Your voice sounds perfectly feminine to me. Both of versions.

I highly recommend Dr. Haben. He was awesome. You can get the glottoplasty without the CTA. I don't know if you've heard my recordings on my Haben thread, but give it a listen. I think I also linked to pics there if you want to see what he did. His work does decrease the functional length of the vocal cords.

Quote from: Miyuki on September 26, 2015, 10:57:33 AM
I guess I can't argue with that, but it sounds really bad in my head, and I'm pretty sure the pitch is technically in the upper male range.

Mine sounds bad in my head but I can go out in my worst guy drag and still be read as female now.

A couple of my friends say it sounds more feminine than their voices.

At worst I get read as a teenage girl which is annoying only in liquor stores because I get carded.

I think what I am going to do, is when I am closer to being ready to book a surgery, I will consult with both surgeons and let them know what my issues and expectations would be for surgery, let them listen to my voice samples, and see what they recommend. I will make sure to talk to both Dr. Haben and Dr. Kim, but to honest I am a little biased toward doing the surgery at Yeson, because Dr. Kim is currently more experienced at this particular procedure. I will trust their judgment, and if they are willing to go on record that they believe the surgery will meet my expectations, I will do it. Unless that is, I can find a voice therapist who is able to help me get over the issues I have with my current voice, because I know based on the way I currently sound, I don't really need surgery.

Quote from: anjaq on September 26, 2015, 12:55:18 PM
It is the same link as the "Untrained" in the first post! Are you sure this is correct?

I thought it sounded at least a little lower than my earlier untrained recording... I don't know, maybe I am just hearing things.

Edit: Oh wait, they are literally the same link. Sorry, my bad. Here is the real one:

Untrained

I will fix it in the earlier post too to avoid confusion.

Dr Haben has been doing the procedure for 10 years now and if you click elsewhere on his web site you will see he is a skilled surgeon for other voice problems as well. The cab driver has taken many people from all over the world to Dr Haben office for various voice issues. The cab driver knew I was transsexual the moment I got in the cab and he knew why I was there. Evaluate the procedure and the results but also remember that Dr Haben post average results on his web site. Understand both procedures in detail and learn about both Doctors before deciding. This surgery isn't reversible and you only get one shot at getting it right.

Okay, well it's good to know both surgeons are good choices. As I said, any decision I make will be based mostly on the feedback I receive from the surgeons.

Oh I must have used the wrong link then. Ok, the second untrained recording reads 145 Hz in my software, which is at the upper end of the male range, bordering on the gender neutral range. Your resonance and inflections are feminine already, so at that pitch you still sound feminine to my ears and undoubtedly do so for many others. So its a choice, really - I still would recommend to get a voice therapist to check your voice - see what your vocal range is, what your relaxed voice really would be like and if you can learn to use a little higher pitch without straining so much.
I think not using vocal fry would increase the perceived and analyzed pitch of your voice even in the relaxed mode, so just trying to get rid of that habit may make your relaxed voice go up in the gender neutral range and sound totally female.

A surgery might give you a voice that is pretty high - Dr Kims estimate for you would then be 220 Hz I guess, that is pretty average female speaking pitch and would be well above your trained voice in terms of pitch.

The differences between Haben and Kim are mostly in their technique. Both seem to be experienced surgerons, Dr Kim has I believe done over 400 vocal fold shortening surgeries now, Not sure how many Dr Haben has done, he seems to have used CTA for a long time and added vocal fold shortening later on? There are differences in their techniques - permanent sutures or dissolving sutures, laser or microscalpels, different points the sutures are put in,... but those are harder to find out because they do both not put up details of the procedures online.

Okay, well it's good to know both surgeons are good choices. As I said, any decision I make will be based mostly on the feedback I receive from the surgeons.

Quote from: anjaq on September 26, 2015, 07:51:23 PM
Yea, it's really tough to say objectively which is better, but I do have to say the best post op results I have heard posted on this forum were from Yeson. But that might just be because not as many people here have gone to Dr. Haben.

And then there is me not helping Dr Haben's record. I picked Dr Haben because I was more comfortable that he could handle my voice issues. I knew I needed a big pitch move and he had CTA in reserve if he couldn't do what I needed with VFS alone. I was prepared to pay for the CTA had he told me that was my only option. I didn't want to go that way if I didn't have to but I would have.

Dr Kim didn't have a fall back plan and I didn't and still don't have the feeling that Dr Kim would have produce the results I needed. He might have but I wasn't sure.

Quote from: Miyuki on September 26, 2015, 07:36:33 PM
Okay, well it's good to know both surgeons are good choices. As I said, any decision I make will be based mostly on the feedback I receive from the surgeons.

I think you have a good plan.  I would try therapy first and see what you get out of it.  After that, if you decide you want surgery, I think getting in touch with both surgeons and seeing what they have to say is a great idea.  This is your voice and you want to have an informed decision.

I'm in a similar situation where I have a slightly higher than normal base speaking pitch but even after training my voice and finding something that works, I ultimately decided that I wanted to have surgery just to make it more automatic and easier to use.  My surgery is in about 3 and a half weeks and I'll definitely  be posting about my experience and sharing clips when I'm able.

Dena - that quote was not from me, can you please change that? I am a fan of Dr Kim, but I would never claim that Dr Kim is better than all others - because I know that while I personally feel that it may be like that, I have no way of knowing this. I assume that the comment was from someone else, still considering the surgery?

I think doing voice therapy is definitely a big gain before any surgery option. Also to just relax your voice and make you comfortable with your voice, focus on other things than pitch in the therapy sessions first, because pitch is something that will then be dealt with surgery, if that is your plan. But there are other things to focus on - voice health, not straining the voice - those are really important also post op. I had a pre op voice which was usually having a good resonance and sound to it, but I strained a lot, so I did one year of voice therapy just to get rid of the straining and forcing of the voice before I had the Yeson surgery - in part because Dr Kim noticed these issues and said I will have a less than favoiurable outcome if I go into the surgery while still having those habits .

I was the one who originally posted the quote. It was part of a post I made that was apparently accidentally edited due to a moderation mishap. It was in the place of the post that now seems to have been changed to be the same as the post I made above it.

I went to Dr Kim because I have heard good, consistent results, I wanted to travel to a foreign land and I felt that he had a lot of modern technique and equipment.

That said, Dr Haben seems to produce very similar results for less cost plus he offers some procedures like Adam's apple shave that Dr Kim doesn't have.

If I had to choose again it would be a tough choice and I may choose either one.

What I would do now is reach out to them and ask if you are eligible. They'll ask for a voice sample via email and analyze it.

If you like I can bring it to the attention of admins and see what I can be done to correct that. Hugs
Mariah

Quote from: Miyuki on September 27, 2015, 10:03:14 AM
I was the one who originally posted the quote. It was part of a post I made that was apparently accidentally edited due to a moderation mishap. It was in the place of the post that now seems to have been changed to be the same as the post I made above it.

Quote from: iKate on September 27, 2015, 10:46:26 AM
I went to Dr Kim because I have heard good, consistent results, I wanted to travel to a foreign land and I felt that he had a lot of modern technique and equipment.

That said, Dr Haben seems to produce very similar results for less cost plus he offers some procedures like Adam's apple shave that Dr Kim doesn't have.

Well - I know that there are others who do the same procedure. Prof Remarcle in Europe, Prof Nawka in Berlin, someone in Stuttgart, Germany, at least one surgeon in the UK,... so the basic technique is not rare and its not new - its been around for about 30 years. The key is in the details, how it is done and in the precision/skill of the surgeon. And those are both things that led me to Dr Kim because he has a lot of experience, the post op photos I saw looked all like a very clean suture and reconstructed commissure - the voices I heard were all feminine and without significant voice distortions or dysphonia. He uses microscalpels and permanent sutures, which makes totally sense to me in terms of preserving tissue and making sure the suture stays in place. So its many little things one should look at when deciding.
Of course, yes, Dr Haben and some others offer something Dr Kim will not do because he feels it would lessen the success of his surgery and that is to add the CTA surgery or a Laser tuning or an adams apple shave to the list of surgeries. For me, a CTA is something I do not want to get if I can avoid it, lasering sounds a bit problematic to me , too and I do not really need an adams apple shave - so those things were not on my list of things I want to do - which made it easier for me to decide for Dr Kim.