Best hearing aid for listening to high quality music

Hearing Aids
#61

Something new recently from Oticon is a newly released program specifically tailored for music called MyMusic for the Oticon More. Some More owners have started reporting on their impression with the new MyMusic program compared to the previous plain built-in Music program.

Beside the forum threads which you can search on your own by typing MyMusic in the forum’s Search box to learn more about forum posters’ reactions to it, here are a couple of links for some announcement and whitepaper on it as well.


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#62

Thank you. But my purpose in posting yesterday was to say that I have found a big improvement and to let others who might be interested know.

#63

I’ve only scanned thru some of the replies. As recently as 20 years ago I considered myself an audiophile with preference for classical music and jazz and the good fortune to be able to hear live presentations often. I assume that you are listening now via hifi speakers in a good room listening environment in the sweet spot for phasing and sound stage. As what I hear as diminished what I have found as being most effective for my enjoyment is to focus as much on my emotional response to the music and find that being in a meditative mode is best for me to be present with the totality of the experience and allowing my brain to fill in (perhaps imagine/hallucinate) what is not actually heard by my nervous system but can be “created” by my brain. If there is a memory I try to focus on the feeling tone not actually what I remember hearing. In short i utilize my mind to offer me more of the experience that I might want and sometimes don’t really know (or care) if that is what my nervous system is registering.

One of the exercises that I do to stretch my brain is sometimes listen on the phone to people I know well but without my hearing aids on. Of course it sounds different, but since I know the timbre and overtones of that voice to some extent (certainly not completely) I can fill in what is not actually being heard by my ears and it tends to make the phone call more enjoyable.

I used (and still can obsess about the technology) but find that the mind is the most important part of the listening experience. Perhaps playing at things from that perspective might be of interest.

To some extent all of our so called perceptions are ones that are both correlated to the stimulus and creatively made up by us. Since there isn’t a right or wrong way to listen to music (unless you are taking a college exam on it) I see no harm in letting the imagination run as wild as it wants to.

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#64

I like my HiFi; I sit down to listen to music for a couple of hours a day. It is the first thing I say to the audiologist when looking for HAs.

About 4 years ago I had an audiologist in my listening room trying to get Resound HAs to sound good. He failed miserably after nearly 2 hours of tinkering. I ended up with Widex Dream 440. They were ok with music but after 4 years I have moved over to Phonak P90/312. I have a music program which is basically raw amplification tailored to my hearing loss with all other processing switched off. The type and fit of the domes is most important to sound quality. I like the music progam so much that I have set it to the default program because I hate the “so called” clever processing of the Automatic program.

Back to sound quaility when listening to music. I find I can enjoy music at relatively modest levels of about 70db. I can crank it up without any distortion produced by the HAs. Most music is in the HAs frequency range. Obviously you will not recapture nuances of sound which are in the higher frequencies. They are gone forever unless you use the horrible sound recover (frequency shifting) settings which are so artificial.

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#65

I am reopening this topic for comments and opinions: like many in the original chain of 2020 music has always been a big part of my life (rock, R&B earlier on and now mostly smooth jazz and neo-soul), I wouldn’t be surprised if my hearing loss was mainly from all those rock concerts…

At the beginning of the year I was fitted with a pair of Phonak Paradies P90 after 3 years of a low to mid-range Signia model without bluetooth which were only fair for projected music (ie speakers) and even then only after a lot of equalizing. Since the Phonak Paradise P90 supports multiple bluetooth connections I began streaming telephone calls and music through them and became much more focused on audio quality, both projected and streaming. During the trial stage I first tried open domes but eventually went for vented closed domes because they gave better overall performance including music, especially bass.

I am a an obsessive tweaker, so after the initial fitting I downloaded the free Phonak Target fitting software used by audiologists (links are available in other forums here) and purchased a Noah Link wireless interface (around $150 on eBay), it took me about 2 months to learn and tweak all the settings (and there are a LOT) but the final result was a significant improvement both overall and also for music live and streamed. This Phonak model has an “AutoSense” feature that changes audio configuration automatically according to the sound environment; one of the modes is “Music” and after much tweaking I got music samples to sound almost exactly the same in both the “Automatic” default mode and in the “Music” mode so that when the h/a switches automatically into the music mode the change is seamless. The music mode can also be selected manually using the Phonak app.

Aside from the previous Signia I have not tried any other hearing aids so I can’t make any comparisons, here are my impressions of the Phonak Paradise P90 for music and phone calls.

  1. Projected music, in my case a mid-range TV soundbar, a mid-range stereo and the factory-standard music system in my car. After some moderate equalization both music and tv sound very good; highs are crisp, mid-range and speech are clear and not “brassy” and the bass is surprisingly mellow and deep without getting boomy. The sound is very natural does not feel at all “artificial”. In short listening to projected music is a joy.
  2. Music streamed to the h/a with bluetooth, mostly when I exercise or work in the yard. Overall the quality is similar to a pair of $20 ear buds, listenable but they fall short of even mid-range earphones or buds, in particular the bass which is barely there even with equalization. Highs and mid-range are OK but would not qualify for audiophile approval. But since I don’t want bother with swapping out to better sounding ear-buds each time just for exercise or yard work the hearing-aids are acceptable enough.
  3. Bluetooth phone calls: telephony in general, wired and wireless, has never had very high audio quality so this was less of a consideration for me. While audio quality can be influenced by the device on the other end normally the quality of phone audio on the Phonaks is quite acceptable and without distortion. On the other hand either the microphone or the software (or both) may not be doing such a good job because quite often I get complaints from people who say that they can’t hear me very well, but many others do not have a problem.

Your comments, opinions and experiences are welcome!

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#66

I last commented on this thread 2 years ago. 2 things have changed, (1) HAs have gotten a bit better, and (2) I accept even more their limitations and can no longer imagine that we will soon have ones good enough for accurate reproduction of high quality music.

I generally agree with your #2 point that streaming into HAs is like using cheap ear buds. Good enough for the gym or listening when jogging. Not for serious listening.

Also definitely agree that with creative self-programming one can make improvements.

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#67

Streaming via HAs needs occlusion to make sure Bass can’t escape the ear canal.

But I do agree about the hassle of switching to the favorite earbuds.

TL:DR I don’t want to pull out HAs and switch to earbuds. However, my HAs sound very good to me when I listen to loud speaker (and appropriate room).

My HAs receiver is a bit tricky to set the position of the dome and receiver right in the canal. When it gets right, it’s not easy to pull out (you need to a little twist your ears to pull it out) I learned this through many years of usage. At first, I wore it way too loosely, later I found that I actually wear it wrong all the time. The receivers wire must be flushed and flattened to your head. This changes how everything sounds. Its just sound clearer and louder on something.

Oh, I don’t want to pull it out, switch the dome to power dome (occlude) just to listen music either… not worth the hassle!

The best fix would probably be to get the custom molds. But in my country, there no one proficient enough to make one for me. I planned to order custom international one day.

Did anyone have third party reputation molds maker for hearing aids? I don’t trust my vendor to do the molds for me. They are… fine but not good enough. I want to try third party molds maker.

#68

I wear Oticons, but I’m sure Phonak has settings in Target for added bass for streaming, but to really increase the bass, I suggest the following hack.
It’s very scientific, but can be accomplished by most anyone.
Get some foam earplugs like Hearos. Cut them down so you don’t look like the Frankenstein’s monster, and insert them behind your domes, or molds.

If that doesn’t work, get some cotton balls, and insert them behind the domes, or molds.

Guaranteed bass!!
Your BT audio stredaming will now sound like a decent pair of IEM’s.

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#69

You’d have to do a search on this forum, and a google search to find a vendor that can send you the kit to make impressions, and create the molds.

Once you get the molds, you’ll have to prescribe your settings for your HA’s in the fitting software to account for the new acoustics.

#70

interesting idea, I’ll try it. Thanks for the tip!

#71

Yes, improvement in H/A technology seems to be more incremental than giant strides (event though the addition and development of bluetooth H/A features has been rapid in the last few years). Hopefully, before I go to the great listening room in the sky I will have found hearing aids that stream truly high fidelity music…

#72

Hello David. I haven’t auditioned Widex or Linx, but near-obsolete Phonak M70 serve me well on live/hifi music, thanks to fabulous NHS audiologist.
All fancy stuff turned off (warbling anti feedback was dreadful on music), phasey multi-band compression removed in favour of an ear-protecting overall limiter.
The top end boost needed for my ageing ears is chopped to match their cutoff, about 4 kHz, because prior to that the aids’ gain was ‘pumped’ by notes and harmonics too high to hear. And she gave me more low-end than the typical fit. Prior to that, bass singers sounded a bit castrato!
I would guess (I’m not a clinician, but a pro sound recordist) that the nuances of fitting may outweigh HA quality. Among a great deal there’s the influence of venting: too big a hole kills the HA lows, but lets in the nice natural ones. Unvented can be sweaty and boomy.
There are not a lot of articulate hi-fi buffs in the HA biz, I dare to suggest, but Prof Marshall Chasin is well into music and has written up lots of insight. You might well find interest in the work of Dr Alinka Greasley of Leeds University (UK) who surveyed musicians and what they do to make the best of their ear-mounted technology!

#73

Hello Keith L.
Yes, absolutely agree. Processing built for speech ruins music. And yes, lay it on the line with the clinician.
My curve is similar to yours, though I need about 85 dB spl to enjoy music unaided, but really it needs top end boost, so I turn gratefully to my nicely fitted Phonak M70s.
I suspect that my growing love of organ music might be because the really high end detail isn’t so crucial. By way of compensation for absent orchestral sheen and sparkle, I wallow in pedal notes through huge subs!