Headphones for a hearing impared gutiar player

[jcat81]

Here is my problem. I am moving my church to using in ear monitors. Everyone is on board. But I have an elderly man who plays a steel gutair for us. He is so deaf that he needs to gutiar amps behind him just to hear himself. But he brings the stage volume up dramaticly. His is open to try in-ear or headphone monitoring. But we are trying to figure out what kind of headphones do we get for him considering his hearing loss and that he also wears hearing aids. Please any advice will be apreciated. Thanks.

[liko81]

If he uses hearing aids, the easiest thing to do would be to give him full-enclosure headphones like these: http://www.guitarcenter.com/KRK-KNS-...AID=728338210\ "Studio-reference" sound quality may be a bit much considering the hearing loss, but they should have the "oomph" he'll need.

May I ask what your IEM system is? Are you using a personal monitor mixer system like an Aviom or Hear Back, or are you using aux-fed monitor returns to headphone amps? Either way, he'll need his own volume control (so nobody else has to suffer), a "fuller" mix than you might give everyone else, and he may possibly need a beefier amp for the headphones (though IEM bodypacks are designed for high-SPL situations so they should be able to produce painfully-loud volumes in most headphones)

You'll also need to understand that hearing damage happens at high SPLs, no matter how much damage has already occurred. This creates a vicious cycle where you damage your hearing, can't hear, turn up, and damage your hearing more. It's just something to consider when putting loud headphones on a near-deaf guy and giving him the volume control; while it will certainly let him hear for a while, you may end up with a completely deaf guy.