Last night I got to hear Jane Monshein at the Phoenix Musical Instrument Museum. Jane at 41 has a powerful, often quite high pitched voice! I did find that some songs I understood her words quite well, some I didn't. Whether this is due to how she sings at times, vs whether the mixing at the concert was fine for the jazz instruments but not as helpful for vocals, I don't know. More probably that as Cannga notes above, the music mode for hearing aids may disable a lot of the processing particularly for speech so that the music comes through. Yet not even two weeks ago Rodney Crowell's vocals were clear as daylight - but Rodney has a lower pitched voice, whereas Jane has a very high pitched voice much of the time! I will discuss this when I see my Audiologist this Wednesday! Once again the music itself was clearly better, more well rounded/3D, I could hear drum rolls and cymbals much better, etc like I've discussed before.
My father was an audiophile and avid concertgoer all of his life. When his hearing started going downhill in his mid/late 60s, he was very upset. His audiologist was able to find him an “ audiophile” hearing aid. Unfortunately I can’t remember the manufacturer but do recall them costing him around $5k. This was about 7 years ago so might be a lot cheaper now. They made a significant improvement and he could fully enjoy music again.
Not sure if this is too off topic, but I thought of this article after reading this thread. Fingers crossed that it's ready for me once I hit my 60's. (Or sooner. )
My gut from the bit I could read on the web is that the Marvel with a faster more powerful chip and newer software with the third version of Autosense (Autosense 3.0) may be even better for hearing sound in 360 degrees with higher frequency extension...
Whatever the hell Phonak and my Audiologist programming has been done has been wonderful! Especially much lesser and frequent headaches and tinnitus! And the Autosense feature does all of this automatically, you don't have to engage or re-engage, which to me is very imperative!
Any idea what "programming" means for music listening use other than turning off all superfluous processing?
Does your audiologist even understand what freq response is? The one I had at Kaiser didn't, and I couldn't tell whether the one at Costco could or not.
Even if they did, not sure what they could do because of the coarseness of audiograms; mine has only 8 points between the 250 Hz and 8kHz endpoints.
What would be nice for us is to let us listen to freq sweeps and use parametric EQ to render a smooth response, then use the inverse of that to program the response of our HA's.
Also, in case you weren't aware, note that audiograms measure threshold response, i.e. the softness sounds we can hear at different freq, whereas we'd want the above done at normal listening SPL.
My father was an audiophile and avid concertgoer all of his life. When his hearing started going downhill in his mid/late 60s, he was very upset. His audiologist was able to find him an “ audiophile” hearing aid. Unfortunately I can’t remember the manufacturer but do recall them costing him around $5k. This was about 7 years ago so might be a lot cheaper now. They made a significant improvement and he could fully enjoy music again.
Not sure if this is too off topic, but I thought of this article after reading this thread. Fingers crossed that it's ready for me once I hit my 60's. (Or sooner. )
Those are the ones. Looks like they are more expensive now ($7k). I guess it followas the pricing model of all high-end gear . They really did make a huge difference for him.
Hearing aids themselves do not need a break in. Its your ears that needs to get used to the hearing aid. Different hearing aids will sound different as some have better background/feedback noise cancellation.
Hearing aids themselves do not need a break in. Its your ears that needs to get used to the hearing aid. Different hearing aids will sound different as some have better background/feedback noise cancellation.
Yes, as I have noted in this thread, at times over 10-20 minutes, or even an hour, depending upon what movie or music I'm listening too, I can hear the sound improve. But this has been a few times, not all the time by any means. E.G., when I listened to a harp ripped SACD, first time I started getting a headache as I noticed much more vibration and better sonics, as harp is high pitched. A few days later I listened to it with HAs engaged and all was fine!
Saw my Audiologist again today. My demo Phonak Audeo B-R hearing aids had been set for me as a beginner - today she set them to use full range correction. Should be interesting. Follow up in two weeks. She's interested in my "observations" and then she wants me to try a pair of Russound hearing aids with auto features including music! She confirmed pricing will be very competitive but I won't go into detail any more than that.
He admitted Costco is a "volume" hearing aid seller - you come in for the exam, they can give you some demos to try, and then if you buy the setup once and that's it. No further adjustments re your concerns.
I have been back once and there was never a question as to whether there was any charge for the follow-up visit. There was none. I was told that I could get a test annually and follow up visits free for as long as I was a Costco member, even ten or twenty years!
I went to a certified degreed audiologist and was treated poorly. I decided, after that to pay half the price and get treated no worse at Costco. I have been very happy with the result.
I am skeptical that a person with a mild to moderate hearing loss requires complicated, feature rich $4000+ hearing aids.
I understand that it is disheartening to listen to a multi-thousand dollar system with $1600 hearing aids, but, to me, it comes down to whether I want to hear roughly 80% as well as I did when I was young, with hearing aids, or 40% without.
As well, with my hearing aids in place, I am not at all bothered by tinnitus. When I take them out to go to sleep at night, the hissing is quite disturbing.
Below is my Audiologist hearing test results - what they call mild to moderate hearing loss, but which I have been finding out has a significant effect pa particularly on music, especially live music concerts that I go to a lot. Blue is left ear, red is right ear.
I bought my hearing aids from Costco and that’s not my experience at all. In fact, I was informed the same as on their website:
I understand that it is disheartening to listen to a multi-thousand dollar system with $1600 hearing aids, but, to me, it comes down to whether I want to hear roughly 80% as well as I did when I was young, with hearing aids, or 40% without.
As well, with my hearing aids in place, I am not at all bothered by tinnitus. When I take them out to go to sleep at night, the hissing is quite disturbing.
I am lucky I guess that my "whoosing" sounding tinnitus is only when I watch tv/movies or listen to music, not when I sleep with hearing aids out. But my tinnitus has been greatly improved in the two weeks of hearing aids.
Its ok to be skeptical. I've had a 2 week demo of Phonak Audeo B-R, as that's the demo. The Audiologist when I come in reviews how many hours I've used them each day and what features and programs have been used and how long for each. This helps determine which model she will eventually recommend. Fo the first 2 weeks, she did minimal adjustments to correct my frequency response, as I am a beginner. Today she did the full normal adjustment to correct my frequency response. In another 2 weeks she wants to try me on some Resound hearing aids. She believes these suit me best. After completing the demo I we will discuss the models, the features I use, and I will decide. But let me tell you the pricing we discussed for the top line, if I decide I want that, for both Phonak or Resound is simply not that much more than Costco's most expensive hearing aids, in the range of $2700 or so per pair. And at least I researched that the Phonaks sold by Costco currently are a model/chip behind for Phonak, and perhaps this may be the case for other non-Kirkland hearing aids as well.
Like anything in the audiophile conundrum - whatever makes one happy! And whatever one thinks its worthwhile to afford given cost benefits and negotiation of price. I simply started this thread to give my own contribution and journey, and its great that folks contribute even if they may think I am grossly overspending or an idiot! HA! (I have a hard head!)
Now that my Audiologist last Tuesday "opened up" the frequency correction of my demo Phonaks to fully correct my mild to moderate hearing loss (as opposed to a beginner's milder correction before), all I can say is - WOW!
First little things. Watched a tv show and sound seemed perhaps more open and better than before (comparing to the beginners correction before). I say perhaps. What I really noticed is I turned on my Sony VW5000 projector and heard a high pitched whirring I had never heard before. I thought gee I'm hearing too much gonna have to have the Audiologist turn it down. Fortunately, after a minute or two the high pitch went away, guess it was on startup for a bit. Wore these the past two days and tonight time for some music ! And here's the WOW! This full range frequency correction heck I dig it totally! Music is jumping at me with everything, its like I had an ear/brain transplant! HA! Two channel improvement is marked vs the beginners correction, which was a nice improvement vs no hearing aids.
Tonight listening to music, its like I'm in a whole new world!
When I next see my Audiologist she wants me to demo Resound. She is very interested in my feedback and personal perception as an audiophile. I have started to read up on Resound and interesting including 116 dB dynamics and frequncy correction to 9.5 kHZ. https://www.resoundpro.com/en-US/hearing-aids/linx-quattro/sound-quality
Though I am happy as a camper right now! Even though the Phonaks only have frequency extension to 8 kHz!
Not sure if this is too off topic, but I thought of this article after reading this thread. Fingers crossed that it's ready for me once I hit my 60's. (Or sooner. )
That reminds me of what happened when I went out into the parking lot after getting my HA's.
My universe expanded - there was a huge feeling of space from hearing hearing distant echos of street sounds, leaves rustling in trees, etc.
I'm very interested to hear your impressions of the Resounds and how much difference the extra 1.5 kHz makes (if any, it's just a fraction of an octave).
Does your audiologist carry Bernafon?
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