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Raspberry Pi Forum Audio out - amplifier for ear buds
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Related

Audio out - amplifier for ear buds

mgillett
mgillett over 6 years ago

I am nearly deaf, using the computer audio out 3.5 mm plug for earbuds I often can not hear the audio while attempting to watch a youtube video. Many persons do not carefully record their audio nor use closed caption.

 

I need to use earbuds rather than playing the sound through a speaker because I have to have the volume up so loud no-one can stand to be in the house. I turn the computer volume to the max, and the video playback to the max and can barely hear audio. It would be nice to have some range that I can turn up or down.

 

I have looked for circuits that will actually amplify the sound without blowing the little earbuds to pieces. I do not know the impedance of the earbuds but figure they are far lower than the 8 ohms for a regular speaker. I do wear blue tooth enabled hearing aids but the computer does not send the audio signal via blue tooth. They use blue tooth for the keyboard or mouse.

 

If I did have a device that could connect to my hearing aids through blue tooth, I would still need a way to control the sound level to make up for the wide variation in sound recording levels. I could write a list of ideal specifications like...

1. Simple

2. just plug into the 3.5 mm jack on the standard device such as phones, computers, etc.

3. A volume control knob

4. An automatic gain control that could level out all signal levels to a standard level so the volume control would simply be for controlling the level.

5. A bypass connection to go to an external speaker when watching a movie with someone (it would be nice to still have the ability to use my earbuds at the same time.

 

Issues:

1. The quality of the sound does not make much difference to me, I cannot distinguish the high fidelity nuances of music any longer. But the tone level can be very critical. When thinking of an equalizer the higher frequencies are completely gone, as are much of the lower frequencies. My hearing aids are tuned to optimize the level for my hearing. There is still the problem that the audiologist is not able to give enough volume to frequencies I am lacking because of the hearing devices feedback causing a squealing sound. I can't hear the squealing but people run out of the room when it happens. So they set the level as high as they can.

2. Headphones are uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. The light ones seem to easily get dislodged, the expensive ones have a pressure that pushes against the head causes an ache in the head.

3. Blue tooth is wonderful, more than a few times I have gotten up forgetting I have the earbuds in and the cable yanks them out of my head.

4. I did not lose my hearing until I was an adult and a bit to close to a bomb going off. (A lot of soldiers have this problem)

5, I know there are commercial devices but I am not certain they will do what I am trying to do.

6. I originally thought an ic amp that ran on 5 volts with a volume level control that I could pug into the USB to get the power, the audio jack to get the signal, and an output jack to plug in the earbuds. Seems simple but would like some guidance. I am not sure where to find that guidance.

 

Appreciate any pointers,

Mike

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  • beacon_dave
    0 beacon_dave over 6 years ago

    You may find that an audio compressor will help you. This would allow you to reduce the dynamic range of the audio. Basically you set a threshold and any audio above that threshold starts to get reduced. This will initially make things quieter, but then you apply 'make-up gain' to lift the overall level of the audio back up to where the peaks were. The result is that the loud sounds remain at the same level, but the quieter sounds now are boosted.

     

    It is normal to find compressors in the preamp stages of AFILS inductive loop systems. They often compress the audio down to about a 30dB dynamic range.

     

    Combined with some EQ then you can control what gets compressed. You may want to roll off the frequencies that you know you can't hear and concentrate more on the 200Hz - 2kHz range for speech.

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  • beacon_dave
    0 beacon_dave over 6 years ago

    You may find that an audio compressor will help you. This would allow you to reduce the dynamic range of the audio. Basically you set a threshold and any audio above that threshold starts to get reduced. This will initially make things quieter, but then you apply 'make-up gain' to lift the overall level of the audio back up to where the peaks were. The result is that the loud sounds remain at the same level, but the quieter sounds now are boosted.

     

    It is normal to find compressors in the preamp stages of AFILS inductive loop systems. They often compress the audio down to about a 30dB dynamic range.

     

    Combined with some EQ then you can control what gets compressed. You may want to roll off the frequencies that you know you can't hear and concentrate more on the 200Hz - 2kHz range for speech.

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  • mgillett
    0 mgillett over 6 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    I like this idea, the compression makes a lot of sense. Then doing so EQ, it might sound horrible to someone who can hear all the frequencies, but in my situation, it would level out the audio level. Actually, it seems to make sense for everyone. The EQ part, and boosting certain frequencies is different for everyone's hearing for me I would be looking at the 500 hz to 1k at the most, even that would be a broad spectrum for my hearing I could narrow the range even more. Now if I could change the pitch level down at the same time to get it into a range that I still have the ability to distinguish the sound would be great. Everything may seem to be monotonal but that is okay with me if I can just hear what they are saying. My understanding is the compression circuit takes all the audio signals and compresses it into a range of say 30 dB, some higher frequencies would be of lower level yet still at the 30 dB, and the lower frequencies would be at the 30 dB then this signal could be amplified to a range of 60 to 70 dB and thus avoid the overdriving of what is left of my hearing. I looked at some circuits on the internet and found some simple circuits to make an audio compressor using an LT1256 for the compressor, LT1636 attenuation control with an LTC1967.

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