Replacing old RemStar, any advice?

[eseedhouse]

But Bose Noise Cancelling headphones don't suck at any price - still the best on the market, according to our audiology lab tests.

Probably so, but any headphone that cancels noise would not be considered "audiophile".

Well, I'm not an "audiophile" I just like to listen to music. I've tried several sound cancelling 'phones over the years and the BOSE QC25's not only have better noise cancellation but they also sound very good. I have also had "audiophile" grade headphones that were no better as far as enjoying good music goes.

It is hard for me to admit this because I think most of BOSE's stuff is both lousy sounding and based on an erroneous understanding of how loudspeakers should function. But still, there it is.

[eddie willers]

I have also had "audiophile" grade headphones that were no better as far as enjoying good music goes.

Keep in mind that "Audiophile" is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

To a purist, every-single-step-must-be-followed!

If you have kids, pets, a wife or any machines running you are OUT of the club!

I am a poor man's audiophile. I know what I would like if money were no object, but I also know what is real, affordable and practical.

My only nod to my old self is a decent Home Theater set-up (and trust me, a true audiophile would shudder if you had a TV in the same room as your "serious" gear) and I pull out my Sennheiser phones if I am listening (really listening) to decent music from a CD.

All other times I put on my Sony $49.99 wireless RF headphones.

[DocWils]

I can't call myself an audiophile because my hearing, which, even with age and Meniere's influenced hearing loss is way over the norm, so I hear things very differently than "normal" people, even audiophiles. In addition, I am a trained musician (piano, pipe organ, flute, violin) (most doctors of my generation were expected to be rounded gentlemen, including being cultured and competent in many areas. Alas, that is no more. *sigh* O tempora, o mores). At any rate, unless I am really in the mood for it, music actually irritates me because I respond to it too readily, so it distracts, which is why I banned it in my OR (and studies are now showing that my instinct was right - there are more OR mistakes in ORs that as bathed in music than in silent ORs).

The Bose headphones are for travel - I have, as I said sensitive hearing and flying always hurt me, so I breathed a real sigh of relief then the first QC headphones came out - before I would stuff moldable silicon in my ears. Just recently upgraded to the latest and greatest while in London, mostly because the headband of my now decades old original QC headphones had become flaky and Bose would not replace it (ear pads, yes, but the headband on the original QC is a complicated procedure, apparently). As for listening at home, buying big speakers for a small room is a mug's game, as you well know - convert hall power outputs are dumb, so I don't bother - a few, relatively inexpensive Dual speakers correctly placed give all the pleasure one needs. Just as I don't search for the perfect 0 AHI, knowing it isn't a real thing in nature, I don't bother to search for the ultimate sound experience (anyway, if I want that, the Zurich Opera house is a quick tram ride away - no, correct, that - if I want that, London or Paris is a short flight away, and there is always the Lucerne Festival - a 20 minute train ride from my home). Others may enjoy the search and the pleasure, but I no longer do (did when I was 20, and was mates with some very top conductors and musicians, don't now - too old and too "heard it all"). BTW I met Dr. Bose back when the world was young at a series of his psychoacoustics lectures for medical types and he was a very interesting man - way ahead of his time, thinking beyond digital in an analogue age.

[eddie willers]

Received my PR System One with built-in Bluetooth today (model DS560BT)

I'll come back here (or elsewhere) after a couple of weeks use to give a review.

(or earlier if I am in trouble )



PS. Doc....I always figured that music in an operating room (like it always is on TV) would be an unconscious distraction.

Everybody says they can "multi-task".

Everybody is wrong.

[zonk]

Received my PR System One with built-in Bluetooth today (model DS560BT)

I'll come back here (or elsewhere) after a couple of weeks use to give a review.

(or earlier if I am in trouble )



PS. Doc....I always figured that music in an operating room (like it always is on TV) would be an unconscious distraction.

Everybody says they can "multi-task".

Everybody is wrong.

Congrats and good luck

as for multi tasking ... one cannot do more than one task at a time properly
doing two or more tasks at the same time, results in, not performing any task properly

[DocWils]

Received my PR System One with built-in Bluetooth today (model DS560BT)

I'll come back here (or elsewhere) after a couple of weeks use to give a review.

(or earlier if I am in trouble )



PS. Doc....I always figured that music in an operating room (like it always is on TV) would be an unconscious distraction.

Everybody says they can "multi-task".

Everybody is wrong.

Congrats on the new CPAP, many years of good sleep to you. Uhhh, why the bluetooth again?

Music in the OR sort of became popular around 30 years ago or so, but I never liked it, especially because you are forcing your (often) execrable music tastes on the whole team (I knew at least one surgeon who insisted on hard banging heavy metal, another with the most offensive rap possible) and because, believe it or not, the patients take it in unconsciously, which is also why any chatter should be kept to a minimum (i knew of one surgeon who said something rather sexist and offensive about a patient he had on the table, and when she woke up, she slapped him, although she had no idea why she did, and there are quite a few documented cases of the that sort of thing). Granted, it makes the OR rather boringly quiet, but on the plus side, it is quiet and you do need to concentrate, even if it the 1000th time you have done that particular procedure. I have taken to, around a decade ago, actually putting headphones and a personal stereo on the patients and playing soothing, healing music (plus a bit of Bach) and beach sounds and the like directly into their ears - you would not believe how it changed their post op pain tolerance and healing - we are launching a full on study of this now. And it masked the occasional "oops" which is also taken in by the unconscious patient. Hammering and sawing sounds are a bit more hard to mask, alas.

[eddie willers]

Congrats on the new CPAP, many years of good sleep to you. Uhhh, why the bluetooth again?

I only have a chromebook now (no Windows or Mac) so I doubt (hey...correct me if I'm wrong) I can install and use SleepyHead.

The Bluetooth connects to an app from Philips called SleepMapper on my smartphone. Used it today for the first time and it is very limited. Only showed mask fit (100%) therapy (9.4 hours) and AHI (1.1).

I sure would like a more detailed chart.

And it masked the occasional "oops" which is also taken in by the unconscious patient.

When I was installing Home Theater gear, I had trained myself to say "oops" instead of the more earthy four letter words I wanted to say. I would see the customer's eyebrows arch to the ceiling and reassure them by saying, "This isn't brain surgery...all MY 'oops' are easily fixable or your money back".

Hammering and sawing sounds are a bit more hard to mask, alas.

In the mid '80s, I was selling at a store very near Emory Hospital and so had a lot of Doctors as customers. One was an enthusiast who bought a camera and a portable Betamax. He came back beaming and insisted we look at his video. It was an operation where he did a knee replacement (or some-such). I stood there gobsmacked as I watched the skin pulled back and there he was just pounding on a chisel with a mallet and working up a sweat as he shaved the bone off the knee to get a smooth surface!

I had never realized that surgeons could actually work up a sweat and look like railroad workers pounding in a spike.

[DocWils]

Yep, real tough stuff, especially orthopaedic and cranial work - drilling, chopping, hammering, sawing, digging, awling, etc - imagine anything you can about plumbing, sewing and carpentry combined and add blood, twitching muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, the lot, and that's us. Orthos are the jocks of the surgical set. Back when I started, we still did a lot of hand work, and slowly electric devices started to replace some of the more difficult bits, but we still have to grab a hammer and a chisel from time to time. And then sew something together all daintily.

What they don't tell you about is the smell.... Even when we watch it we can get squeamish, what with the sounds of the drill and the smoke and the smell and all, but not when we do it. Then - steady as a rock. And, oh, yes, you work up a sweat - you are also standing up for up to 16 hours in one go, no bathroom breaks. Most ops take anywhere from one to four hours, but replacements and other more delicate work can take way longer. No wonder so many of us get back, hip and neck problems, and flat feet, too.

I had to step in to assist in a cancer op recently when one of the assistants started to take ill and there was no one available, and I was asked (politely) if I could scrub in, so I was only on my feet for around three,maybe four hours, but everyone else was in there at least two hours more before I scrubbed in. Mostly handing things back and forth, holding stuff open, and being an extra set of hands and eyes, but I hadn't done this sort of op in a while, and I forgot the amount of heat that comes off the abdomen when it is opened up, and the smell, especially of the cancerous sections, but also the bowel when you cut into it. This sort of op is pretty heartbreaking because you have to examine a lot of the opened section visually on the spot to look for any visible cancers beyond the tumours and decide where to take tissue samples for staging purposes (what stage the cancer is in). Poor thing had to have her entire womb removed and bit of her bowel and she was only 34. That sort of thing made me glad I went into ortho instead - far less heartbreak in that area.