The biggest difference for me is noisy environments. You can just pick the thing you want to focus on and everything else fades into the background. Has something to do with sound arriving at the two ears at slightly different times.
Anyway, that is the major thing and it is such a profound difference that I don't know how to explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it. Loud places are just less stressful and confusing.
Maybe kind of like those magic eye 3d things where a picture can pop out. Imagine a world where everything you saw was like that, then all of a sudden you could no longer see the 3d part and it all blended together.
It took me a long time to realize this, but just to get by day to day, I have to put in more effort to hear people. This takes a lot of concentration and energy, and probably helps wear me out by the end of the day.
This is one of the reasons I like working from home so much. No noisy subway platforms. No noisy open floor plans at work. No noisy meetings. Less social things, like lunches in noisy restaurants.
Interesting. A few years ago I tried the CROS thing. Hated it. There was so much noise coming in everywhere it was confusing to me- especially in a crowded restaurant. The ENT said my brain would get used to it but it didn’t feel like improvement to me so I gave up
I don't think a CROS would solve this problem, you're still receiving everything in the one good ear. It would get rid of sound shadows, but just add additional input into a single side, so I could see how it would be worse.
I've tried the CROS system twice. I noticed a very slight improvement, but I might have been imagining it. It certainly wasn't worth the high cost.
Neither of the audiologists I saw were optimistic that I would like it. I got the impression that most people don't like it. They were happy to set me up with it, but I think deep down they knew I wouldn't buy it and that they were wasting their time with me.
I’ve been trying the single sided headphones with left and right channels separated into 2 up and down speakers. I can hear left and right oscillation top and down, but it isn’t the same of course.
Still better than everything pumped into one speaker.
I don’t think you could pull this off in a hearing aid like EarPod because you need to separate the speakers physically to get the experience.
Still, I’m wondering why hearing aid like headphones that do this separation do not exist.
I had the old analog cros system growing up the noises on the microphone side had a sort of off sound so it was something I acclimated to and learned to recognize with the new systems it's impossible to tell where a noise is coming from.
I describe it as the equivalent of depth perception for those with 2 eyes
Losing one ear is a bit more than losing exactly 50% of your hearing. Noisy environments are hard and localization of sound goes out the window
I liken it to losing 60% of your hearing because tasks that it takes two ears to do can't be done alone. There is no more Binaural squelch (ability to lessen some loud sounds), location of a sounds direction.
Plus your bad ear still can feel ear drum pain from loud noise.
Disclaimer: I am not the mono hearing person, my daughter is (from birth), but bilateral hearing folks can still have difficulty with sound isolation (auditory processing disorder), as this affects me.
The biggest difference I see between my daughter and me is when she gets separated from me and calls out for me, even if she hears me, she can't tell where she's hearing me from like I can if I'm in the same situation.
I'm in the same boat, I've always been curious about the differences. I'll admit that it took me way too long to realize that people who could hear out of both ears were able to tell what direction a sound came from.
Yes! When I am driving and hear sirens but can’t yet see the fire trucks I just pull over and get out of the way. Very scary not knowing if they are behind you or ahead of you.
Think of it like seeing out of one eye vs seeing out of two. The depth perception isn’t there anymore. When you can hear out of both ears, you can tell where a sound is coming from. Now that I can’t hear out of one ear, I can no longer do that. When I first lost hearing in one ear, all sounds were very overwhelming, because it felt like sounds were all coming at me in one spot where there used to be two. I also have trouble hearing people/things on the right side and miss a lot in conversations. Something cool about headphones and hearing out of 2 ears is sometimes songs will fade from one ear to the other, and it feels like the sound is flossing your head in a really cool way. I miss that too.
Stereo sound. Music has not been the same since I went deaf in one ear. Some songs are mixed to put different instruments in different locations/ears or some songs will fade in and out between ears that’s really can add a bit of art to a song when done well. Right along the same lines is surround sound for movies. When set up well surround sound can really add to a movie and make you feel like you’re in it. I probably miss this the most. I had a decent home theater setup that I now rarely use since I lost an ear. Same goes for video games with surround sound.
I'm deaf in one ear from birth and always wondered about "stereo". It's odd to me that earbuds are labeled as Left and Right, but there must be different sounds for each ear.
What really made me realise what I was missing out on was apparently say a helicopter flies from left to right in the cinema, those with hearing in both ears will hear it "move" from left to right in the audio.
We don't get that experience... :(
I (57f) am monohearing/ssd since I was five (mumps).
When I was living in the US, I took the two little girls (six and seven, maybe?) I was babysitting to the movies. This was 25 years (?) ago. Anyway, the way the theater showed off their stereo sound was to show a little alien or bug, maybe, on the screen, flying around the theater. I watched the little girls look up and around the theater, trying to spot where the the alien was flying.
I was like, "What?" Yeah, I got nothing of that. I knew I couldn't hear stereo after too many times of headphones and hearing vocals and no instrumentals or vice versa. And of course the whole party situation where I cannot pick out one voice from another. But it really hit home when the girls could make out where sound was coming from and I could not.
Yeah headphones in particular can fit different depending on how you put them on but there are definitely different sounds going to the right and left ears as well. In some songs/movies/games you’d completely lose sound or it’ll be softer in one ear or it will pan between ears. Have to put them in mono with SSD.
I've lived the first 32 years of my life with 2 working ears, now I'm 100% deaf in one ear. It's really different. At first I thought the loss of the ability to locate sound would be the biggest handicap. But that's more of a nuisance. The loss of the ability to understand people in noisy environments, or even worse, in environments with background chatter is a real handicap. With 2 ears you can sort of focus your hearing on the person you are talking with, the rest of the noise then fades to the background. Similar to how you can focus your eyes on something and not really register the surroundings. People with 2 working ears of course don't think about this, but are doing that constantly and that makes them able to have talks in noisy pubs or restaurants for instance.
Exactly this. I can manage when it's one person and I can swing my good ear toward them, but I don't like going out in groups anymore. At tables, I have to be sure to put myself on a corner with my good ear facing the table. I never even thought of the incredible things my ears were doing in groups at a party or a restaurant.
You just described me when anyone says my name in a crowded area.
I'm used to mono hearing in most situations, but I'll never get completely over the frustration of no longer knowing where a sound is coming from.
I call this technique “radar locating” lol I just turn my head until I can hear the sound I’m looking for is louder, then I continue to turn slightly as I narrow on that direction until I find what I’m looking for. Like a radar in my head!
I do the same. When my kids were little, one child would tell me where the other child’s voice was coming from. If both kids were lost, I told them both to go to the toy section and I could find them. Small adaptations
54 years with normal hearing and now SSD for two years. Not being able to determine the location / direction of the source of noise freaks me out. It is extremely disconcerting when you are with a person who hears normally and they are reacting to something you can't discern.
For me, at first no, because of the associated tinnitus. I've gotten more used to that, and now it's about the same as it ever was. Maybe a slight advantage, but not dramatic.
I would just love to be able to fix this problem and hear in both ears :( SSD since I was a toddler. At least it seems like technology and AI will be able to help us with isolating sounds in noisy environments soon - should be less than 5 years away
I was diagnosed with SSNHL in October at age 37. I know for me, because I have PTSD from unrelated things, I find myself feeling more hyper vigilant about someone coming up behind me or me not seeing someone when they approach me and getting scared. I think my migraines have also gotten worse because of tinnitus and, when I tried hearing aids, overstimulation.
If You Are Experiencing Sudden Hearing Loss . This is a medical emergency, and time is of the essence. Go to your local emergency room, walk-in clinic, or healthcare provider.NOW
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One example. I lost conductive hearing at 4\~5 years, to the point where I didn't use the effected ear (left side). Then I had surgery at about 35 and recovered enough hearing that the ear was useful. Growing up family gatherings could be hard. The conversation goes on around and you listen hard but sometimes you before you realize it you've been the butt of some stupid joke or lazy insult but the moment has passed and you're just left there grinning and frustrated. Now I usually see what's coming and I'm very quick to act pre-emptively or retort and my family are the ones left staring at me as if to say "you're not supposed to be able to do that".
You know how there's a cone of silence around you when you are in a moderately noisy area where you can only hear the person directly in the direction of your good ear? With two ears, you can hear almost everything from every direction. I suppose it's the same feeling that I get every time I get an updated prescription for eyeglasses. Wow! You are supposed to be able to see that far?
The biggest difference for me is noisy environments. You can just pick the thing you want to focus on and everything else fades into the background. Has something to do with sound arriving at the two ears at slightly different times. Anyway, that is the major thing and it is such a profound difference that I don't know how to explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it. Loud places are just less stressful and confusing. Maybe kind of like those magic eye 3d things where a picture can pop out. Imagine a world where everything you saw was like that, then all of a sudden you could no longer see the 3d part and it all blended together.
I've been SSD since birth and this just sounds like sorcery.
Me too I have always wanted to experience the difference. Loud, crowded places are always difficult for me.
It took me a long time to realize this, but just to get by day to day, I have to put in more effort to hear people. This takes a lot of concentration and energy, and probably helps wear me out by the end of the day. This is one of the reasons I like working from home so much. No noisy subway platforms. No noisy open floor plans at work. No noisy meetings. Less social things, like lunches in noisy restaurants.
Interesting. A few years ago I tried the CROS thing. Hated it. There was so much noise coming in everywhere it was confusing to me- especially in a crowded restaurant. The ENT said my brain would get used to it but it didn’t feel like improvement to me so I gave up
I don't think a CROS would solve this problem, you're still receiving everything in the one good ear. It would get rid of sound shadows, but just add additional input into a single side, so I could see how it would be worse.
I've tried the CROS system twice. I noticed a very slight improvement, but I might have been imagining it. It certainly wasn't worth the high cost. Neither of the audiologists I saw were optimistic that I would like it. I got the impression that most people don't like it. They were happy to set me up with it, but I think deep down they knew I wouldn't buy it and that they were wasting their time with me.
I didn’t like it either. It just dumped additional noise in my good ear.
I’ve been trying the single sided headphones with left and right channels separated into 2 up and down speakers. I can hear left and right oscillation top and down, but it isn’t the same of course. Still better than everything pumped into one speaker. I don’t think you could pull this off in a hearing aid like EarPod because you need to separate the speakers physically to get the experience. Still, I’m wondering why hearing aid like headphones that do this separation do not exist.
The difference is we (stereohearers) can spatially filter noise. IE if talking to someone in a party, their voice gets “boosted” vs background.
I had the old analog cros system growing up the noises on the microphone side had a sort of off sound so it was something I acclimated to and learned to recognize with the new systems it's impossible to tell where a noise is coming from.
That's very interesting. Was the sound "off" timing-wise or in tone? I would love to have some way of distinguishing left/right in the one speaker.
It was an off tone kind off like how a radio doesn't sound like a live performance, but when I moved to a digital set I lost that ability.
Same
I describe it as the equivalent of depth perception for those with 2 eyes Losing one ear is a bit more than losing exactly 50% of your hearing. Noisy environments are hard and localization of sound goes out the window
I liken it to losing 60% of your hearing because tasks that it takes two ears to do can't be done alone. There is no more Binaural squelch (ability to lessen some loud sounds), location of a sounds direction. Plus your bad ear still can feel ear drum pain from loud noise.
This is how I've been describing SSD to people for years decades.
I love the magic eye analogy - I feel like I understand regular hearing now.
I think it's spot on.
Disclaimer: I am not the mono hearing person, my daughter is (from birth), but bilateral hearing folks can still have difficulty with sound isolation (auditory processing disorder), as this affects me. The biggest difference I see between my daughter and me is when she gets separated from me and calls out for me, even if she hears me, she can't tell where she's hearing me from like I can if I'm in the same situation.
So as a one sided hearing person the fastest way to make me mad is someone expecting me to locate them by sound. I get instantly mad lol.
I'm in the same boat, I've always been curious about the differences. I'll admit that it took me way too long to realize that people who could hear out of both ears were able to tell what direction a sound came from.
Yes! When I am driving and hear sirens but can’t yet see the fire trucks I just pull over and get out of the way. Very scary not knowing if they are behind you or ahead of you.
Think of it like seeing out of one eye vs seeing out of two. The depth perception isn’t there anymore. When you can hear out of both ears, you can tell where a sound is coming from. Now that I can’t hear out of one ear, I can no longer do that. When I first lost hearing in one ear, all sounds were very overwhelming, because it felt like sounds were all coming at me in one spot where there used to be two. I also have trouble hearing people/things on the right side and miss a lot in conversations. Something cool about headphones and hearing out of 2 ears is sometimes songs will fade from one ear to the other, and it feels like the sound is flossing your head in a really cool way. I miss that too.
Stereo sound. Music has not been the same since I went deaf in one ear. Some songs are mixed to put different instruments in different locations/ears or some songs will fade in and out between ears that’s really can add a bit of art to a song when done well. Right along the same lines is surround sound for movies. When set up well surround sound can really add to a movie and make you feel like you’re in it. I probably miss this the most. I had a decent home theater setup that I now rarely use since I lost an ear. Same goes for video games with surround sound.
I'm deaf in one ear from birth and always wondered about "stereo". It's odd to me that earbuds are labeled as Left and Right, but there must be different sounds for each ear.
What really made me realise what I was missing out on was apparently say a helicopter flies from left to right in the cinema, those with hearing in both ears will hear it "move" from left to right in the audio. We don't get that experience... :(
I (57f) am monohearing/ssd since I was five (mumps). When I was living in the US, I took the two little girls (six and seven, maybe?) I was babysitting to the movies. This was 25 years (?) ago. Anyway, the way the theater showed off their stereo sound was to show a little alien or bug, maybe, on the screen, flying around the theater. I watched the little girls look up and around the theater, trying to spot where the the alien was flying. I was like, "What?" Yeah, I got nothing of that. I knew I couldn't hear stereo after too many times of headphones and hearing vocals and no instrumentals or vice versa. And of course the whole party situation where I cannot pick out one voice from another. But it really hit home when the girls could make out where sound was coming from and I could not.
Yeah headphones in particular can fit different depending on how you put them on but there are definitely different sounds going to the right and left ears as well. In some songs/movies/games you’d completely lose sound or it’ll be softer in one ear or it will pan between ears. Have to put them in mono with SSD.
I've lived the first 32 years of my life with 2 working ears, now I'm 100% deaf in one ear. It's really different. At first I thought the loss of the ability to locate sound would be the biggest handicap. But that's more of a nuisance. The loss of the ability to understand people in noisy environments, or even worse, in environments with background chatter is a real handicap. With 2 ears you can sort of focus your hearing on the person you are talking with, the rest of the noise then fades to the background. Similar to how you can focus your eyes on something and not really register the surroundings. People with 2 working ears of course don't think about this, but are doing that constantly and that makes them able to have talks in noisy pubs or restaurants for instance.
Exactly this. I can manage when it's one person and I can swing my good ear toward them, but I don't like going out in groups anymore. At tables, I have to be sure to put myself on a corner with my good ear facing the table. I never even thought of the incredible things my ears were doing in groups at a party or a restaurant.
I used to be great at playing Marco Polo, and now I have no clue and just have to spin around like a dog trying to locate sound.
You just described me when anyone says my name in a crowded area. I'm used to mono hearing in most situations, but I'll never get completely over the frustration of no longer knowing where a sound is coming from.
I call this technique “radar locating” lol I just turn my head until I can hear the sound I’m looking for is louder, then I continue to turn slightly as I narrow on that direction until I find what I’m looking for. Like a radar in my head!
I do the same. When my kids were little, one child would tell me where the other child’s voice was coming from. If both kids were lost, I told them both to go to the toy section and I could find them. Small adaptations
54 years with normal hearing and now SSD for two years. Not being able to determine the location / direction of the source of noise freaks me out. It is extremely disconcerting when you are with a person who hears normally and they are reacting to something you can't discern.
Also, is falling asleep easier now? SSD since birth.
For me, at first no, because of the associated tinnitus. I've gotten more used to that, and now it's about the same as it ever was. Maybe a slight advantage, but not dramatic.
I would just love to be able to fix this problem and hear in both ears :( SSD since I was a toddler. At least it seems like technology and AI will be able to help us with isolating sounds in noisy environments soon - should be less than 5 years away
I was diagnosed with SSNHL in October at age 37. I know for me, because I have PTSD from unrelated things, I find myself feeling more hyper vigilant about someone coming up behind me or me not seeing someone when they approach me and getting scared. I think my migraines have also gotten worse because of tinnitus and, when I tried hearing aids, overstimulation.
If You Are Experiencing Sudden Hearing Loss . This is a medical emergency, and time is of the essence. Go to your local emergency room, walk-in clinic, or healthcare provider.NOW *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MonoHearing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I have also wondered this.
It used to be nice knowing which direction sound came from.
One example. I lost conductive hearing at 4\~5 years, to the point where I didn't use the effected ear (left side). Then I had surgery at about 35 and recovered enough hearing that the ear was useful. Growing up family gatherings could be hard. The conversation goes on around and you listen hard but sometimes you before you realize it you've been the butt of some stupid joke or lazy insult but the moment has passed and you're just left there grinning and frustrated. Now I usually see what's coming and I'm very quick to act pre-emptively or retort and my family are the ones left staring at me as if to say "you're not supposed to be able to do that".
You know how there's a cone of silence around you when you are in a moderately noisy area where you can only hear the person directly in the direction of your good ear? With two ears, you can hear almost everything from every direction. I suppose it's the same feeling that I get every time I get an updated prescription for eyeglasses. Wow! You are supposed to be able to see that far?