Yeah absolutely the problem for us, I’m only 36 still and worn analogues since I was 6 years old, then was introduced to the digitals back in 2006, I’ve still given them a go, I wore them for like 30 minutes outside and at home in my normal surroundings and I was too upset to carry on wearing them, so changed them over. But yeah the younger generation are fortunate as they won’t know any different.
How closely can digital come to sounding like analog?
I hope it’s close enough. I’ve only every tried one digital called Phonak Eterna, was rubbish, so hoping to trial some more and ask them to drop the noise reduction, make it more analog setting 
Seriously? Those would be like 20 year old tech, as for getting that good old analog feeling, a linear with DSL v5 formula could help, but yeah no-one seems to makes analog as such anymore.
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Another way to look at this, at least in my opinion, is that you’re basically going from fairly “normally” amplified sound to digital. You can sort of think of this like going from normal hearing in a sense, to digital hearing. I found this very very difficult to begin with. IN fact I’d say it takes me about 30 days, wearing the HA’s all the time that is from when I wake up until when I go to bed, for my brain to just start treating their sound as normal. I have found though that now I know what to listen for in a digital aid, it is easier. I can more easily tell the good ones from the bad ones.
Another thing to consider, I don’t know how old your Phonaks are but I tried Phonaks in 2019 and they sounded truely horrible. like every single thing was a robot. now though, they honestly do sound quite acceptable, at least to my ears and Widex really do sound quite analogue. Not completely, and there are other issues I don’t like about them, but I think you will be quite surprised about how much better things do sound and how you can get used to them.
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This is sort of how long is a piece of string, very much your milage may vary. If what you’re after is no noticeable delay and very little alteration to the sound profile, Widex Pure program IMHO comes very close. IN general I’ve observed HA’s are getting closer and closer to sound like they’re not tampering with the sound, at least for some makers. Phonak, Widex are good, Oticon and Starkey and Signia I feel are less so but this is just my opinion. As processors get faster and faster, the alterations being made to the sound are getting less noticeable. Much also comes down to how the HA is programmed, what you ask to be done to it and how much you really “listen” to the sound around you in every day life. Again, this is just my subjective opinion based on what I’m hearing through them.
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FWIW
This is Lyod’s hearing aid site.
They have been referenced many times on this site.
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Are they really, well I’m hoping they have some better ones, Widex comes up a lot, I’m hoping they have these on the NHS, if not it’s something I’ll try and explore
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It should be noted that you, @Xonic83, have a reverse slope hearing loss, which makes it more difficult to fit properly.
Because of the imbalance (high frequencies are more audible than low frequencies in the reverse slope), the sound can definitely be perceived as harsh and robotic. What’s more, if you had a more open acoustic coupling, such as a dome, low pitched sounds wouldn’t be amplified properly because they would leak out of the ear canal.
In open fittings, comb filtering could occur, where Widex PureSound with zero delay could help a little. However, I have little knowledge of whether this phenomenon is clinically relevant when the average latency in hearing aids is around 5-8 ms.
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It is a bit of a “Postcard Lottery” @Sash88uk, most NHS Trusts, stick to Phonak or Oticon, in some instances, they will obtain other aids, “out with” their catalogue, in special circumstances, or what they deem special, much depends on your relationship with the NHS A.uD, some are friendly, and helpful, others are only interested in seeing your back, as you walk out the door, they only get 20 minutes per client for a fitting! You may be flogging a dead horse to get any different aids, but you can only ask! I am afraid to say, the only other route, is painful to your wallet, if you do go private, it may cost you several thousand pounds? In all truth, I hated analog aids, just a wall of sound, I probably wore analog for maybe 13 years or so? IMO, early digital aids were pretty rank, it’s only in the last 5 or 6 years, with the advent of Bluetooth aids, that there has been any significant improvement… I first went private around 2013 (Phonak Spice) I came to the conclusion, if you want to hear the best you can, perhaps it is best to avoid the NHS, they will give you decent set of hearing aids, but for their part, they are mainly outdated aids, they are fine for back up’s, and I still keep my toe in the door with the NHS, though…But now, being a bit of an anorak, I love technology, I upgrade every 2 or 3 years, (twas 6 years between, Phonak Spice and Phonak Marvel, though) as soon as I buy a new set of aids, I start saving for the next set… I am pretty deaf, with a bilateral severe/profound loss, but I am fairly content, I have lots of different “Phonak Roger ALD’s, Assistive Listening Devices” I buy them second hand, mostly from eBay, yesterday, I was using the “Roger Table Mic 2” when I had visitors over, very quiet spoken visitors! So I fired up a “Table Mic”, this is a wonderful piece of kit, the sound is exquisite and crystal clear, direct into your aids, extremely expensive if you are buying new, but I paid less than a tenth of the normal price via eBay…At some point, you will have to transition to digital, it is better to do it now, than wait till you have no option, my advice would be, do it gradually and build up, before you don’t have a choice, you will eventually, and perhaps grudgingly adapt, we all do…And at some point in the future, you will perhaps find some digital aids you can live with? Good Luck, cheers Kev 
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It’s not clear any are for sale in analog configuration. Maybe they can still make them if one calls in.
Can I ask what you mean by reverse slope in terms of hearing, that’s a new term I’ve not heard before.
I totally understand what you mean with Audiology, some vary in how friendly, helpful they are, 20 minutes is absolutely not long enough at all is it, they assume your hearing aids are sorted and I’m like “no sorry it’s still not right” then this is when they lose interest, because they are used to plugging your current aid in the machine to match the digital, which actually doesn’t always work and isn’t always accurate…I’m very fickle and will not settle for something until it’s right, like I say I’ve worn analogs for 30 years, so even though I wear hearing aids in both ears and have moderate/severe hearing loss, I did have some degree of hearing when I was very young, so I know the sounds.
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In truth Sasha, the “NHS Audiology Departments” are under immense pressure, they have perhaps a couple of million potential patients, 1 in 7 people in the UK, have a hearing loss, and more akin to 1 in 5 in the more elderly age groups, when austerity struck, these Audiology Departments (around 2008) were decimated, and truthfully never really recovered, natural wastage was imposed, so staff weren’t replaced, IMO (I was employed in the NHS, around that time) management actively discouraged people to seek help with their hearing, various obstacles were in place, to discourage them getting hearing aids, for instance, making folks phone in for an appointment, knowing full well, they struggled very badly on the phone, especially so, when they were unaided, or their aids were broken, but that was the only way to get an appointment! A lot of their best Audioligist “jumped ship” to the private sector… Things have improved slightly in the last few years, my local NHS Audiology Department, does do REM, but not all NHS Departments have access to this equipment, much of this, has to do with training, or perhaps the lack of training, this is perhaps why, the NHS mainly dispenses, Oticon or Phonak, it is more economical for the NHS to train up their A.uD’s on a couple of manufacturers… Over the years, I have met some wonderful NHS A.uD’s, whom went out of their way, to give me a better hearing experience, some gave me Aids, that were new to the market, one in particular bought me “Analogue Aids” (around 1993) out of his own pocket, I was unemployed, and the NHS Analogue aids I had, were atrocious… He was giving me a leg up, in the fond hope, that I would find work, a wonderful example of the kindness of human nature…If you are a difficult person to fit Sasha, the NHS isn’t the place to seek help, they don’t have the time or the resources, and a 20 minute appointment won’t cover a challenging fit, but that’s what they are allocated… Many of these NHS Audiologists, don’t really care, they are totally disillusioned, I know several who left, scarred by the system! Some place’s like Boots Hearing Care, will allow you to pay up for your aids, over 2 years, with a 60 days return no quibble policy, for a full refund… Costco UK, are even cheaper with an excellent no quibble return policy, so there are options, if money is tight… Good Luck, cheers Kev
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My hearing is lost from the low frequencies, bottom up not top down. Makes me a royal pain in the bum to fit as all hearing aids are built the other way and tend to bias high freqs. I mean most hearing aids only go down to 250 hz and even then it’s arguable how much sound you’re acttually getting. consider for a moment the tiny tiny speaker and how much low freq that could realistically put out, then consider what all that bass would do to the sounds above it. Think how badly a regular speaker would cope with that overload and then shrink it down 
Ok so Widex have come out with a new platform finally. the pure program on this is going to be fairly revolutionary because now it seems you get the pure analogue type sound and you can also adjust many other features in the background. IN the UK audiologists are able to order these next week.
BTW I’m not sure if you can afford this apologies, but have you considered an online site not the NHS? i think hearing aids uk does widex, they are about 3 grand which isn’t great but cheaper than some other suppliers.
Anyway, more info about the Widex Allure here:
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no where do you get that information, any audiogram cam be entered into the software and then the appropriate frequencies are programmed into the HAs, the question then is will you like/ accept it.
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Sorry but I disagree. I had fairly ok hearing for many years and I tried different types of hearing aids. What the science and the marketing says is that you can put an audiogram in and get an acceptable result and that is true in a way I guess. However consider, any home cinema enthusiast will tell you they will never let the microphone calibration configure their AVR receiver, they’ll do it by ear. Why? because despite something saying it’s producing all the right frequencies, there are just too many variables to compute and the speakers end up sounding rubbish. IN fact you are discouraged from calibrating the base with a microphone because it never gets it right.
I don’t need information to know that HA’s bias high freqs. I put them in my ears and even in neutral mode, everything is much sharper than it should be. Stick a set of Airpods pro 2s in your ears, not the HA mode but just regular mode, and the sound is a lot more flat.
I mean consider for a moment that most hearing aids only go down to about 200 hZ. even 200 is probably stretching it because the receiver is so so small. think where 200 hz is in the audio landscape for a moment. It’s here by the way:
There are so so so many more frequencies below that, so many sounds you miss by cutting stuff out below that. Hearing aids are tiny mics, tiny recievers and just overall tiny. You’ll never get proper balanced sound from something like that. I don’t care what the science and wat the studies say, if they can’t even sound as good as a modern earbud, then as far as I’m concerned, there is frequency bias. and why not? most people don’t have reverse slope hearing loss so it’s exactly what they need The problem is, this is what we have these days. So everything in the audiology landscape says these are the tools we have to work with, this is what we’ve gotta make work. Again, why not? would be rubbish if everyone just accepted they didn’t sound very rounded or great would it, no one would ever sell them that way
They are definitely getting better I’ll give you that. however in terms of sound reproduction, we’re a long way off yet.
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This is something I’m interested in about frequency, as I don’t actually know the levels on my audiogram, I’m going to ask for a copy and compare with anyone on here. I couldn’t tell you much about frequency levels and I don’t know how much frequency is what, such as people talking, tv, cars, smoke alarm. To be fair I know I can hear smoke alarm without my hearing aid which is good to know for ever in emergency.
Not sure exactly your point, I mean most have an opinion on this, but no one said that you have/or should accept what the software has done, so what actually happens in a fitting is it’s a work in progress, so this means lots of additional adjustments over time, this can be said for any type, Cooke bite, high frequency (ski slope) reverse slope, so it’s a given fact that we all hear differently, 125Hz to 8000Hz fits the speech banana quite well, over and below for music-sure, but it’s speech the manufacturers are focusing on, and true they are getting better for music reproduction, this is why we all have different opinions on which HAs and which “hi-fi” system etc is “best” this is also why DIY works so well for many people, only we know how we like things to sound, no one else could possibly know this, so some don’t have satisfactory results because they weren’t set for how they like things to sound, but this isn’t to say for others, and do remember that nothing is perfect when it comes to HAs, size doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of hearing well, your posts are always an interesting read and agree with most, cheers
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