Got tinnitus some 5-6 years ago, like someone walking over gravel, fluctuating with my heart beat...up to the level that I had sometimes problems falling asleep...however that never kept me away from enjoying music, in fact I continued to invest a considerable amount of money to get the equipment I deemed necessary to achieve the level of reproduction I was aiming for. Strange enough, one day in the early morning when going to work I realized that my tinnitus was gone, I mean totally gone, scary silent... no particular reasons, no medication. I was so happy with that little miracle... however, unfortunately, last year it started to come back again, but this time just a high whistle, although luckily not as bad as before, can live with this very well. Have serious hearing loss in my left ear as well. Yet I'm very well able to identify slight differences in sound like using different cables, like amplifier upgrades and so on. All I'm saying is don't let tinnitus spoil your listening experience too much (if at all). You may play a little louder, or let your brain do the job by focussing on an all other sounds except for the tinnitus generated frequencies. Currently being 63 years young, left ear limited to 11K Hz, right ear 14K Hz. Yet, I'm very well able to hear if a tweeter works properly or not. I hope that basically I get another 7-8 years or so to be able to enjoy the music, after that I will certainly scale down, simplify everything, so that when I'm gone, my children don't have to deal with moving some 1500 - 2000 kg of equipment around. :) On a different note, my tinnitus is more profound in my left ear, and after having read the above, it seems that a lot of people seem to experience the same.
