I think you may have misread my post. I was suggesting a workaround for converting a “standard” hearing aid into one that would work for Honkytonk’s purposes. If you take a 110 dB input and physically dampen it by 20 dB before it actually reaches the microphone then you’re effectively giving the hearing aid a 90 dB input, which it should be able to handle just fine.
Again this is far from trivial (you essentially need to create your own gain matrix through testing and properly map it to one that already exists in the hearing aid), but should work in principle.
Agreed. This is far from trivial, and far from easy to do. As of right now, the only tested and practical method that I know of currently, is to use high gain/high slope microphones to withstand the high spl levels for musicians.
Agreed. This is far from trivial, and far from easy to do. As of right now, the only tested and practical method that I know of currently, is to use high gain/high slope microphones to withstand the high spl levels for musicians.
Cheers.
Will you perhaps consider here that you are talking about a different type of technology.
Conventional mics use a ferrous core which has a given mass and passes through the coil wrapped around it. At high input levels the mass starts to lag behind the sinewave of the input signal, thereby creating distortion.
Hearing Aids use electret condenser mics with an incredibly low mass diaphragm made of gold coated mylar.
THEY DO NOT SUFFER INPUT DISTORTION EVEN AT EXPLOSIVE LEVELS.
Um Bongo, you missed the point. I will explain myself again. For all who are reading, I am speaking of hearing aid microphones, not conventional for stage use.
Since you brought it up, I should point out that any microphone, electret condenser or otherwise, will be subject to distortion when exceeding its build characteristics and specifications. Everything has operational tolerances.
You are correct, a hearing aid microphone is designed to withstand extreme conditions. These conditions the microphone manufacturers speak of, are related to the construction of the mic to withstand severe environmental conditions, high resistance to mechanical shock, RFI and immunity, and overall good sound quality.
However, the microphones in most standard issue hearing aids were never designed to operate with low distortion at very loud input levels.
Therefore, a musician will likely get input distortion when using a standard hearing aid while playing an instrument on stage with his band, as he stands near numerous floor wedges and the drum set, while also being subjected to the front of house PA reflections from room acoustics and the sound of the crowd all going at the same time.
HonkyTonkJohn said it YET AGAIN that his hearing aids are producing an audible distortion, even after going through all your suggested tricks and tips.
What I am suggesting (though I am having a hard time understanding why you won’t accept it), is that there are all sorts of microphones that are used for hearing aids. Each has its unique characteristics. If you put the right combination of microphones into the right instrument, you will have a winning combination for HonkyTonkJohn’s application as was presented at the original post.
Wales, UK