Wondering how many of you have surround sound systems and still have a good experience with your hearing loss, while using hearing aids.
I was found to have mild high frequency loss in my left ear a couple of years ago at the age of 37. I absolutely love movies, it’s a massive part of my life. I want to upgrade my sonos 5.1 setup to a full separate 5.1 system.
Do you still feel like you are getting most of the enjoyment when using hearing aids and watching movies? I feel I do, but have depressed days thinking I am missing out. Be good to hear some feedback.
I asked myself the same question a while ago but forgot about it. Thanks to your post I remember having the impression that due to the default program my Real aids probably tend to focus on the front rather than on an omni kind of microphone setting.
The music program could help with that if turned down one or two clicks.
But even with the default program surround still works for me. My surround speakers are on portable stands, so I can place them a bit closer to my sitting position.
Mine hearing also is considerably poorer than yours.
What hearing aids do you use? I am trialing the Oticon Intent 1 next week. I will put it in music mode to reduce all the compression, feedback manager etc.
Do you hear sound effects pretty well from the left and right channels?
I think about this all the time, absolutely love my 5.1.4 setup, spent 2.5 years tuning it to get it just right but have lost a ton of low freqs now. I personally don’t enjoy it very much, it makes me sad because I know what I’m missing, what I used to be able to hear. Hearing aids definitely for me just focus on the front 3 channels, I have a lot of difficulty distinguishing sounds above me. Sometimes I can hear from behind but rarely. If something swoops in from behind that’s obvious to a point, but if it’s a constant sound like wind behind me, that’s a lot harder to telll.
Widex hearing aids were the best for me at this. I’d also suggest as has been suggesting, turning the programs down a couple of clicks on hearing aids if you can. Thank god I saved all the config settinsg, I’d not trust myself to tune a system now which is a shame as I’m always getting asked to do it for friends
What is your hearing loss like? Do you have an audiogram? Sounds like you’ve got a more severe loss than me. Its a shame you aren’t enjoying it as much now.
Are you at least getting decent sounds from the fronts?
I feel like I’m getting most of the sounds, my good ear can hear most frequencies still. The hearing aid should hopefully help with higher frequencies on my bad ear
Reverse slope hearing loss. Yeah I find the sound very unbalanced now plus I get the blown speaker effect so that my £3400 subwoofer just sounds like a farting duck. Bit annoying really.
I do hear stuff from the front and that’s ok, but I have no eyesight and the way I get pleasure from movies is to hear all the sound wizzing around me. At least I got to experience it I guess and configure it before this happened but I can’t say it sounds like it should with hearing aids in.
I’m guessing your hearing loss genetic? It’s usually the highs that go with noise or age.
Sorry to hear abour your eyesight as well. There is a lot of promising progression with treating hearing loss and potentially reversing it. So I am hopeful that you will be able to hear better again one day.
I wear Oticon INTENT aids and with my severe hearing loss I am happy to just hear in stereo. I don’t have a music program anymore seeing when I did it didn’t sound any different than my default general program.
That’s interesting about the Oticon. A lot of users have expressed that the music program opens up the soundstage and gives a richer sound. I guess its subjective depening on the persons loss.
I will be asking the audiologist to apply recommendations to the music program suggested from @Volusiano
Do you enjoy surround sound at the cinema with you aids? Even with a more severe loss?
Partially but also Hydropx. No one really knows how bad the loss will get, though it does seem to be getting worse over time. music programs on HA’s are kind of weird. in my experience the best thing to do if you can do it, is turn off any sort of feedback management for the best sound. stops all that warbling.
@Brother_Luke :
Be aware the Oticon MyMusic program is not for everybody.
If you’re into a very overblown Harman Target curve, you’ll be ok, but if you enjoy rich, detailed, dynamic, open sound, fuggeettabbouddit!
I have the Intents, and was introduced to the MyMusic program when Oticon intoduced it with the More series.
I, and others on this forum created our own custom Music programs using the Genie2 fitting software, and Noahlink wireless interface.
There is a DIY section on this site with instructions, if you are so inclined.
Otherwise, you may wish to ask your audi to assist you, if they are musically inclined.
Good luck!
So, yeah, I love my 5.1 system. It’s a Definitive Tech HT system connected to a Denon AVR.
For serious music listening I have a 2 channel stereo with Boston Acoustics speakers, and a pair of Sennheiser HD 6XX cans!!
Yeah, I’ve been reading alot of posts from yourself and @Volusiano. I would rather have the detailed, dynamic and open sound
I am going to follow his following advice when I see my audiologist on Weds:
“Just ask the HCP to copy the General program that’s VAC+ based, but call it Music, then turn off all Neural Noise Suppression, set Directionality to Fixed Omni, turn off the Sudden Sound Stabilizer, turn off Speech Rescue, turn off everything in the Automatics section like the Feedback Management (unless you want to leave it on because you said this feature on the Oticon is more effective than on the Widex), and turn off the Wind and Handling management (unless again you want it on), turn off the Spatial Noise Management, turn off the Binaural Broadband”
I have also seen your advice about using the telecoil mode when using over the ear headphones for optimal sound. I had been trialing the Widex Moment 440 but had a lot of issues with feedback. My HCP had to reduce gain on the higher frequencies and I think that had an impact on missing sounds.
So we are going to try the Oticon Intent 1. Because I hear within normal range on my right ear, I am comparing alot. While I understand hearing aids dont restore full hearing range. I’m still not hearing certain sounds like sleigh bells etc in my left ear. Which are within 8khz range. I can hear them individually but they seem to get lost when mixed in with other music. If that makes sense.
Thats great about enjoying your surround sound. I am purchasing a Denon receiver and a 5.1 KEF speaker setup this month. Can’t wait!
My surround sound’ is the simple old ‘Hafler’ setup - a rear channel derived from the stereo difference signal, a worthwhile refinement. Front speakers are home-built open-backed because I became so fed up with the honking/booming of boxed speakers, made all the worse by hearing aids; and the low end is from big subs - again d-i-y.
Indeed it does not all sound quite like what I recall from live Prom concerts a lifetime ago nor from the superb speakers the BBC used when I worked there. My hearing is typical old-guy’s roll off starting about 1k and vanishing at 4 k. But… yes, I fully enjoy my music now, from organ to Mozart to choirs to 30s jazz, via quite old Phonak M70s, tuned by a genius young NHS audiologist who let me try my keyboard in her clinic and turned off most of the speech-related automation.
Television? No thankyou! These days, too darn noisy for a start.
I remember that Hafler adapter, back in the days of LP 2 channel records. It took the difference between the Left & Right channels and sent it to the rear speaker.
But on LP records, most of the surface noise is only on one channel or the other, so a ton of noise is sent to that rear speaker. Only tried it once as it was terrible.
Later when DVD’s had 5.1 channel digital, I though the most music would be recorded in 5.1 but it diden’t happen.
I guess the cost to create that format for music only was considered to high, and the age of digital downloads had dawned, which eventually strangled the physical disc market.
There are some adventurous engineers remastering , and creating new music in DTS-HD Master, and Atmos sound.
I’m a fan of Steven Wilson’s remasters of the King Crimson, and Caravan back catalog, and some of his live-concerts, which sound amazing! Pink Floyd has also done this.
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