Bass? What’s that? If streaming music through my hearing aids was the only means I had to listen to music I would cease to do so. Thin, tinny, lifeless, and just downright unpleasant. “Stream music from your phone” should not be used as a selling point or feature of hearing aid advertising.
I guess I am lucky I never had an ear for music. All I care about is being able to understand speech and understand the words that are being said. Music to me is just something to take my mind off my tinnitus.
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I recently bought Hearphones, as a backup for my HAs and as an alternative for specific situations–loud restaurants (haven’t tried yet) and walking in a noisy city (traffic noise). Excellent results with the latter! The first two days I wore them I was ecstatic about them. On later trials I’ve had some trouble with whistling feedback, which I assume has to do with the fit-in-the-ear, or the volume, although I’ve adjusted both. I still believe they are a remarkable product that perform very well as an alternative to HAs. At the price, a much better deal than buying a second set of HAs! I learned of them via the excellent new book, “Volume Control,” by David Owen. See your public library–most have it.
For me, they were much better than my Siemans $6000 HAs but not as good as my new $6000 M90s. But I really didn’t like wearing them. The feedback is horrible if you don’t have the right size ear buds and really jam them tight. They were great for noise cancelling on flights
I did mailorder w/ no problem. I LOVE Hearphones and have worn them almost daily since getting them several months ago. I live in the city and much prefer them to hearing aids for dampening down surrounding traffic noise, road noise when I’m driving, etc. Plus the streaming from my iPad and iPhone (I don’t watch TV) is fantastic. I wonder how often in the future I will wear my hearing aids?
Sharing your audiogram would shed some light on this.
We all have different hearing losses. At some point OTC type hearing devices just don’t cut it but for those they work for, that great.
I’ve had my level of hearing loss described as ‘moderate to severe’. Therefore, I’m amazed that a non-prescription gadget works as well as the Bose product does. A lot, I think, has to do w/ the nature of one’s everyday life. I’m single, so I don’t have an in-house companion to converse with. I live in an apartment, not a big house with yard. I walk a great deal out of doors, mostly alone, so am subject to urban noise/city, and in parks (more quiet). I converse with a walk buddy; there I have more trouble from local traffic (trash trucks), than from hearing loss! Audiogram to follow.
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Thanks for sharing your audiogram.
I believe your rather flat hearing loss is why you do well with your hear phones. That’s really nice that you can.
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Does “flat” mean that the line is a gentle curve without a lot of small ups and downs? Even tho my hearing loss is considerable?
I’m no expert.
Your right ear is pretty flat loss wise looking at it from the lower frequencies to the upper frequencies.Your left does have a bit of drop in the upper frequencies. Realizing that most OTC hearing devices do not adjust to each frequency as hearing aids do it would make since that a flat loss could be improved with a rather flat increase in volume across all frequencies.
Take a look at other members audiograms and you will see what I am talking about.
Hearphones work great for me too.
Check my audiogram
How do I find your audiogram? And where/how am I supposed to post mine, other than attached to a message? Glad to have a Hearphones buddy!
OH, ok, I found it. Thank you.
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Across the top of each page is a row of icons you can select. The farthest right one is “FORUM”. Select that and behind that you will see My Hearing Test. Select that to get to where you can add your audiogram to be public to the forum like others have done.
Good luck.
Thx. It worked. Added.
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It does make sense that those of us with a more “flat” loss can more easily use the Hearphones because it is easy to just boost the sound across the full spectrum. But it is also possible to more selectively shape the gain - it just takes a little more time & effort.
There is an upgrade coming out that should be even better.
That would be regarded as a bilateral flat loss as you assumed.
The small variation isn’t significant enough to be noticed.
The suggestion that ‘just turning up the power’ would work is pretty much correct as long as there’s a bit of MPO limiter in place. Hence the headphones doing a good job. There’s an argument that well fitted Basic but punchy hearing Aids (even ITE) would work better than the headphones, as they would provide a bit more control of high intensity sounds with a bit of compression and speech/noise management.
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I know this is a Bose thread but has anyone tried the IQbuds2 MAX? I had them on pre order but cancelled it after getting my HAs connected to the tv adapter. I have the hearphones but when connected to my Yamaha receiver bluetooth it’s just not enough volume. Volume is good when streaming from my phone. I use them for noise cancellation while mowing, their great for that but not so good as hearing aids for my kind of hearing loss. The IQ buds are supposed to adjust themselves more for each individuals hearing loss by using a hearing assessment test. There’s not a lot of info out yet on how well they perform in real hearing situations.
The MPO limiter is actually what I am missing with the hearphones. I love them for certain situations (in spite of my ski-slope loss). But I experience every now and then that a sudden loud noise is amplified way above what I allow my HA’s to do. And when it gets really loud, there is even the risk that the noise cancellation algorithm fails and generates kind of a random noise at a rather high volume. I love my hearphones but I don’t use them anymore in situations, where I have to expect loud noise (like in train station or in bars). I then rather use earplugs.
4-5 years later, I’m still wearing my Bose Hearphones every day, with great satisfaction!! Of course they haven’t been manufactured for over a year now, but I was able to buy a like-new, 2nd pair from a neighbor. I have no plan to move away from this product. It works well for me and I have significant hearing loss. I don’t have a lot of hearing challenges in my life, although I do greet and converse with the public weekly. But my social life is reduced, due to the pandemic and my age/lifestyle.