music
With hearing loop technology, we dramatically improve the signal-to-noise ratio, similar to what noise-canceling headphones do. It takes out the distance from the sound source and the reverberation in the room as well as distracting environmental noises. Instead of trying to cancel out noise, it doesn’t let it in to begin with. I asked him, “Well, don’t you use earplugs?” When he responded, “No, they muffle the sound,” I said, “You have to wear the right ones.” I got out my custom earplugs and showed them around; no one was even aware this product existed. Our breakfast ended with another friend asking, “Why don’t you start a business with that?” Challenge accepted! Two months later, OTOjOY was born.
photo credits: julian bajsel (left); a. arthur fisher (right)
From Hearing Protection to Hearing Better
While OTOjOY started out as a simple discussion among friends about hearing protection, I was soon introduced to the Santa Barbara Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), where I learned about hearing loop systems. This form of assistive listening technology takes sound from a venue’s sound system and sends it directly and wirelessly to a listener’s hearing aid or cochlear implant without any distortion, echo, or background noise. All the listener hears is crystal-clear sound directly from the sound system. Although this technology has been in use for decades in Scandinavia and the U.K., only a few places in the United States had adopted hearing loops. At the time I was starting OTOjOY, not a single venue in the Santa Barbara area had been equipped with a system. I knew intuitively that this technology could have a significant impact in this community. Together with the local HLAA chapter and another nonprofit organization, we decided to raise awareness about the challenges associated with hearing loss and to start installing the technology in venues around Santa Barbara. Within a few years, Santa Barbara became the most hearing-friendly city in the state of California, which
earned OTOjOY the Santa Barbara Mayor’s Award for Outstanding Effort in 2014. Still, what does all of this have to do with the big question—why does it always have to be so loud? A key phrase that kept coming up in both my scientific research and in my work with OTOjOY was “signal-tonoise ratio.” In essence, this term describes the relation between the volume of the things that you want to hear and the things that you don’t. With hearing loop technology, we dramatically improve the signal-to-noise ratio, similar to what noise-canceling headphones do. It takes out the distance from the sound source and the reverberation in the room as well as distracting noises, such as the people talking behind you and the clinking of their glasses. However, instead of trying to cancel out noise, it doesn’t let it in to begin with. As I thought about this concept, it dawned on me. Why does it always have to be so loud? Because we want to hear the music, and only the music. And since we can’t turn down the noise, our only option is to turn up the music. But—is it, really? I thought otherwise.
Changing the Way We Access Live Music
Our mission to provide better hearing accessibility at concerts and events brought a few new ideas to light. We have provided hearing loop technology at some of America’s largest music festivals, including Coachella and Stagecoach. Things started shifting during the 4th International Hearing Loop Conference in Berlin, in October 2017, when we invited a few attendees to see the band ODESZA in concert and to try out our newest product, OTOjOY LoopBuds. These earbuds allow people to access the sound from a hearing loop with a smartphone app, with a much better signal-to-noise ratio compared with using loudspeakers in a large room. When people in the audience at these shows experienced their favorite band with enhanced clarity while also being able to control the volume, their jaws
ODESZA in concert (opposite page), and (this page) the duo’s Clayton Knight (far left) and Harrison Mills (far right) experience sound with OTOjOY’s Thomas Kaufmann (center right) and Micah Thomas.
a publication of hearing health foundation
winter 2018
25