Thanks. I have appointments with both not-Beltones tomorrow, and my results are bad enough that I’ll get another B ASAP; I’ll ask for that process, though, as long as this has been going on, I’m wondering if they have that gear.
That wasn’t my issue but I had plenty of adverse noise environment possibilities for the need for hearing aids!
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Thanks! Good post!
I’ve had days like that…
DaveL
Toronto
Good to see you keeping your sense of humour!
That’s me with the flat cap, the whippet is in my pocket. (I’m from Yorkshire)
Back to your situation, I empathise as I have a musical memory of my vinyl collection and differences with aids is frustrating. Your involvement with music is far more serious.
One of the pros suggested a linear approach. Have you tried changing your prescription to reflect this?
In Target you can do this at the early stage of fitting and set your overall percentage of prescription.
This may be a path for you together with what you have learned from Chasin.
Well, the 3rd of the 4 outfits bowed out today.
Despite the detailed logs, citing the specifics of my issue, and the willingness of the audiologist to continue to pursue our goal, Phonak wants their aids back more than the chance I’ll keep them as we get closer each time. What possible difference it would make to them I can’t imagine, but, there we are.
As they seem far superior to the remaining challenger/hopeful replacement to the Beltones, this saddens me greatly. But without the assurance of refund, I’m unwilling to risk thousands of bux on the hope that we’ll get it solved.
I do, however, as I sent it almost an hour before they’d opened, wish that I’d gotten an email to that effect before I arrived 4 hours later, rather than having to return to my home to fetch the charger materials, and return to the office, a 3/4 hour round trip. Neither of us expected this outcome; Phonak has nothing to lose by extending the trial period, especially when they know they’ll get them back today if they don’t. So, I didn’t pack up the gear before going. Stupid on my part but I’m rather pushed with other stuff at the moment, and to have retrieved it from where it sat, and repackage it, would have made me late to my appointment. Silly me; it wouldn’t have extended beyond the half-hour he no doubt allotted for me.
But there it is. Sam’s/Lucid/Liberty remains, and I have another appointment with them on Tuesday (which will include our church service, where I can try the two applicable settings for music, not taken last week, due to a battery having fallen out of the open battery door of one of them). As the net-to-me cost is more than twice the Phonaks, it’s even more distressing, though I have a high doubt level that they will make it through the gantlet, as Phonak was looking very much better than those.
So, in go the Sam’s aids for the entire time before my meeting; Beltone will keep, given that they have been long paid for and irretrievably mine. If there is ANY neurological issue with the swapping I’ve been doing (4 days non-stop waking hours on the Phonak, after 90 days of familiarity), that constant presence should resolve it/them…
Sigh…
I’ve had additional adjustments in the remaining two makers’ gear this week; that would be my owned Beltone Imagine 17s and the Testing-About-To-Expire SIEs from Sam’s.
Sam’s got a 30 day extension - from their regular 90-day full-refund trial - which is about to expire. Yesterday we spent 4 HOURS - including getting help from their tech support - tweaking my set. As you know from post #1, I had 3 simple metrics I’d demand from any new set of aids I might acquire. Heroic efforts from the Sam’s audiologists - even after diligently working at it on essentially a weekly basis, documented with a detailed log of what I’d tried, to what effect, in virtually any environment I’d normally be in - have thus far not succeeded in meeting ANY of the metrics, though the speech one came very close before this current adjustment.
It’s too soon as yet to try to render judgment on the most (the first since the initial audiogram-guided settings) recent adjustment of the Beltones, but the success in those is also nothing to write home about. On the other hand, I will not have the opportunity for full testing until Sunday, when I’ll have the piano, singing, and speech, both amplified and analog/acoustic, to report on, so no issues, really, there.
I also have a follow-up appointment (which should include an audiogram) with the ENT folks on Tuesday, so should be able to see if there’s been any notable change since the last ~6 months ago. Both Beltone and Sams have done REMs before the tweaks at their sessions this week, so I’m presuming we’re about as good as it will get.
Not looking for solutions - just checking in 
So now you have confirmed REM has been carried out have you thought about a separate manual music program with Chasin settings so you can at least get one aspect sorted.
The other suggestion was trying linear/semi linear prescriptions, not sure about capability on your aids but was available on Phonak, perhaps @tenkan will know.
Well I’d only like to point out that beltone imagine are the same HAs from ReSound, the Ones
(which are Jabra’s from Costco)they can be set semi linear, but honestly i don’t think after all that’s been done and said, that anything more could be achieved, the reason I mention ReSound is because there’s a ton of good results for a lot of people with them, but it’s a bit like what works for one definitely doesn’t work for all.
Try to move onto another brand to trial (Signia, Oticon etc) and start exploring your other options, and of course there’s Phonak which you have given some “hope” to, good luck.
I actually HAD a separate program for Music with the Phonaks.
The Sam’s did the best they could (an entirely flat setting), but apparently their firmware won’t manage to keep that, as the latest iteration had an unexpected opportunity to test at the funeral I went to right after our marathon adjustment session, and the intonation of the piano was horrible, even halfway back in the sanctuary (to lessen the presumed percussive nature of an acoustic grand piano).
Sunday will provide an opportunity for the newly programmed Beltones.
So far, I’ve had Phonak, Widex, Starkey, MiracleEar, Sam’s and Beltone aids in my ears since mid-January.
Nothing has changed my initial perception that the most important part of my journey will be the Audiologist, and thus my change in Beltone, at the recommendation of my local guy (he’d recommended the office an hour away which had someone perhaps more qualified (MBA-HAS) and experienced-with-Beltone-software but also deep experience as a previous independent).
So, this first Beltone adjustment post-“set-to-audiogram” has me taking notes as to what results I’m having with them for our next appointment on the 16th.
Barring some miracle (which the two ladies at Sam’s are desperately trying to achieve) in the next two remaining appointments, I expect to return those. But I remain convinced that it’s not my level of hearing loss, but instead the programming which will determine my ability to achieve my metrics.
This is now an extremely long thread, so to save you from rereading, I expect it can be achieved because:
Bluetooth renditions of sounds are perfect
Over-the-ear (cups) renditions of sounds from a set of earphones are pure
It’s only when I rely on sound delivered from the microphones over my ears that the sound reaching the wax guards on the receivers in my ear has such sound anomalies.
I’ll save the technical discussion of how that’s possible, but as a recorded piano or xylophone is pure, whereas a live one(s) is not, I put the distortion to some form of electronic buggery, not my hearing. Whether or not such beast can be slain remains to be seen.
Sigh
Sorry if I missed the post about a music program-it’s a while ago that I read your complete posts.
I am intrigued with the experience of headphones being pure, how can this be?
@tenkan @MDB
I don’t understand what you’re asking.
He says he has no problem with music using over ear headphones but major distortion without.
I believe that the earphones’ throughput is pure, despite their being just a cheap zoom or gaming headset with mike, because it’s right there and has no percussive sounds/air-pressure/-whatever-causes-discordance.
And my non-educated (I think like an engineer but have no creds to support my suppositions) conclusion is that ‘raw’ piano (and xylophone, for the single instance I’d noticed, being quite close to the instrument at the time) creates a percussive wave which, in the wisdom of manufacturers unaccustomed to dealing with performers vs recorded-instruments sound waves, compresses any sudden acoustic impacts to protect our already-damaged hearing. It’s my presumption that a tiny minority of HA users are performers in an occasionally percussive live-performance environment, and thus aim it at the rest of the world, whose experience at most is limited to a concert, but mostly one of a recording of some sort - which, additionally, may be delivered over something other than the air between the original source and the ear. My Beltone audiologist has adjusted my set to have a much slower/longer response to such stuff; my initial exposure to live piano was not very good, however. On the other hand, this is early days - my first tweaks following the use-the-audiogram-only initial setting. As I’d gotten close with the Phonak, I presume this can be cured, albeit at a cost of a 2-hour round trip each time, plus, of course, the office time.
Of course, being uneducated in the specifics, this is supposition/inference, and potentially entirely wrong.
On a non-musical level, this sort of started with my wife, whose speech isn’t all that clear, and, before the single time that a set of Beltones has managed to give me understanding of her. I went to a MyPalPro microphone. Surprise!! Understanding - with the tweak of it being ‘fed,’ rather than ‘heard,’ dawned. If it’s not coming over the air, my comprehension and acuity is dramatically enhanced.
However, even though it appears likely that I’ll abandon my expensive and time consuming experimentation with other aids, I’m not real enthused over the thought that I’ll have to use some remote source to deliver the sound wave profile seen on an oscilloscope to my ears rather than the waves which arrive by air, apparently delayed-by-compression or whatever else may be the mechanism causing off-pitch delivery to my ears.
I remain convinced that, if the technology is there in the aids, it’s a matter of the audiologist’s perception of my reporting and correcting the errors induced by the formulaic adjustments. The particular audiologist at the supplier of Phonak that I tried seemed the most adept at making it happen - but we ran out of time. The surprise of having literally everything OTHER than direct over-the-air sound being pure led me down this path. Of course, I welcome other conclusions, but mine have it that it’s not a neural issue, but electronic.
Sigh…
Wonderful response.
I was a Navy brat. Canadian. Grade 1 I remember speech lessons from a practitioner.
From KG to Grade 8 I went to 13 schools; Ottawa/Halifax/Ottawa/Halifax//Maryland/Virginia/Ottawa An average of 2 schools at each location, and what was taught was radically different at each school. I thought I was stupid because I never knew the answers to the questions asked.
That thought came to me as I read our comment “habituation at out youngest ages is massively quicker, just think how easy it is for pre-11 year olds to become bi-lingual or learn songs” Nothing was easy in school back then.
DaveL
Toronto
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I wonder if the sound engineers on the forum could comment. As far as I’ve read before, streamed music is already compressed so what does the aiid do with it?
I’m hoping your “almost there” with the Phonaks is a good sign for me: I’m getting my first HAs next Tuesday - Audeo L90s. I play both viola in a rock band with a very percussive pianist plus drums, and trumpet in a large community band, so I’m grateful for the warning about percussive sounds. I get a 30-day trial so this warns me to get together with my pianist and drummer ASAP, then the brass band. If I end up with decent results after testing and adjustments I’ll report back (also if not).
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Thanks, B4C,
Your loss is orders of magnitude less than mine, so your results may well be better than mine.
Get your audiologist to create a special music profile for your performance environment. Mine made one, and gave it a separate title, for the app on my phone (and by button-press). Unfortunately, we ran out of time…
FL state law requires a minimum 30 day trial - I suspect that’s common around the US. Reading in this space will show you that 30 days may not be sufficient to reasonably evaluate aids. My agent got Phonak to extend their trial - and I presume he shared our logs from each of my visits (weekly toward the end) to support that not only was I committed and very actively attempting a solution, but that we actually had hope of success (vs some of my 4 which got tossed immediately after the 30 day trial).
So, be prepared for some work. If they don’t succeed out of the box, be prepared for multiple trips (keep records of circumstance and results so the tech has something to work with), and don’t buy if you don’t get your exact parameters met. I was a low brass guy in community bands and orchestras before I got my aids. My quickie, entirely un/non-professional view of your audiogram suggests to me that some form of filtering, rather than amplification, would be appropriate for those environments, as your loss level is barely into the aids-needed spectrum, particularly in the ranges you’d hear in either setting (A440 is in the middle of the treble clef, e.g.; it takes a LOT to play in a register over A1760 - two octaves above that); the cymbals’ Tsssh is higher, of course, but likely you don’t really need to hear that in a performance (or rehearsal/practice) environment.
MHO, and merely experience vs schooled thoughts…
user424 thanks for your thoughts.
Yes, I’m more likely to use separate musician’s hearing protection plugs rather that the HA in an performance situation. I would like to be able to wear them in the less-loud practice room to help me interact with my bandmates between actually playing - that’s one situation where I currently have problems understanding. While I suppose I could just mute the HA and unmute to have conversations, that seems awkward and not easy to do on the fly. I also would prefer to be able to use them to converse at others’ live performances between pieces - again perhaps a quick unmute would work.
My string/piano/drums band is supposed to rehearse the day after I pick up the HA so I’m hoping to get an initial trial of a music setting (I have printed out the article with “things to tell your audi to tune” like compression etc.), or if we don’t meet at least get together with the percussive pianist to test.
Fortunately, I’m also a long-time IT person known for my attention to research and detail so repeated testing/resets are my thing 
I believe you are getting very good hearing aids. However, I’m not a musician.
When I bought my first hearing aid I was unemployed. I bought a single hearing aid because I couldn’t afford 2…
Along the way they remade it because of issues I had with it squeeling when I ate. It was an in the ear hearing aid. Result? It really bothered me because it was so tight. I called it my “stress meter”. If I was stressed I would put it away in my pocket.
I never really got used to wearing that hearing aid. My hearing got worse; I changed audiologists. I finally got great hearing aids that I could wear all day long. Looking back: When I was told it would take some time for my brain to learn how to hear with these hearing aids I thought “Bah humbug”.
My observation now is the more I wear mine the better off I am. I wear them from about 7:00 a.m. to at least 11:00 a.m. My rechargeble batteries last. Mine are Phonak Audeo Paradise P90 R’s with rechargeable batteries.
Hope and trust they will work really well for you with your intended use. Audiologists can work miracles.
DaveL
Toronto
If I were in your shoes, I would go to the Speech & Hearing Clinic of a nearby university if you have access to one. I’d ask for an appointment with an audiologist who is a professor on their faculty. My thinking is that these people not only teach this stuff but they do research and read other people’s research. Your situation is not within the everyday experience of most audiologists although the need to hear music is not rare. My thinking is that you need a level of expertise which goes beyond that of the the garden variety expertise of the average audiologist.
I know that your audiologist has 25 years of experience and sits on a state board, but I wonder about some of the others whom you’ve been consulting with. Bell tone and Sam’s frequently employ Hearing Instrument Specialists and not audiologists. They can be fine for ordinary fittings, but not necessarily for you. Even your experienced audiologist may not have the experience you need. You may need to shop around for an audiologist who is a specialist in what you need. Perhaps an association of musicians or a symphony orchestra has some members who have a similar. There must be a ton of Rick musicians who have become hearing impaired dumper to audio abuse.
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