COSMOS DISTRIBUTING Inc. was originally established as a manufacture of auditory test recordings to facilitate our hearing aid dispensing practice. The first recording was Arizona Travelogue, a continuous discourse spoken by a radio announcer, at a rapid speaking rate. The purpose was to measure MCL for speech unaided and aided. The next recording was cafeteria noise which was recorded in a hospital cafeteria, with many transients deliberately included. Nearly all of our recordings have now been re-mastered  at Pinewood Studio,  affiliated with Lions Gate Studio in Vancouver. This Studio does the post production audio for many U.S. films and TV shows which appear on major American networks.

All new recordings, or parts of CD’s that are new, are all mastered using direct digital recording techniques, and the CD blanks used are of the highest quality, to provide long term use of the recordings .

August 2005: Acceptability of Noise Level (A.N.L)

After consultation with Dr. Sam Burchfield  (PH’D of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville ,we were excited to learn the results of a long term study they had undertaken regarding the predictive value of the acceptable noise level (ANL) in patients who wear hearing aids. ANL can predict listeners’ hearing aid use patterns with 85% accuracy. Cosmos Distributing had supplied two recordings which were used as a basis of this test. The Arizona Travelogue recording was an original composition by CDI. The principal researchers of the ANL test gave CDI exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute this test.

Administration  of the Acceptable  Noise Level  (ANL)  test only requires the use of a two channel audiometer with  a mixing network, a 2dB step  attenuator and a CD or tape input jack. The beauty of this test is that administration time is only 2-3 minutes and the results of the test are reported to be stable over a 3 month period(reported in the literature). Cosmos Distributing has manufactured this test on CD and the recording levels on each channel have been set with considerable precision.

SPIN TEST:

Dr. Kalikow was contacted in 1978 regarding the availability of the Spin test sentences. He informed us that the production and distribution of the recordings had been given to the consulting firm Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. The entire library of recordings was purchased from them in 1978 and 1981. In 1981 we obtained permission from Mr. K. Pearsons, Bolt Beranek and Newman, personal communication, to manufacture and distribute the test. We later learned of the spin test revision, which comprised a re-ordering of the original recordings into a different set of 8 forms of 50 sentences which were reported to be of equivalent speech understanding. This project was funded under a National Institute of Health grant. Dr. R. Bilger (PhD) and associates at the University of Illinois performed clinical trials to determine that their list of eight forms were equivalent and standardized the test at a speech-to-babble ratio of +8dB.
Cosmos Distributing independently produced a list of eight forms of the test by physically editing the 10 forms to the revised 8 forms in 1985. The sentences were digitized, waveform edited and the results analyzed. This was later repeated in 1993 by a P. engineer and a certified audio engineer .It was offered for sale in CD format 1993. Full credit for the revision and standardization of the test was provided with the two discs.