My father’s in his mid 70s and his hearing isn’t very good in the frequency range that would be useful for finding his vacuum leaks.

I was thinking about setting him up with a directional microphone and a pitch-shifter app to bring environmental sounds down a couple octaves so he can hear them. There are tons of Android/iPhone apps that will pitch-shift in post, but none of the trial/freemium ones seem to work on a realtime monitor stream, especially on an external USB (UAC) microphone. I don’t want to start buying dozens of apps just to try them.

Any app suggestions or other ideas for him?

  • dylanjusticeOPEnglish
    2·
    12 days ago

    Thanks! Found a couple of much cheaper ultrasonic detectors that claim to do this, so we’ll try those (and the spectrum analyzer) first. The usb mic looks great if those don’t pan out!

    • morbidcactus
      1·
      11 days ago

      I’d be totally interested to see how those work, what sensors did you grab?

      • dylanjusticeOPEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        We bought this AllSun adapter . It was able to confirm some smaller dropline leaks, but it missed more than it found. It was completely useless at finding the larger leaks (mostly in saddles and 3/4" tees) that seem to be the bulk of our problem.

        So I’m pushing him to try the hearing aid apps – this one is expensive, but seems to have a good combination of EQ and pitch shifting that may make it possible for him.