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KenBoyce

 

Ken Boyce

Ken has 40 years of experience and his expertise spans the multimedia, communications and consumer electronics industries.  He has a personal interest in audio and multimedia related subjects.

 

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  • Ken:  You had previously given me an excellent answer on June 3, 2010 in regard to my efforts to create a better hearing aid device.  Nicolas Gray completelly concurred with your answer. He went so far as to show me the connection of A/D converter to EEPROM. The device would modify the output of the A/D converter using a EPROM to program changed values. Now if you could give me a contact to build a breadboard to demonstrate this improvement I would appreciate that very much.  Al
  • in reply to Former Member

    Hi Nathan,

     

    Where are you located?  Maybe there is a prototype house nearby that can be found.

    Also, from your question I am assuming that "hearing aid size" is not the objective yet, but rather proving your alternative data values for correcting or improving hearing is most important right now.

     

    You will need to specify exactly what you want the prototype house to do.  Are you supplying a preferred board layout, or leaving it up to them?  Do you want the builder to source the parts for you?    Questions like these and many more will help you located the right builder.

     

    A company like InDesign  (http://www.indesign-llc.com/electrical_engineering_services.asp?gclid=CKm1woqWs6MCFSH5iAodliq34g) might be the type of company you want if you don't have much direct experience at building electronic projects.   There are many other which can be found via a Google search.

     

    Another one is Gunn Systems at http://www.gunnsys.com/product-dev/

     

    I have no experience with these firms nor do I recommend them (or not) so you need to do your due diligence.  I offer them as examples of the type of firm you may be looking for.  I have no idea of their cost structure either, nor your budget for the project.

     

    I hope this helps you.

    Kind regards,

    Ken

Reply
  • in reply to Former Member

    Hi Nathan,

     

    Where are you located?  Maybe there is a prototype house nearby that can be found.

    Also, from your question I am assuming that "hearing aid size" is not the objective yet, but rather proving your alternative data values for correcting or improving hearing is most important right now.

     

    You will need to specify exactly what you want the prototype house to do.  Are you supplying a preferred board layout, or leaving it up to them?  Do you want the builder to source the parts for you?    Questions like these and many more will help you located the right builder.

     

    A company like InDesign  (http://www.indesign-llc.com/electrical_engineering_services.asp?gclid=CKm1woqWs6MCFSH5iAodliq34g) might be the type of company you want if you don't have much direct experience at building electronic projects.   There are many other which can be found via a Google search.

     

    Another one is Gunn Systems at http://www.gunnsys.com/product-dev/

     

    I have no experience with these firms nor do I recommend them (or not) so you need to do your due diligence.  I offer them as examples of the type of firm you may be looking for.  I have no idea of their cost structure either, nor your budget for the project.

     

    I hope this helps you.

    Kind regards,

    Ken

Children
  • in reply to Former Member
    Once again your answer to me is right on the button.  Even your guesses as to what I am shooting for gets right to the heart of it. All us millions of hard-of -hearing (HOH) individuals hear sounds with our expensive hearing aids but cannot discern what is being said. Thus the goal of what I want to build is voice clarity and thus understandability.  I am fairly far along in my theorizing and now I want the proof of concept to begin..... I live in the greater Los Angeles area, Torrance California to be specific.   Size shape and all the other  future considerations are secondary at this moment. Constructing a breadboard and programing the EEPROM for a maximum output of understandability is the present goal.    If you can steer me in the direction of a local -that is, a range of 100 miles-  pre-prototype shop that would be greatly appreciated.. I would love to try doing it myself, but there is too much of a learning cure before I could to it effectively.   Again, thanks for your cogent replies.   Nate Almond
  • in reply to Former Member

    Hi Nathan,

     

    Happy to help, if I can.


    I did a quick search in your area, but mostly turn up full fledged electronic manufacturing service houses (EMS).  EMS's are not what you need right now.

     

    Other companies I turned up were either IC design houses, or passive component design houses (transformer, etc).

     

    The type of company you need may not be in your back yard.  Maybe you could contact the following companies and at least get an idea of what they are willing to do for you at what price.   These smaller companies specialize in design prototypes.  One of them is close to you.

     

    GUNN SYSTEMS, INC.

    Contact Information

    E-Mail:gunnsys@att.net
    Phone:(352) 326-3264 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (352) 326-3264     end_of_the_skype_highlighting
    Fax:(321) 988-0226
    Address:37703 Ricker Drive
    Lady Lake, FL 32159

     

    Ienso Inc.
    20 Mural Street    ,  Unit 7
    Richmond Hill, ON   L4B 1K3
    Canada

    Phone: 905.763.6938 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              905.763.6938     end_of_the_skype_highlighting
    Fax: 905.763.1153

    Email: mail@ienso.com

     

     

    Mirmar Sensor

    Mail:
    P.O. Box            31161
    Santa Barbara, CA 93105

    Physical Address:
    5959 Hollister            Avenue; Suite C
    Goleta, CA 93117

    email:     info@mirmar.com

     

    TEL:                 (805) 895-4608     end_of_the_skype_highlighting


    Let me know what you find out -  just curious :>)

     

    Ken

  • in reply to Former Member

    Hello Nathan,

     

    I don't want to rain on your parade but are you aware of current DSP based hearing aid products. ?

     

    If you Google/AltaVista for dsp hearing aid you will get million+ hits - there are even special hearing aid DSPs (eg Ezairo form Onsemi).

     

    I feel you might do better to start with a development kit from a DSP supplier rather than paying for a new hardware develoipment.

     

    In fact you could probably start with just a PC and a sound card (and some little transducers from www.knowlesacoustics.com ).

  • in reply to michaelkellett
    Michael:  Please do rain on my parade.  I live here in sunny southern California and and any rain, parade or no is a gift of the gods. It keeps us from reverting back to the dessert.  So go ahead and downpour if you would-please.   Joking aside, I do appreciate some skepticism for what I am attempting to do.   Now that is what science is all about, isn't it.  I have put my entire working and World War 2 experience in the electronics field and saw the beginnings of radar and TV.  Worked as an electronics maintenance technician at Chicago's Midway and O'Hare airports.  Following which I returned to the University where I received bachelor and master degrees from the University of Southern California.  After graduating, worked in the defense industry building the latest airborne radars for aircraft such as the F14 and F15.   Does all this mean I know anything?  Not really.   As I approached 85 years, as is typical, my hearing got poor, designation is 'hard-of-hearing' (HOH).  After using several brands of hearing aids, I too was complaining "I hear, but I don't understand".  And quickly deduced that I was not hearing consonants, for reasons unknown..   Went shopping on the Internet to find a hearing aid that advertised the two precious words "amplified consonants" because that is where the information is contained.  No such device was to be found.  Thus as I now approach my 90th birthday I set  to work to figure what this confusion (in my mind, at least) was all about.......And now I have some  certainty that I have solved the enigma and believe I am on the proper road to fixing the 'I hear but I don't understand' syndrome.  The very finest of today's hearing aids including those with DSP) do not resolve that problem.    If you feel that the digital signal processor can assist in this matter, I am an anxious listener.  My particular solution does not introduce frequency as a key parameter, but uses a new type of  modulation as it's basis ....If you wish to exchange ideas on the subject that would be very advantageous to me and hopefully also to you. .Best Regards,  Nate Almond
  • in reply to Former Member

    Hello Nathan,

     

    I picked up from your earlier posts that you are planning some signal processing involving ADC and EEPROM and that you don't have any hardware yet. If it were my project I would design and make a custom board but it doesn't look as if you have the resource to do that. So my suggestion was that the cheapest way for you to experiment is to use a ready made DSP development kit - that way you can do almost any imaginable signal processing - frequency domain, time domain, linear, non-linear etc. But the great thing about DSP is its all in software so you can change things cheaply and quickly at the start of the project. In the end you might decide to dump the DSP and use pure analogue for a production design (although if you want a  small hearing aid the investment cost in using your software on an existing DSP willl be much lower than a custom analogue solution).

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    II am looking to build a headphone amplifier with the following specs.
    1. 2 1/4 inputs - Channel 1 and Channel 2
    2. Each input channel would have 3 controls
         a. Master output to headphone
         b. channel 1 volume control
         c. channel 2 volume control
    3. Individual headphone output for each channel

     

    Any ideas of where I can get some information on how to build this.

    I am a novice.....

  • in reply to Former Member

    Hi David,

     

    From the brief description it sounds like you want to build a very high quality "audiophile" type product.

     

    National Semiconductor builds some high performance amplifiers  (see list at http://www.national.com/analog/audio/high_performance) .

    On page 10/11 of the datasheet for the LME49600, there is a  description and schematic of a headphone amplifier

    ( http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LME49600.pdf ).   It has separate input jacks and volume controls for each channel, and single output jack for the two channels.  But you could change that to separate output jacks.

     

    If you want to talk to someone who is an expert on this type of product and on these particular National high performance parts, may I recommend  Mark Brasfield  (audioman54@yahoo.com ).  He may even sell you one pre-built.  Definitely worth a conversation, and probably your quickest source of definitive information about headphone amplifiers.

     

    Ken