Tinnitus Pitch and Loudness Matching

[Jon Wayne]

Saw a few people online describing their tinnitus frequency in terms of Hz, I'm ignorant when it comes to this, how does one find this out, any idea guys?

 

[Markku]

Tinnitus pitch matching

Tinnitus pitch match is a test of physical tones that is matched to the sounds or tones that a person with tinnitus hear.

I found some online tests: http://www.digital-recordings.com/tinnitus-test/tt-products.html
For example: http://www.digital-recordings.com/tinnitus-test/www-tt-pure-tone/tt_help_pure_tone.html
(and click Proceed on the bottom of the page)
If you have good headphones, you could probably try and find your tinnitus Hz frequency using one of those online WWW tests.

The online test looks like this:

But yeah, while you asked only about the frequency of tinnitus, it's also worth mentioning that the sensation level (dB SL) of tinnitus is also sometimes measured. Some people know their tinnitus frequency/pitch and also the dB SL of their tinnitus. More about the latter below.


Tinnitus loudness matching

There are two ways to look at the loudness match, Peach.

One is in dB, the number that shows up on the audiometer gauge in front of the audiologist at the moment that you, sitting inside the booth, indicate that the sound you are hearing through the headphones (working slowly up from 0 dB) is as loud as your tinnitus at the tinnitus frequency (pitch). Lets say that Fred and Bill both have tinnitus that measures 43 dB using this method.

The second is in dB SL - dB sensory level.

OK. Fred has really good hearing at the tinnitus frequency, a threshold of 0 dB. But Bill, on the other hand, has a 40 dB threshold of hearing at the tinnitus frequency. That means that he does not hear he first 40 dB of sound introduced to the booth. Fred goes first, and at 43 dB he indicates that the sound he hears through the headphones is as loud as his tinnitus. Next comes Bill. The audiologist starts increasing the volume of the sound being introduced to the booth. 10 dB. 20 dB. 30 dB. What's Bill doing? He's still waiting for the audiologist to start the test! When the audiologist gets to 40 dB, Bill finally hears the faintest sound through the headphones. (Remember, at 40 dB Fred was already hearing a very loud sound through his headphones, but it still wasn't loud enough to match his tinnitus!) Back to Bill. At 43 dB (a mere 3 dB over his threshold of hearing) he indicates to the audiologist that the sound he is hearing though the headphones is as loud as his tinnitus.

So both Fred and Bill have a 43 dB tinnitus loudness match, right? But clearly Fred's tinnitus is much much louder than Bill's. And the only way we would know that from the loudness match would be by taking the threshold of hearing into account. That's what dB SL does. It subtracts the threshold of hearing from the loudness match in dB. So Fred's tinnitus is 43 dB SL, while Bill's is 3 dB SL.

Please note that I chose these figures for illustrative purposes only - as a tinnitus loudness match of 43 dB SL is almost unheard of. In fact in 70% of cases the loudness match is 6 dB SL or less.

Please also note that neither dB nor dB SL correlates well with how loud you judge your tinnitus to be on a 1 to 10 scale. But that's another story.

Hope this helps more than confuses.

 

[Jon Wayne]

thank you so much for the thorough reply Markku, this makes the picture much more clear

 

[Sophie]

Tinnitus pitch match is a test of physical tones that is matched to the sounds or tones that a person with tinnitus hear.

Hi Markku,
I wanted to clarify something. I went to one ENT doctor who had some tests done. He said my tinnitus frequency is 6000HZ. Then I went to another doctor and had audio tests. They said my tinnitus frequency match is 2khz at 15db. Could you explain to me what all this mean?
Thank You.

 

[Markku]

Hi Markku,
I wanted to clarify something. I went to one ENT doctor who had some tests done. He said my tinnitus frequency is 6000HZ. Then I went to another doctor and had audio tests. They said my tinnitus frequency match is 2khz at 15db. Could you explain to me what all this mean?
Thank You.

I don't know why your tinnitus frequency was different in both instances, 2 kHz vs 6 kHz.
I suppose the frequency test was done the usual way, i.e. the doctor output different tones and you had to pick one that you thought was closest to the tone of your tinnitus?


Speaking of loudness, the 15 dB seems quite loud if it's sensory level. As stated above, in over 70 % of cases the level is 6 dB SL or less.

Do you know if the doctor measured sensory level? Do you know if you have any hearing loss? If you have hearing loss, it's possible your hearing threshold at the tinnitus frequency might be, for example, 8 dB, and thus when the doctor measured 15 dB level for your tinnitus, the actual result (tinnitus loudness) would be 7 dB SL.

So basically the dB sensory level means the following:

• Markku goes to an audiologist. The audiologist outputs a tone of 6 kHz, first at 1 dB and then slowly increasing the volume. Markku only first hears the tone when the volume is 8 dB. Thus the threshold of hearing is 8 dB. Then the audiologist continues increasing the volume and Markku says at 20 dB that yes, this is very close to the volume of my perceived tinnitus. This means that the dB sensory level is 20 - 8 = 12 dB. Markku's tinnitus loudness is matched at 12 dB SL.
• Sophie goes to an audiologist. The audiologist outputs a tone, and Sophie hears the sound immediately, so her threshold of hearing is 0 dB. Then the audiologist increases the volume, and Sophie says the volume is matched to her tinnitus when the loudness is at 10 dB. Sophie's tinnitus loudness is matched at 10 dB SL.

But if your doctor didn't specify sensory level, and if you're not sure whether you might have some hearing loss, your actual tinnitus loudness might be different. Without the sensory level aspect, someone's 40 dB tinnitus can be tiny compared to some other person's 40 dB tinnitus, depending on the threshold of hearing.


Hope this helped somewhat and have a great weekend
Markku

 

[Peter Phua]

Hi All,

I'd like to share a Tinnitus Frequency Matching Tuner that is also available for free on-line. It's produced by my firm, and I'd like to thank Markku for granting us permission to make some limited posts regarding the service we provide. The tuner can be found at: http://www.audionotch.com/app/tune/

Here's a screenshot:

Tuning your tinnitus is definitely challenging at times. Speaking for myself, it took me several tries with our manual tuner in order to find it. Other tuning procedure are out there (i.e. binary search algorithms) but I've personally found that manual tuning is the best - the feedback from comparing your tone to the computer tone is immediate and your brain has a reference point (the figure in Hz) to make a comparison with. Mine was personally at 17,000 hZ, which is quite high. (Very few studies have been done on treatment at this frequency level, unfortunately).

Cheers,
Peter,
Co-Founder
www.audionotch.com/

 

[dj_newark]

Hello,

How would I go about having an audiologist measure the severity of my tinnitus? I would not even know what test to ask for. Any advice?

Thanks!

 

[Markku]

Hello,

How would I go about having an audiologist measure the severity of my tinnitus? I would not even know what test to ask for. Any advice?

Thanks!

I merged your new thread about assessing tinnitus severity with this existing one about loudness matching. Hope you find the previous posts helpful.

Of course, tinnitus loudness isn't always the same as tinnitus severity. Some person's loud tinnitus might not affect them much, for others it can be the other way around, a relatively low (even almost inaudible) tinnitus can cause a lot of trouble.

So... a better tool to assess the severity is, for example, Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI).

I attached the TFI questionnaire (.pdf) to this message. It contains the questions and also the scoring instructions.

 

[dj_newark]

Great, that's very helpful. Thank you!

 

[Peter Phua]

Hi everyone:

My coworker has developed a new software program that provides features over and above those considered standard with regular tinnitus tuning (pitch/frequency detection) software. The software allows you to listen to "atypical" tinnitus tones that are not the typical "sine wave." There is also a neat visualization feature and auto frequency adjustment feature.

(http://www.audionotch.com/app/tune2/) (please note, requires Safari or Chrome).

We're still working on updating it to include even more tinnitus sounds.

When pitch matching, also be aware of Octave Confusion: http://www.audionotch.com/blog/tinnitus/what-is-octave-confusion/

I think that some of you may find this free tool useful.

Disclosure: I run http://www.audionotch.com/, a Notched Sound Therapy proprietor. There's a lot of discussion (some of which I've participated in on this forum) regarding Notched Sound Therapy, and you can check it out. Be aware that it's possible to do it yourself for free (we offer software so you don't have to do that).

 

[JohnJ]

I've tried to determine the pitch of my T with the AudioNotch tuner thing. I think it's about 7000khz but I'm not sure. I find that I can't hear any tones above about 10000khz. I was wondering if it's possible for the pitch of your T to be above that which you can physically hear? So if I was an octave out with my 7000khz it's possible my T is actually 10500khz (is that right?) in which case I wouldn't physically be able to hear the tone to match it?

John

 

[JTP]

Hi John,

It is quite possible, my T is partly above my hearing abilities frequency-wise. AFAIK if you go octave up from 7000 Hz that means doubling of the frequency to 14 000 Hz. Sometimes it is surprisingly hard to find frequency match to your tinnitus even when you could hear that frequency.

 

[Leah]

Curious, will give it a try. Thanks

 

[kmohoruk]

Hello Everyone,

I know this may be a bit more of a pointless question. But I was sort of curious.

When I got my ears tested with an Audiologist, she ended up trying to match my tinnitus. We went through the regular tests, listening and saying certain words etc.

I ended up being in the sound proof booth for about maybe 8 minutes before we actually started to try and match my T. Mine ended up being at 1,000Hz tone at 30 db in my right ear and 50 db in my left.

Do you think that being in the room for that long may have played a bit of an illusion on my ears as I was in a sound proof room for such a long time, that it may have contributed to a louder perception of my Tinnitus?

I was also still new when it came to dealing with this spike in my Tinnitus. So I hadn't really eaten much and had a coffee before going (I know not the smartest thing, but I was so tired in those early days that I needed something to get me through the day)

 

[Jay M]

Yes.

 

[Bambi]

I see a lot of you know what db your tinnitus is at.

How do you measure this? Do you feel it helps to know?


Edit; after my question was merged, I got the how-question answered, but still; do you feel that it helps to know your frequency/bd?

 

[Valentina]

Is there a way to know how loud is our T (in dB), without going to a doctor everytime? Any gear similar to the one we use for Hz, but which measures the volume?

 

[Geo]

@Valentina i would be scared ro know my bad t results..

 

[Valentina]

@Geo Why scared? Your T will not change if you know how loud it is.

 

[Geo]

Yeah but knowing that my T is actually worse than most sounds harsh

 

[kevin talley]

Using Peter Phua's test... 9610, seems to match my tone. At 12000, and 16000, I hear nothing but hear lower frequency tones above those points. 9610 sounds the same with the volume up or down but I can hear it turn off and on. . Is this a hearing problem or a failure of the tone generator?

Trying this against a simple online tone generator makes me believe it is the software. It also seems to have made my tinnitus worse.

 

[suera]

I never had db measured just hz, I had to go to an audiologist that has special equipment. It is my understanding that standard equipment measures 8KHZ and below. Mine is in the 12-14KHZ range.

 

[Sgguy46]

Mine is 10 to 13khz. It is accompanied by a dull migraine somedays like today. It sounds metallic and raw. I want to believe life will become better and i will somehow habituate to this. Life has become a million times more challenging.

 

[acute]

Is possible to measure Loudness and frequency of my Tinnitus If it is not a flat monotonous tone?

Most of the time mine is like a loud steam escaping from a pipe, or a weird hight-pitch white noise...

 

[Frédéric]

Comparing Three Established Methods for Tinnitus Pitch Matching With Respect to Reliability, Matching Duration, and Subjective Satisfaction

 

[Frédéric]

What Makes Tinnitus Loud?

INTRODUCTION: Tinnitus loudness is a subjective measure, and it does not directly reflect either tinnitus severity or the impact on daily life. Nevertheless, loud tinnitus may be the most frequent clinical complaint of tinnitus patients. Factors contributing to the loudness of the phantom sound have rarely been studied. We evaluated both matched and self-rated loudness in a large sample of patients with tinnitus and analyzed the influencing factors among demographic, hearing, and tinnitus characteristics.

METHODS: Two hundred ninety-nine patients with chronic tinnitus were enrolled. We evaluated the matched loudness, minimal masking level (MML), and visual analog scale (VAS) loudness. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed for each loudness measure using independent variables of age, sex, time since tinnitus onset, tinnitus laterality, pure-tone average, tinnitus pitch, tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) score, VAS annoyance, disturbance and daily tinnitus duration, and depression score. We calculated bivariate correlations between each loudness measure and all independent variables.

RESULTS: The psychoacoustic loudness measures (matched loudness and MML) were highly correlated and were affected by the hearing deficit and tinnitus pitch (Pearson r > 0.5 for pure tone averages, and r > 0.3 for tinnitus pitch for both variables, p < 0.05), whereas the subjective measurement (VAS loudness) exhibited little to no correlation with the other two measures and was related to psycho-emotional factors such as the THI score, VAS variables, and depression (Pearson r > 0.6 for VAS annoyance, r > 0.4 for VAS daily duration and disturbance and THI score, r > 0.3 for the depression score, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: The matched tinnitus loudness and MML values were influenced principally by the extent of hearing loss and related factors, suggesting that rehabilitation using hearing aids could help reduce perception of tinnitus loudness. A psycho-emotional approach might more effectively lessen self-perceived loudness.

Source: https://europepmc.org/article/med/33165158

 

[dan]

INTRODUCTION: Tinnitus loudness is a subjective measure, and it does not directly reflect either tinnitus severity or the impact on daily life.

Bullshit. Just another study sponsored by hearing aid companies.

 

[jay777]

Oh yes, the louder the better.