Murray, since most of us with tinnitus experience variations over a broad
range of levels and frequency, and sounds that seem rich with harmonics, how
is it possible to tune any masker?  To successfully mask a sound
electronically, a real-time sample of the source MUST be available.  Such a
sample is not available.

My ENT told me masking devices are expensive and a waste of money.  The
reality is this:  Maskers don't mask but instead simply distract.  They
should be called tinnitus distracters and simply tuned to some point within
the wearer's audible spectrum.  It is a LOT CHEAPER to distract with
television or radio.  By the way, the sound from a television set is FM
radio.  If a station near you broadcasts on channel six, you can pick up
their audio on the low end of your FM radio's dial.

Bill

Good question Murray!!

   I downloaded a free trial version of Test Tone Generator a few years
ago.  I found it more useful for tinnitus matching rather than tinnitus
masking (masking being a broad band sound).

   It may also be consistent with the new Acoustic Deployment Protocol
technology treatment to help "attenuate" to the tinnitus.

    The program allows one to adjust a pure tone frequency from 300Hz and
up.  I found that my tinnitus (left ear) matched at 9000Hz.  I also noticed
that I had asymmetrical hearing loss at that frequency.  The sound was not
as loud when I turned my left ear toward the speakers.  Louder with the
right ear.

Larry Goldman
Silver Spring, Maryland
Member ATA
-----------------------------

I did some quick fooling around with the program I created and added a
couple of things. It's not a great program, but I only spent about an
hour or so on it. I added 16 bit sampling and the ability to generate
white noise.

What it does is it creates a wave file of whatever length you tell it
to (ie. 1 second). It creates this file as "tmp.wav" in the folder
where the application is running (ie "c:\program files\wavgenerator\")
and plays this file once it is finished creating it. There is a stop
button to stop it. This is just to preview the sound really.

Ideally then you would extend the length of this file by opening it in
some software. You can use Windows Sound Recorder if you have nothing
else (usually located here: Start->Program
Files->Accessories->Entertainment) and repeatedly use the Edit->Insert
File... and browse to "tmp.wav" in the application folder of my
program.

You can set my program to generate a file of whatever length you want
(ie 3600 seconds = 1 hour), but this will just take longer.

I recommed using the default settings of 16 bits per sample and 48000
samples per second especially for white noise. But if you only want
"white noise" limited to about 11KHz you can use the 22050 Hz setting.
For a set of tones less than 11KHz the 22050 Hz setting is ok in that
case as well.

Use this software at your own risk. I make no warranties or guarantees
of its functionality etc. etc.

You can download it here:

http://www.geocities.com/gplunkett069/wavgenerator.zip

Geocities limits bandwidth usage so it may not be available for a
period of time after a number of people download it. If anyone has
suggestions as to where I can put it where more people can download it
I'll do my best.

Gary Plunkett.