On Wed, 2020-11-11 at 08:58 -0800, ToddAndMargo via users wrote: > I have lost a lot of my high frequency hearing and > have tinnitus. Consequently, I have trouble > understand folks on the phone when there is a lot > of white or other background noise. Machine shops > are hell on me. Crappy cell phone audio does not > help either. > > I was thinking of using a dual ear headset on > my office phone. Two headphones would help block > out background noise. And I have used single ear > Panasonic headset before and liked their audio > quality. But I am not sure Panasonic has a > dual though. I'm in the same boat - tinnitus and can't hear anything above 15kHz, beyond the squeal of the horizontal output stages of old CRT TV sets. Ironically, the top audio frequencies transmittable on analogue TV and radio are the same (15kHz). Even those without tinnitus usually have some hearing loss of high frequencies with age, worse if they've worked in noisy environments. Headphones that cover both ears can significantly help in understanding speech. It helps with hearing problems, it helps block out background racket, and both sides of the brain are used independently in understanding speech with independent processing from each ear, so hearing things with both ears really helps, too. And using a speakerphone can be useful for anyone who finds it easier to understand speech when both ears can hear what's being said. By the by, even before my hearing started to degrade, I always found it easier to understand what people said through my left ear than my right ear, when using a telephone that could only be heard in one ear at a time. Connecting headsets and headphones to telephones can be difficult, at least with traditional landlines. They often have no socket for it, and require specific impedances, and types of microphones. But when it comes to mobile phones, it's easier. Many gaming headsets can be used directly (bluetooth or plugged in), and while some may be bass-boosted for more gaming excitement, many of them are optimised for speech clarity. I found the Sennheiser GameOne headsets good for comms, though they aren't cheap. If you're lucky, you could have an office phone with a general purpose headset connector. Otherwise, you can unplug the handset, and plug it into a buffer amplifier between the phone and a headset. In my field, most comms headsets have a dynamic mike, and they definitely need a buffer amplifier to be able to used with telephone systems (which invariably use a DC powered electret condenser mike). Getting yourself one of the expensive mobile phones can help a lot with audio quality, but of course that won't help when the other side of the call is using a lousy phone. A friend bought one of the $100 Nokia phones a couple of years back, and that had terrible sound. Whenever he rang me it was very hard to hear what he said, and it used sound level muting to try and cut out background noise. It only transmitted loud audio, so if he spoke quietly, or moved too far away from the mike, it was extremely muted. I got really sick of continually telling him to get closer to the phone throughout every phone call. -- uname -rsvp Linux 3.10.0-1127.19.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Aug 25 17:23:54 UTC 2020 x86_64 Boilerplate: All unexpected mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted. I will only get to see the messages that are posted to the mailing list. _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
