Do It Yourself Component List

We encourage experimentation with regard to headset design. Our "recommended" design (available in kit form) is the result of extensive field testing, but it is certainly not the only possible solution. So, we hope that a number of do-it-yourselfers will tackle the headset problem on their own and come up with innovative solutions. To enable such efforts, we provide a full list of components below.

Disclaimer: Please do not attempt to go the DIY route unless you are experienced with soldering and know how to strip miniature cable and solder tiny mic connectors. Note that we are unable to provide instructions and we cannot guarantee support if you run into problems.

Headset Component List For Do-It-Yourselfers (North American Sources):

UK-based Micbooster is also a trusted source of components, especially for UK and European Do-It-Yourselfers:

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ADDITIONAL SECTIONS OR NOTES

Prescription Hearing Aids with Pitch-Lowering Options:
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There are a number of advanced and expensive amplification-type hearing aids that utilize some form of pitch-shifting to help with speech discrimination. Sometimes they even advertise improved ability to hear bird and other nature sounds. Unfortunately, most of these algorithms are designed specifically for improved human speech recognition and do not work well with bird songs.

In some cases, only a narrow high-frequency band is shifted downward, which means that the songs of many species will be missed. Other algorithms may aggressively “compress” the high frequencies into a narrow, lower frequency band, thereby flattening or squashing the bird songs and degrading harmonic relationships. Still other so-called “adaptive” algorithms may only respond to the high-pitched portions of speech (such as “ssss” or “shhhh”) while actively rejecting other types of sounds, including many bird songs or calls.

So … one should not expect great results just because an expensive amplification-type hearing aid includes pitch-lowering features. But this doesn’t mean that all expensive aids will be inadequate in this respect. As part of the Hear Birds Again project, we plan to test various high end aids that include pitch-shifting options, in hopes of finding one or more that work well for birders.

To date, the only brand that has passed our preliminary tests is Phonak. Their “Soundrecover 2” option, if enabled correctly, pitch-shifts and compresses bird songs in the 3-8kHz range down into the 1-2.5kHz range, which is exactly what is desired. And the quality seems acceptable, although we have not performed field tests. Thus, if you are a birder and you’re looking to purchase a high-end aid to help you hear human voices, then Phonak aids would have the added value of working well with high-pitched bird songs.

Using The App and Headset With Amplifying-type Hearing Aids

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Many SongFinder owners did this successfully, although feedback squeal can be a problem.

In-ear aids will work best because earphones would easily cover the mics (which are deep in the ear).

Among the new OTC hearing aids, the EarGo aids, which are open-air (non-plugging) yet slide deep within the ear seem like a great choice, as long as feedback squeal does not occur when the HBA headset earphones are placed over them