Aggrivated tinnitus from speakers?

60 years old here.

Long time Tinnitus sufferer.  However, I can say that I’ve had it for so long that most of the time I “tune it out”………….until I see something like this post topic, OR someone mentions it, then it starts ringing like crazy again until I forget about it.

I can’t say that my music system affects it one way or the other though.  I’ve actually never heard anyone mention this until seeing the topic.

Merry Christmas, from Tomball, Texas

Welcome.

I’m 59 yo and have had tinnitus for 30 years. I’m listening at 85dB peaks 10 feet from my speakers, avg is more like 70dB which is very satisfying and far too loud to talk over if we have company. This is a very safe zone.

I just had an audiogram which confirmed no changes in the past 15 months. However I "feel" like my tinnitus is louder sometimes, and/or a different frequency, sometimes pulsing but just one one side.

I’ve learned to live with it.

As far as I know, there is no way to measure tinnitus so not sure how you came up with 18khz? And audiometers only measure to 8khz anyway.

Anyway, I built my system around my attenuated range of 500hz-4khz. Good midrange from my Harbeth 40.3 XDs and smooth highs. Details in my profile. The key is rich, full, smooth sound, at very safe levels.

Definitely try and warm up your system as others have suggested. I had more issues with harshness on the digital side than analogue initially, but that problem is solved now.

Know that your ears will get over excited and that may also mean increased or variable tinnitus tones, hopefully temporarily, but as long as you are careful with SPLs, you should not be concerned about worsening hearing loss - other than age related.

Hearing aids won’t solve the problem. They may make tinnitus less prominent by amplifying certain frequencies, and some have white noise but they are often oversold for tinnitus.

Lastly, I asked my audiologist about hearing aids and music, and my fear that they will poorly amplify what my speakers put out, and she said some have a music mode that can help PLUS she can drill tiny holes in the membrane that allow more external / unamplified sound through. Not sure I’m ready to drop $6K on that experiment just yet.

In living with tinnitus over ten years, I can understand the frustration and depression when you love listening to music. There is one thing I have learned - if I listen to a combination of tube electronics and electrostatic speakers, most of the time there is no further excitement of the tinnitus. Since tinnitus varies from day to day, there are some days I can't listen to any music at all and I turn it off. Thank goodness that is rare. I have listened to other systems (transistor and/or cone, for example) and within minutes, the tinnitus increases and becomes unbearable. I am not an engineer or an audiologist, but maybe emphasis of brightness or the lack of distortion of the higher notes may be the reason?

You made a mistake when you bought the speakers. As you know. You were thinking proactively about you tinnitus but the sale made you forget all about it. According to the data I see, the response is flat in the listening window between 3 and 10k with some notable peaking in that zone. I would think that ideally there should be a slight diagonal down even for those who do not have tinnitus.  So, I'm not sure toeing the speakers out will help all that much. Changing your dac and treating your room is kind of like rearranging chairs on the Titanic. You got a good deal on the speakers so you might not lose much selling them. Another fellow mentioned the Polk R700s. They are well known for having a restrained upper end. And are usually on sale these days. Shouldn't cost more than $2,000. If it were me, I would move on from the KEFs. And also move on from the v curve.  You probably knew the speakers were bright as that has been your preference. Accept the things you cannot change.

Also a tinnitus sufferer here although I just went though a someone experimental and expensive treatment which was pretty successful depending on how you gauge success.

As far as listening to music, I find piano music brings it out the most.. I listen to a decent amount of chamber music and that can also induce the tinnitus

im copying and pasting my experience of the Lenire treatment I had that I wrote about on another forum:

I just went through the Lenire treatment… and have had a pretty positive experience.
I think I was one of the first ppl in New York to get it.
My story below:
I started to experience troubling and constant tinnitus in one morning in January of 2022.
I woke up one morning with a loud mid-high tone squeeling away in my brain. That was exactly 2 weeks after my Covid booster. Not saying they are related but it’s just a data point.
I saw multiple audiologists and a couple ENT’s and everyone said essentially the same thing … learn to live with it.
My whole 2022 was pretty rough. Psychologically the tinnitus took a toll.
But, I started to habituate and, while it didn’t necessarily go down or even decrease that much in volume, it started to be less troublesome.
I ended up going to NYU audiologists after my less than great experiences with the previous docs.
I was told that I do have some mild but significant hearing loss in my left ear only (4k- 6k) and that that was what was causing the tinnitus.
*Note- I don’t perceive the hearing loss in my everyday life and they aren’t advising me to hear a hearing aid at this point. I don’t have problems with listening to music as far as channel balance goes.…The audiologists were concerned about the asymmetrical hearing loss. Apparently one-sided hearing loss is actually quite rare and they usually see it from soldiers or military who shoot rifles.
It can also be a sign of “acoustic neuroma”, a type of brain tumor that puts pressure on the cranial nerves which can cause one sided hearing loss. They then sent me to an Otologist.
I had to do 2 brain scan MRI's and, thankfully, everything looked kosher.
But, I was still really troubled by the ringing… even if it was better than it was.

Around that time I signed up for notifications from Lenire before they were FDA approved and I was on their email list keeping me informed of their treatments and when they would be going live.

Then about 6 months ago I got an email from telling me they’ve been fda approved and asking if I wanted to be connected to an audiologist who can prescribe treatment with Lenire. I said yes and within a few weeks I was at a new doc office in NYC discussing all things Lenire.

Insurance doesn’t cover it . It was about $3800 out of pocket.
My wife and I decided to make it happen because it’s been quite the ride since this all began. We were prepared for it not to work.
You can’t really sell it when you’re done with the treatment.

At the end of the day, I believe it did work.
The tinnitus is not 100% gone… but it’s so reduced , so receded , that I think about it so much less. In other words, it’s not impacting my life in a negative way.
Yes , I still have spikes on occasion and it’s there if I really tune in and listen for it.
But , that’s ok for me. I would say my symptoms have reduced by 75%.
It’s not a miracle cure, but then again it kind of is. It’s brain retraining to ignore to the electrical tones being generated in your auditory system.

I did it for 12 weeks … an hour a day.
Half and hour in the morning, half an hour in the evening.
It’s a audio track of very strange tones sort of set to a “musical” soundtrack and, at the same time , a little electrical device in the mouth that sends a mild electrical impulse into the tongue. The idea is BIMODAL STIMULATION of the trigeminal nerve.

Happy to answer any questions for anyone who is interested.
Overall , I am very happy I did it and feel super grateful that the treatment was made available.
It’s important to remember that it’s a tool, not a silver bullet .