What to Tell Audio Engineers About Equalizations for Their Hearing Loss

For audio engineers and musicians with high-frequency hearing loss, it’s not enough to simply boost frequencies to match their audiogram. By Marshall Chasin, AuD Say you have an audio engineer or musician come into your clinic who, after an audiometric assessment, you find has an audiometric notch at 4000 Hz of 50 dB of hearing loss and perhaps a 35 dB hearing loss at 6000 Hz, but otherwise has normal hearing....

Continue reading at Hearing Review →

Audiologists counseling audio engineers or musicians should understand that standard hearing-aid frequency shaping based solely on audiogram targets may be inadequate for this population; fitting strategies should account for the critical listening demands and monitor-level exposures unique to audio professionals.

Audio engineers and musicians represent a specialized patient group whose occupational listening needs challenge conventional amplification fitting philosophies, prompting audiologists to broaden their counseling and fitting approach.

1. 01Standard audiogram-based frequency boosting is insufficient for audio engineers with high-frequency hearing loss.
2. 02AuD Marshall Chasin provides practical counseling guidance tailored to musicians and audio professionals.
3. 03Audio engineers require precise high-frequency hearing for professional monitoring tasks, complicating typical fitting approaches.
4. 04Audiologists are advised to factor in occupational listening demands when selecting and programming hearing devices for this group.
5. 05The piece highlights a gap between standard clinical practice and the real-world needs of audio professional patients.