Medgadgeteer On The Frontier

Functional implants for healthy people are going to be a huge hit when they get better. I would take one when the procedure is tested and safe. Yeah, we're becoming cyborgs and all that.

See also:
http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20040226.html

I completely beleive that eventually, optional augmentation of one's self will become common place. Instead of gettting purely superfical modifications, I'd like to think that embedding tools, or extra senses like the story above will appeal to a wider crowd.

I feel that these technologies are inevitable. I remember reading an article somwhere about Nike teaming up with Bausch and Lomb to create a new series of sports contact lenses. What happens when people can get a similar operation when they go in for lasik surgery? "For only $X more, we can add an auto -tinting feature to greatly reduce glare conditions..."

After reading the technical specs of the sound processors, I have to say that -personally- I find this to be a rather poor substitute for actual headphones, or intraaural phones.
First, the spectral range of the device is only 250-7kHz. This is rather lacking.
Second, distortion and noise are significant.
Other issues:
*The device requires a telecoil to feed the signal.
*Installing two would not provide anything resembling stereo separation.
*Current products do NOT provide a backwards channel for the device to act as a microphone.
*If you were to design you own sound processor to attach to the bone fixture, you would still not be able to overcome the stereo separation issue. You could, however, specify a bluetooth connection.
*Significant DSP power would be required to massage a given input signal to overcome the differences between the air conduction path and the bone condution pathways. You would have to develop a equalization map to do this.

Thanks for your post!

While I agree that the aural specs you pointed out for such sound processing devices are rather poor, I don't see any real limitations with raising the bar with my own.

About the telecoil, I thought it was an optional add-on that allowed the use of telephones, tv's, and other devices used to broadcast sound through an electromagnetic medium. While this is an excellent technology for those with hearing problems, I don't think I'll be needing it. (Although, being able to "hear" EM waves and frequencies would give me a similar sense like the man in the first post linked us to... On the other hand, maybe not, that annoying clicking whenever I'm using my cellphone tends to drive me nuts.).

I don't mind having single channel sound, and again, current products are not what I am looking for. I don't imagine there will be a whole lot out there that I'll be using straight off the shelf. This is a personal experiment, with lots and lots of modifications (and warranty voidings..) of current technology. (I actually think with enough experimenting, there might be a way to trick the sound to bounce around, giving the illusion of stereo sound. I don't see why it wouldn't work, and the only way I'll find out is by trying.)

Bluetooth is only the first step for me. It's the most accessible across all of the gizmos that I use (and i can pick up a bluetooth headset kit for less than $100.), and it's relatively easy to get information on programming for it. I'm already thinking of basic radios, and frequency scanners, and all sorts of fun little toys to play with.

As to the digital sound processing, well, that sounds about right. While I thought it might be cool to overcome sound already travelling to the ear through the air, the mechanics are somewhat lacking. I think of it as a +/- issue. If a sound (+) is irritating to me, then i simply play it's negative (-) and they cancel eachother out. The differences in speed and amplitude between the inside of my skull, and the outside air are a bit beyond me at the moment. But with a little work, I'm sure I can understand it a bit better.

Again, thanks for your interest, and these are all very valid points. While I could not find any actual specs at the moment regarding sound qualtiy, I did find that some of the current BAHA devices from Entific can transmit up to 70Db, which I'd imagine could more than take care of what I am looking for.

Plaid,

I have to contend on a couple points of yours. As far as the range of sound, it is good enough for voice (the most important use for the guy wanting this i would think) and most music. sure you won't get the deep bass and the high highs. but you don't get it in a lot of audio devices. also a lot of consumer devices overstate their abilities (magically they're all 20-20,000Hz). medical devices are tested for truth.
As far as stereo separation, I don't necessarily see it as a negative. STAX headophones, some of the most expensive on the market, sell their headphone amps with channel mixing built in, so that the left ear has some audio from the right ear mixed in. Its basically a mix between mono and stereo in a way. They do this because if you are listening to music, things should blend in in your ears as they do when you listen to music through speakers, since studio recordings are recorded for speakers.
So that's that. I don't know about the quality and the interference issues though.

Cheers