> soldiers won’t wear their hearing protection around loud noises and in combat
I haven't been in combat, thankfully, but I assume the problem is that you also want to hear quiet sounds clearly, and others around you talking etc?
In the audio world we would fix this with a compressor or a limiter. You set a loudness threshold and then reduce the component of the audio input that's above that threshold in volume by a fixed ratio, e.g. 4:1. A limiter is the same but the ratio is infinite (or near it), so the threshold becomes the maximum loudness. Basically, reduce the dynamic range.
I wonder how much it would cost to have active processing like that integrated into hearing protection. I'm sure they've thought of it.
Or maybe I'm thinking too fancy - maybe you could achieve the same thing without electronics. Loud sounds are just more pressure after all... could we have a little hole that's open in normal conditions but loud sounds push it closed?
I know this is probably one of those things where "random idiot on hacker news thinks he has a new idea that we've of course already researched thoroughly in the industry" but if these exit it'd be cool to see, or if they don't it'd be cool to know why.
I haven't been in combat, thankfully, but I assume the problem is that you also want to hear quiet sounds clearly, and others around you talking etc?
In the audio world we would fix this with a compressor or a limiter. You set a loudness threshold and then reduce the component of the audio input that's above that threshold in volume by a fixed ratio, e.g. 4:1. A limiter is the same but the ratio is infinite (or near it), so the threshold becomes the maximum loudness. Basically, reduce the dynamic range.
I wonder how much it would cost to have active processing like that integrated into hearing protection. I'm sure they've thought of it.
Or maybe I'm thinking too fancy - maybe you could achieve the same thing without electronics. Loud sounds are just more pressure after all... could we have a little hole that's open in normal conditions but loud sounds push it closed?
I know this is probably one of those things where "random idiot on hacker news thinks he has a new idea that we've of course already researched thoroughly in the industry" but if these exit it'd be cool to see, or if they don't it'd be cool to know why.