That’s my problem.
They look at my loss and go woa.
Then I tell them about the distortion in my left ear and they just stare at me.
They don’t know what to say.
Thanks, I looked up a local supplier in my area. I have left a message for them to call me
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The permanent low level noise is likely the gain applied to low level sounds. It’s commonly done to help with comprehension. I had the same thing with Widex and had my audi flatten the gain out to resolve it.
Also, that you reported nothing over 5k, is possibly the phase shifting, where 5-10k has mapped down to overlay on a lower range, something up to 5k. Again, with comprehension being the goal, your brain learns over time and adjusts. Naturally, if your listening critically, that mapping and delay will be noticable.
While Widex does have hardware/internals that are better for music applications, there may be an adjustment for the audi on setting the HA for your needs.
There is a AUD referenced on this site called Marshall Chasin.
He’s done a lot of work with musicians.
If you search the forum you will find numerous references to his work.
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OK! Now that you’ve shared your audiogram, can you actually add it to your profile here?
Here’s how ya do it - see this post.
That will make it easy for folks to chime in with suggestions.
You got a lot of spot-on advice here: find that Widex fitter, try to lengthen the trial period to at least a MONTH. Tell the audi that the delays between apointments will burn up that time too fast. For an investment this costly, you really need some more time before making a purchase decision.
Yes, it’s a multi-step process to get aids to the point where YOU’RE satisfied with how your world sounds. Being technical, you’ll probably go the DIY route once you make the final purchase. Then you can tinker with the settings to reduce the painful points and boost the ones you want.
I’ve been SUPER happy with my Phonak Lumity Life aids (I have the 312-battery ones). I’m also an audiophile and despite my cinderblock ears, my hubs (also an audiophile) always has me listen to music on our hi-fi to get my input. I’m super articulate and able to discriminate what I like and don’t like when I’m in the Phonak dedicated “Music” program (which has no Autosense correction for full dynamic range). I can’t do Widex cuz speech is simply too critical for me, but I do find that the Phonak Lumity Life aids were an order of magnitude improvement over the older Marvel aids.
You’re YOUNG! You’re a techie! You’ve GOT THIS! Just be discriminating and picky. Don’t let any dispenser or audiologist tell YOU what’s best. YOU decide that based on how you want your world to sound. Good luck on the journey!
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You are the one who has to wear the hearing aids and live with the pros or the cons. You can’t simply rely on an audiologist’s opinion of what’s good and what’s bad. Take it with a grain of salt. Do your own research. Matthew Alsopp does really good reviews on YouTube. This forum is also very helpful. Listen to what people here on this forum are saying. Find people who are doing what you want to do in terms of music, and listen to what they say about various hearing aids. Unfortunately some hearing care professionals are on commission, and some are just lazy or apathetic. They don’t want to put in the work required to learn about the different hearing aids. You need to do the research and find out which hearing aid is going to work best for you and then give it a try. Be your own advocate.
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user715 has mentioned something you should ask your audi about. He calls it “phase shifting.” It is also called frequency lowering, and the various brands have different names for it as well. What it does is, it takes the sound at the high frequencies where your hearing is worst, and plays them back at a lower frequency where you hear better. It takes time to get used to this. I have not heard what this sounds like, but I bet it is terrible for music.
With your great loss at high frequencies, your audi might have thought it was a good idea. Although with the steepness of your slope in the 1500-3000 octave, I bet it would be hard to make frequency lowering work.
Just for fun, I entered your audiogram into the another brand fitting software (the only version I have) and asked for the default setup. It did in fact recommend frequency lowering.
One other experiment I did with the software was to try some different “rationales”. A rationale is basically the algorithm that maps an audiogram to the amount of amplification to use at each frequency. There are several standard rationales used in the industry, and I think each brand has their own proprietary rationales. Well, with your audiogram, there are big differences in the amplification they prescribe. So your aids could sound very different with a different rationale. But I can give no advice about what rationale would sound good.
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That’s pretty much my experience, and then made the other choice. My trial with Lumity was jaw droppingly effective for speech in noise, picking out voices in a crowd. It’d been over a decade since I was that functional socially. But for music and instruments, I still found wasn’t good enough for what I needed and Widex was. It was a hard choice to make!
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WOW, that is amazing that the Phonaks opened up functional social activities. I can VERY much relate to that - ever since getting the Lumity Life rechargeables even. The ad promised 10% better speech comprehension, and I found that over time it was more like 15-20% improvement for me. The difference was being able to comprehend what hubs was saying upstairs when I was down in the kitchen and he’d holler out something. Or he’s 20 feet away, back turned to me and I could understand what he’d said. Those little events help build confidence, and now I actively engage folks no matter if they speak with an accent or wear a face mask or whatever. I don’t have to ask to have them repeat themselves as much and I don’t mis-hear a comment and respond with something unrelated. LOVE IT.
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