My 2010 Hearing Test… destiny awaits…

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Hearing Tests… an audio engineer/editor/mixer’s worst nightmare. Some people are too scared to even take it. It’s almost as painful as taking the SATs.

Well, AES in San Francisco this year had a couple of organizations come down to give free hearing tests… and of course, I took advantage of this and I AM NOT afraid to share my results (since they’re really good).

But before you look at my results, I have to set the stage for you. When I go to my regular audiologist every year for my hearing test, I sit in a small SOUND PROOF room. My headphones are gently put on, and I am handed the “red button of death” – which is nothing more than a button I can press when I hear any type of tone in my headphones. What I’ve just explained is how it should be. The key word here people is SOUND PROOF. Audio guys LOVE sound isolation. We do NOT like other sounds to interfere with our work.

Knowing that, this is how the hearing test at AES was set up. The company I chose to go with was ASI Health Services. ASI DROVE their jumbo truck off to the side of the exhibit hall (one giant room where all the manufacturers try to persuade you to buy their products). I walk in the truck where the examination was to be held and to my surprise, not one, not two, but THREE people were there to share the so-called “isolation” booth with me. Let me tell you, there was nothing isolated about that room. I actually heard people outside of the truck talking, and furthermore, I heard all of the demo music that the exhibitors were playing. Again, there was NOTHING about that room that was “isolated”.

Nonetheless, even with ALL the noise outside of the truck leaking into the “isolation” booth, my test results were great! I was still able to pick out the different tones the moderator outputted to my headphones.

I wonder how much better my results would be if I was in a completely isolated room, free from unwanted noise…

OK. NOW you can look at my results! Keep in mind that I blocked out some personal information from this document.