AES Berlin 2017
Paper Session P17
P17 - Hearing Aids and Preservation
Monday, May 22, 11:00 — 12:00 (Salon 2+3 Rome)
Jan Berg (Chair)
P17-01 Do In-Ear Monitors Protect Musicians’ Hearing?
Arne Nykänen (Presenting Author), Jan Berg (Author), Tomas Johannesson (Author), Magnus Löfdahl (Author)
In-ear monitors for live performances are commonly considered to give better sound quality than loudspeaker monitors. They are also often assumed to reduce sound exposure. Because of lack of evidence for this, sound exposure for pop/rock/jazz musicians was compared between performances with in-ear and loudspeaker monitors. Equivalent sound pressure levels at the musicians’ ears were 94 to 105 dBA with loudspeaker and 86 to 108 dBA with in-ear monitors. Many participants used earplugs when using loudspeaker monitors. Therefore, the recommendation, from a pure hearing protection perspective, is to use loudspeaker monitors and earplugs. However, the large spread in levels between musicians using in-ear monitors suggests that with better training and measurements of sound exposure, in-ear monitors could be used safely.
Convention Paper 9773
P17-02 An Open-Source Audio Renderer for 3D Audio with Hearing Loss and hearing Aid Simulations
Maria Cuevas-Rodriguez (Presenting Author), Carlos Garre (Author), Daniel Gonzalez-Toledo (Author), Luis Molina-Tanco (Author), Lorenzo Picinali (Author), David Poirier-Quinot (Author), Arcadio Reyes-Lecuona (Author), Ernesto de La Rubia-Buestas (Author)
The EU-funded 3D Tune-In (http://www.3d-tune-in.eu/) project introduces an innovative approach using 3D sound, visuals, and gamification techniques to support people using hearing aid devices. In order to achieve a high level of realism and immersiveness within the 3D audio simulations, and to allow for the emulation (within the virtual environment) of hearing aid devices and of different typologies of hearing loss, a custom open-source C++ library (the 3D Tune-In Toolkit) has been developed. The 3DTI Toolkit integrates several novel functionalities for speaker and headphone-based sound spatialization, together with generalized hearing aid and hearing loss simulators. A first version of the 3DTI Toolkit will be released with a non-commercial open-source license in Spring 2017.
Convention Paper 9774