Now before we play doctors (because we are not doctors), let us give you a rundown of the workings of the ear and some of the potential conditions you can encounter. To help us we have an image of a normal working ear and the same ear from an electronic viewpoint.

• A = The Tympanic Membrane (mic capsule)
• B = The Tympanic Cavity (mic pre-amp)
• C = The Cochlea (audio processors)
• D = The Cochlear Nerve (multicore to the recorder)

The Tympanic Membrane (A)
We all know it as the ear drum. Stretched across the ear canal, it's actually sort of cone-shaped and quite stiff, yet flexible enough to move slightly under barometric change (sound waves).

In our electronic ear, we show it as the transducer (microphone) capsule of the ear.

The Tympanic Cavity (B)
The tympanic cavity houses the Ossicles which is made up of three bones.

• the hammer (Malleus)
• the anvile (Incus)
• the stirrup (Stapes)

These bones connect the eardrum to the Cochlea. It's sort of like a bone gearbox or mechanical amplifier. And just for interests sake, the stirrup is the smallest bone in the body, smaller than a grain of rice.

In our electronic ear, the tympanic cavity is the transducer (microphone) pre-amplifier.

The Cochlea (C)
The cochlear is a tiny spiral shaped structure, about the size of a pea. It is nestled in the bone of the skull and filled with fluid. A thin membrane with around 15,000 tiny hair cells sits in this fluid. Each cell is tuned to a particular sound or frequency. The tiny hair cells in the cochlea is what connects all the mechanical bits to the cochlea nerve. The piston like action of the Ossicle bones pushing on the oval window of the Cochlea is something akin to the way a piezo crystal works in piezo microphones. Give it a squeeze and you generate an incredibly small amount of voltage and a miniscule amount of heat.

Although not so accurate but for the sake of example our electronic ear equates the Cochlea to being similar to dedicated pre-amps and signal processing equipment, in that, this is the area of the ear that determines the frequencies and gain structures of the many signals applied to the cochlear nerve.

You may notice in the normal working ear diagram a bunch of blue tubes on top of the Cochlea. These are the semicircular canals. They are part of the ear but have little to do with audio and are mainly responsible for the sense of balance.

The Cochlear Nerve (D)
The cochlear nerve is the huge cluster of auditory nerve lines that transmit the infinitesimally small signals to the brain.

This is one bloody big and very sophisticated multicore that feeds the final signals to the recording device.

How it all works
As we know, your ears have ability to detect very slight barometric changes of air pressure (sound waves). These sound waves travel down the ear canal and hit the eardrum in the middle ear. This causes the eardrum to vibrate. Three tiny bones in your middle ear link the vibrating ear drum to the cochlea in the inner ear. The cochlea is filled with liquid that carries the vibrations to thousands of tiny hair cells. The hair cells on the membrane fire off tiny electrical signals. These electrical signals travel up the cochlea nerves of the auditory pathway to the brain that processes them. It all happens in a fraction of a second and enables you to instantly know that you are stuck with a shit gig or something pleasant.

Your ear is a fantastic piece of equipment but it has one problem. If it breaks because you thrashed it a bit too much, it is non repairable. We can't stress this point enough. Hearing loss caused by noise is insidious and permanent.

There are a number of reasons out of our control, that makes us experience problems with our ears. Hearing loss can also be caused by a virus or bacteria, heart conditions or stroke, head injuries, tumors, certain medicines, as a side effect of many diseases and a condition known as presbycusis (the old age hearing disorder). Doctors do not know why presbycusis happens, but it seems to run in families.

But the biggest problem with hearing is extremely simple. It remains to this day, excessive noise levels.