for music, it does not really affect me at all since I am used to it. I listen to it regardless, but I had to get used to hearing aids since everything used to be dull sounding.

@eclectic I suppose that there is Tinnitus as well, but I lived with it my entire life and it has never bothered me. It just feels normal to me.

@XerTheSquirrel ahh the devils screech. I do not enjoy tinitus, no i do not!

Its weird being partially deaf and also an audio engineer lemme tell you. (Not just tinitus wither)

@eclectic I can understand how it could be annoying!

Ah, are you deaf in only one ear, if I may ask?

@XerTheSquirrel degenerative frequency loss :3. I dont hear above 10-12K so good... One side is better than the other. Its not enough to really impact my life, but enough to impact my work.

Wear soundproofing earbuds at concerts folx!

@eclectic Ah, I cannot hear beyond 10-12KHz as well, in both ears. I know for 12KHz the sound has to be like 90dB before I can hear it quietly.

My left ear hears much better than my right. My right ear is muffled, everything sounds like a blender even running water, pitch is off, and often times sounds like a dying cassette player. Although my right ear drum is not the perfect shape.

@XerTheSquirrel hmmm... Ive never really thought about how the world sounds... Its been a constant degradation since highschool (that hopefully i can lesten or stop with hearing protection) so i dont really have a good perception of the frequencies im missing...

I just know my meters and visualizers tell me there are frequencies playing even when i cannot hear them.

Sometimes speech gets a little mumbled if people look away from me, or if ive been in a loud enviornment for a while...

@eclectic I suppose the same thing is with me and mid-tones. Being with middle frequency hearing loss as well, I cannot perceive them over other sounds. How do I know about these? I was basically told last year about them. It is not something I can comprehend, but I do know it exists. I suppose something you never experience, is just an unknown for awhile.

Speech is easily muffled for me and I have processing issues for speech as well, requiring captions and such.

@XerTheSquirrel that makes total sense to me. I found out about my hearing loss when i was in college and complained about a constant ring, and when my professors were shocked that i couldnt hear tones well within my age groups range of hearing.

I just got confused one day when i got every answer wrong on a frequency range recognition test when the range was above 14.5k. They played some sounds and i had 0 perception anything had changed.

It totally makes sense to me how the brain just makes do even.

@XerTheSquirrel oh i super did, but I ended up in the top of my class at the end of the program anyways so i dont even give a what

@eclectic That is so stupid that you got points off for being completely incapable of something. But much congrats to passing!

@XerTheSquirrel thats so cool. Ima have to go look into this now, because my education would leave me to believe youd "have issues processing directional info and differentiating like sounds"

But like. Thats probably entirely based out of the understanding of a hearing person... And its also just fascinating to me that I didnt even think of this as a possibility, but yet its so easy to understand? Like yeah, obviously one ear could differ in tonal recognition from the other, they are independent parallel sensors!

Sorry this is hitting an intersection of a bunch of my special interests 😅

@eclectic It is okies! No worries!

For directional sounds, I do not feel like there are any issues with it. The brain will happily compensate for things. However, if I got the pitched corrected in my hearing aids I would have to get used to it again.

I suppose if one sound was played in one ear and another in the other, it would sound a bit different, I would just notice the pitch being different.

@XerTheSquirrel that makes sense. My professors were super shitty about the minds/brains ahility to form a new understanding of such things, and it got a bit burnt into my head.

And yeah! Thats what i mean by the ears being parallel processors! Many people think of hearing as one system, but really its two separate systems being used. Survival of the fittest and all, can still hear if one ear is bitten off.

Honestly it would be an interesting experience to have that split between the ears for a day. Just long enough to percieve it and reckon with it, but not long enough to get used to it. I feel as though it would train the ears to work more independently.

Sorry, that isnt to say that your hearing loss is "cool" or that its some kind of costume. Moreso that it would be a mindflip for a day.

@eclectic I definitely know that humans are very adaptable to many different situations, you just get used to everything. For things you cannot do, there are alternative solutions to it all.

It is fine, I have accepted that my hearing is not the best and is slowly going away. It does not bother me at all.

@XerTheSquirrel its a fucking cool part of being human honestly.

And yeah, its a hard thing to accept for sure. Im still struggling too myself, but im at peace with it.

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!