Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Cheapest way for accurate audiograms at home?

This topic is closed.

39 replies1.3k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic

Hello friends. I was looking for cheap solutions to make your at home. My hearing is fluctuating a lot (getting worse) and it would be costly to go and pay for audiogram every week or so. Any audio-engineers here? I want to have a discussion. I looked for some “professional” grade monitors (headphones) but they are like 350-500 USD or even more. This is out of the question. I do have the Audiotechnica ATH M50. They are studio monitors. Not very flat but maybe I can corect them with eq. I need a software suggestion also. I need a way to calibrate them. I need ideas. Any input is appreciated.

14 people in this conversation19 min readJump to latest
Edited

Do you have hearing aid and Noahlink Wireless v1 or v2? You can measure things like AudiogramDirect even daily, but I think it is too time-consuming.

Do not forgot saving your recent fitting in another “appointment” in the fitting software!

EDIT: Okay, I do know now that you don’t have yet. Nevertheless the insitu are good point to start when you get the device! Especially if you want to track the trend and changes.

However, keep in mind:

in-situ audiogram isn’t equal to tonal audiogram.

As others have said, in-situ if you have aids and the programming software .

If not , you don’t need fancy headphones. In fact , you should disable all features like noise reduction, equalizers, etc. just do the test in a very quiet environment.

I’ve found that Mimi, soundly.com25 and hearingtest.online can give you reasonable results. The last two allow you to calibrate the headphones before the test. Mimi is good if you have one of their listed headphones.

That said, nothing replaces a professionally done

@OcramSagev said:

I’ve found that Mimi, soundly.com and hearingtest.online can give you reasonable results.

This. The results should be close enough that it will pretty much be within the errors that will occur between repeated tests conducted within short intervals. It isn’t like measuring your height or weight. You can get on a scale and get pretty close results every time if the scale is a good one. The brain is involved. I think the detection level threshold is supposed to be at 50% level. Half the time you catch it there. Half the time you can’t yet catch it. Probabilities and the brain….

Your headphones are probably fine if Mimi or one of the other test apps can be configured for it.

Best wishes!

WH

I found this one to be accurate. Usually spot on to professional . Only for android though. I use cheap headphones and don’t calibrate them.

https://www.e-audiologia.pl/HearingTest/40

.Practice with it first, takes a few dry runs to get the hang of it.

Edited

Hi, I think a good starting point for you with your technical background would be to study the user guide for Phonak Target and if you are confident with it research the diy section on here.
direct would give comparative results as a starting point for adjustments.

OP doesn’t have hearing aids yet. They are having some troublesome hearing fluctuations, including decreasing hearing over a relatively short time, and hearing the same note as a different tone in each ear. I believe OP wants to monitor their hearing pending other diagnostic tests that they are on a waiting list for.

In reply to @michael1

yeah, you see I’m not sure I will go the Phonak way. I was tempted by in my city we have no representative, no nothing. Also I was more drawn to ReSound Savi. I need to buy a new device, and it must be cheap but not junky. I don’t know about Phonak entry models, but the ReSound Savi has pretty much anything less the part of speech identification. I wonder if the ReSound software has testing capabilities. I was thinking to a more straight-forward approach to the problem. The headphones I have are good but they are not flat. For making them flat I need to EQ-them but is not the same as they are naturally flat. The biggest problem is to measure correctly the output level since you need next to ideal conditions and very expensive toys. Calibration microphones (the real deal) come around 2000-3000 Euro. So is a dead end anyway.

@Bimodal_user yeah in situ testing is not like an unless you get the right gear and set it up correctly. the most difficult to acheive part for me is the soundproof chamber but you can test yourself at night when is perfectly silent.

@OcramSagev well you need fancy phones in the sense of FLAT phones. you want the same level respose from all the testet frequencies. if your headphones has a naturally +10dB at 250Hz let’s say and a dip of -25dB at 8Khz (not uncommon as you may think) then your online test is useless. Also the calibration method on some websites is very subjective. Like rubbing your hands in front of your face. Is better than nothing, but if you want as me to trace the degradation of your hearing is totally useless. The Mimi app is the best till a certain point. I have also the Sony FW1000MX5 which happens to be one of the headphones “supported” (calibrated for) in Mimi App. However, after a professional Audiogram, I took one fast with the Mimi app and I noticed is far off. Mainly in bass sounds you can’t trust it. Now imagine using some generic headphones they don’t have in profile. I try to be independed of giving them money. I had enough.

@OcramSagev LOL. I’m impressed my friend. They? Him… I’m a man. Yeah I want to see what’s what. By the way, I lost few db at 4Khz and 8khz. :frowning: I’m so upset! I wonder if I will ever find out what’s what till I go deaf. Is so discouraging. Before that, with the old audiogram (the one you see in my profile) I could hear a person speaking next to me (like my girlfriend in bed next to me), not in a loud place though. Right now with the new losses if I cover my “good” ear, I can’t hear what she says… like she’s 2 meters in front of me and I barely hear her like she’s whispering but I don’t understand a thing. I’m sooooo upset. So scared… Developed a pulsatile tinitus in my left ear. I read that circulatory in nature. Whatever man i can’t take it anymore really. The tinnitus from the deaf ear is blasting… Is killer. All day long I use an earbud blasting white noise and all kind of crap to supress it, but at night I wish I could sleep and be silence. I wonder what I did wrong? I’m not a bad person. I’m not the greatest but I’m never harmed others or did bad things. Only people in this condition can understand.

What about used aids and insitu? I assume you will eventually have to buy a noahlink to keep your costs down. Phonak and Oticon both have it, not sure about Resound or others. Once you get used to the procedure you will get comparative if not scientific results.
Dare i say it but many users get fitted using insitu and have acceptable (to them) results.
The last aids I connected to had been fitted using insitu and that was by a Boots audiologist!
Read Phonaks white paper on Direct.

@michael1 said:

Dare i say it but many users get fitted using insitu and have acceptable (to them) results.

I always got better results with insitu as my ear moulds fit deep. It created better settings on my hearing aids.
I preferred AudiogramDirect over a normal hearing test.

True! If bad people were punished promptly by the universe/the deity of one’s beliefs and good people were rewarded just as promptly, I suspect the world would be a very different place.

In reply to @samyaza

I think you meant perhaps to direct your “they” comment to me? In the USA, “Alex” (from your profile) can be either a male or female name, and I didn’t want to guess. :grinning:

As others have said, creating an is best done by an audiologist. BUT you can do quite well by yourself with cheap equipment, as many here have also said.

For most people, the main reason for hearing aids is to improve their ability to hear and understand speech. That means that the most important frequency range to test is 200Hz to 4kHz. Outside of that range, hearing loss will affect your love of music, but have minimal affect on speech recognition. So if you are trying to decide whether to get aids, that’s the region that is most important.

If you look at the audiogram of various users here, you will see that a lot of us have >>20dB of hearing loss at some frequencies. Any cheap headphones and computer sound card will play within 4dB in that range.

It is worth understanding that hearing test results will change if you give yourself the test often. You can subconsciously learn to beat the test, even though your hearing won’t be improving. So don’t get carried away testing yourself every week.

In reply to @AttilaDaPun

I went yesterday to make a new to see why my high sounds went down. Well, when the women in there she looked with the camera inside my ear she noticed liquid or puss behind my eardrum. How is it possible? She tested if I have ear drum reflex and yes, I do have the reflex, but she can’t make the audiogram because the result would be false. She told me to take 2 nazal sprays and re-skedule for 28/08/25. No wonder I felt pain in my right ear. That’s why I started using some eardrops. The first time when she told me “is liquid there” I was thinking that somehow the droppings found a way behind my eardrum. But then I realised a perfored eardrum would be observable right? More symtoms. Is the first time when I have liquid behind my ear drum. I wonder why. I’m so worried. I’m asking myself if is not a cancer or something.
@michael1 Yes … I need to buy also a noahlink. What you are not sure about Resound to have? As far I know Noahlink is used to connect all the Bluetooth capable hearing aids to their proprietary software right?
Having what? Testing your hearing capabilities?

Edited

I wasn’t sure Resound had insitu. Yes you are right about Noahlink wireless, it’s the industry standard.
Keep an eye on Ebay for a used one I got one for £60.
Checking the web gives ambiguous results for insitu in the Savi so lets ask @tenkan , the higher level model is clear that it has it.

In reply to @samyaza

@samyaza
Liquid or pus behind the eardrum is a common symptom of middle ear infection. Other common symptoms include muffled hearing/hearing loss and tinnitus (sometimes pulsatile tinnitus, too). You should probably have a doctor examine your ears to confirm otitis media and prescribe antibiotics (usually oral, sometimes by intramuscular injection).

Active discussions

What the forum has been talking about this week.