I thought I’d drop a quick update here as it is 2:40 in the morning and I just went for a walk around out peach and nectarine orchard looking for deer and I’m not quite on my way to bed. If you want to see the orchard web site click on the billboard image:
Today I was in the orchard sales office all day, finishing up the installation of the electric lighting and internet access. We have fiber internet in the house but the sales office is about 800 feet from the house so does not have electricity or internet. I am using TP-Link CPE710 bridges to provide internet in the office and they work great as an economical option, and run a Predator Super SIlent 3500 watt generator during the day for power. Even with a small drinks refrigerator and keurig machine we are well within the wattage. Maybe at some point I’ll switch to solar.
But I digress…
While building out the inside of the shed shell we bought, adding a door, lap board interior walls over fiberglass insulation, installing outlets etc, I bought a JBL Flip 5 bluetooth speaker to keep myself company as I was doing the majority of the work on my own.
I’d been listening to it the past two weeks with my left hearing aid on in addition to the implant.
Yesterday I decided to take the hearing aid off, not sure why I did not think of this earlier. I listen to Pandora exclusively as I am quite happy to put up with the ads. I’m old enough to have grown up listening to the radio with advertising, so the occasional break is fine with me.
Anyway, some old Beatle song was playing, probably from Beatles For Sale, I don’t recall exactly, but that era. I was very pleased that I could actually understand the lyrics and the music, while not sounding natural, was quite tolerable.
So I decided to block my left ear to see how I coped with just my implanted right ear…
I was very pleased to discover that I did not have to concentrate overly hard to understand the words. This may have been in part because I’m very familiar with the song and it’s quite simplistic, but nevertheless that’s a great improvement from a couple of months ago. The tone is very trebley. It’s as if the implant filters out the bass but I don’t think that’s the case, sounds more like the quality you get from an old cheap landline phone, or old cheap a.m. transistor radio.
Even more surprising, and very pleasing, was that at times, the tone would change and I’d have a pretty decent bass and the music would sound much fuller. Again, not “natural”, but so much better. It would only last a second or two but it did effect the whole sound, not just a component (like the bass or drums), and it made the lyric so much more intelligible.
Anyway, I thought those who are following might find this interesting.
Next week, 24th, I go for my 4th / 6 month reprogramming. It’s the last I have scheduled right now so I don’t know what comes after that, but I am excited to see what changes have occurred as I am tested in the sound booth, and what changes reprogramming will bring.
God bless.