Widex Evoke 440 make music beautiful. The universal programme automatically moves into music programme, I have custom IP model, my son has F2s. Widex have always delivered on music, just make sure you get fitted through some one experienced in the product.
I am what most call an audiophile. I have ReSound Trax42 from Costco and a very good dispenser. About four years ago, I asked for the music program to be modified removing as much digital processing as possible. So, pretty much following the recommendations cited. Has worked very well for me and I continue to enjoy the hobby immensely.
(If you are not into audio, you might tune out here…)
I’ve also found that using high sensitivity, single driver speakers (with bass reinforcement) and low power single ended amp (tubes) has been a help in reducing irritation/fatigue. In my experience, has made for a much more natural sound than crossover designs and higher power solid state.
I never got into the tube amp thing. My amplifiers are by David Hafler and are 1980 vintage. They were unique at the time for having MOSFET power transistors. They were claimed to have magic benefits that made them sound closer to tubes. What I have learned since hearing aids is that my amplifier has way more power now!
My speakers are basically two way B&W with a passive radiator. Crossover is at 4500 Hz, and the tweeter is set out on top of the box and back from the front to maintain phase coherence. I was a believer back in that day that phase coherence was a critical factor in the ability of a speaker to establish precise left to right sonic imaging. I was a straight wire with gain believer when it came to amplification, and had my preamp set to bypass the tone controls. Again for the same reason to preserve phase coherence and imaging.
Hearing aids have now blown that all out of the water, as I think with all the processing that is done in aids, the sound has as much phase coherence as a bowel of spaghetti. I checked my music program settings against the recommendations in that article and by default it pretty much is set up as they describe. The feedback suppression is still on, but set to Slow. I think I will ask to have it turned off to see if that helps.
Interesting reading. I had a buddy that did the tube thing with his stereo music. He would go on and on about how fine it was. I couldn’t hear what he was talking about, wonder why?
I can say hearing aids have enabled me to hear music again. It has to be when I am alone otherwise the music just competes with anyone speaking and I can not understand a word they say. It has become work to understand speech.
Wonder why? 
I’ve said it before on this site…as we get older and achieve more successes in life, we can spend more money on these sorts of things. On the same track is the usual age-related hearing loss. So we spend more money trying to attain audio nirvana all the while our ears are betraying us.
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Yes, phase coherence is the benefit of single driver speakers. Single ended amps (SS or tube) help in that regard by not splitting and re-integrating the signal as with push-pull desgins. Sense of realism and imaging are wonderful. If I suffer loss of frequency resolution, the former helps to compensate in enjoyment.
I’ve been through audiohell but am now in audioheaven. I have been very satisfied with my setup for a year now with no desire to change anything major. When I listen, there is no more “something isn’t quite there yet” any longer. Just smiles. It did take a long time, lots of searching, buying and selling used equipment on audiogon and audiocircle. I have found that there really can be an end point if one is looking for music enjoyment and not just wanting to experiment endlessly.
Back in the heyday of vinyl audiophiles like myself used to spend very big bucks trying to get everything they could out of a vinyl recording. Today a CD player is worth about $10! Those in search of the perfect phono cartridge would go to a moving coil design. The early versions were very very expensive and often hand made. And, they had a rather unique characteristic which was a rising high end response going out to 20 kHz and more. It was not linear at all. My theory was that they gained popularity with the folk that had lots of money to spend, were probably older, and had high frequency hearing loss. It did more than play back, it restored their hearing! I have a silver moving coil cartridge but it was designed to have a flat response. Today I need that rising response big time! However, I think the guy in Japan that was making them has probably died or is at least retired. The last I heard he was repairing cartridges but not making new ones.
Probably as good a topic to post a thought…
Being a musician in a band, I use IEMs (In Ear Monitors) for the past few years. These things are great! They cut the outside noise out (thus eliminating stage noise, foldback speakers and loud drums) while offering very good low, mid highs. These things are available in a variety of setups (Drummers and bass players have dual low/bass end etc). I use mine also for listening to music from my phone, iPod, etc. The Music Industry's Most Trusted Custom In-Ear Monitoring Company
My thought was this…the IEMs are hard-wired connected to a 3.5mm jack. This is removable from the IEM side and has a 2-pin input. So do the RICs from the HA. I was wondering if I should connect the IEM to the HA and see/hear of any improvement in sound quality from a musicians view point? My only issues would be that the IEM set me back $2,100 and the HAs ~$5,000. Not something to experiment with.
The thought was that RICs are single receivers when the IEM will have anything from 3 to 16 drivers! Surely worth trying!
I don’t get the resurgence of vinyl. It always just sounded so dull and muddy and then such a hassle to maintain both the record and the stylus. And forget about portability. Then 8-tracks came along. Hate the track switch. Then cassettes. Better portability but then the hiss. Then CD’s. Well. Crisp, clean, bright, awake sound. Love it. Audio nirvana. Just gotta watch those remasters. Particularly in the 90’s or so. 
Then I got older…
I always liked the 8 track. Until the tape deck ate the tape.
You could drive down the road and see them laying along the road from people getting mad a throwing them out.
I pretty much quit listening to music about 25 years ago due to hearing loss and tinnitus. Then 10 years or so ago the digital aids came out and learned I could hear better again. Enjoy music now and then but it conflicts with speech understanding so I try to stay away from it around people.
I never really found the vinyl to be dull or muddy, but then I have a phono setup that would cost in the $1600 range to buy today, compared to my single CD player which is about $400. I do not find it to be superior to a CD though like some claim. It is almost impossible to keep vinyl perfectly clean and free from clicks and pops. They are much more noticeable when you crank the volume, as well as the floor noise. I guess some find the CD sound to be so clean it sounds clinical.
I was satisfied with vinyl sound quality. I had a 60’s Thorens. Sold it and most of my albums a couple of years ago. With streaming from my library on drives and now full resolution services like Qobuz and Tidal, I just didn’t use it.
CD’s did add clean sound and improved bass response. But the digital sound/harshness, remained until recent years when digital to analog converters finally advanced enough to resolve digital tracks more smoothly. The ones that really make a noticeable difference are quite expensive, but that will trickle down to the reasonably priced DACs before long.
Well…truth be told…I’ve probably always had a level of hearing issues. As a teen I would always want more treble because I wanted to hear the cymbals better. Couldn’t get that out of a record. The CD made all that go away. Who wants a noise floor anyway And I certainly don’t miss the ticks and pops.
I still have my later 70’s consumer-level Kenwood player.
@Peter_S: I’d be interested to know the names behind those DAC’s.
I did a bunch of research a few years ago and settled on a mid range Marantz CD6004 player. I see the current version of it is the CD6006. It is a single disk player but accepts a USB input. I use a CD when I want to sit down and listen, but plug in an iPod when I want background music without the bother of changing disks.
I concluded that jitter was one of the issues in CD playback that potentially can produce the digital noise that some object to. There are high end CD playback systems which break up the player and D/A conversion into separate units, but they tend to have clock matching issues which can produce jitter. I think it is better to keep it simple and all in one box, where the designer can control the whole process.
Theoretically, CD players contribute to jitter. Streaming music files tends to avoid this. The best DACs will be separate from anything mechanical and anything that can add electrical noise to the signal.
I’m not intimately familiar with many of the high end DACs. Only by name and reputation. My ears have found the benefit from Auralic DACs (China). The timing clock is one of the more expensive components in a DAC and is rarely of the best quality in DACs under $1000. I’ve heard the Benchmark DAC 3 (US), which is closer to $2000 and it is excellent. Auralic clearly surpassed it though (both in sound quality and price). Other names that people swear by are dCS (UK) and Chord (UK). Some of this stuff can get ridiculously expensive and is only for serious hobbyists that have the means.
More down to earth DACs that are solid and above anything you would hear from Best Buy, for example, might be Cambridge Audio (UK) or Schiit (US).
I’m glad this discussion is in its own thread or we would be seriously off topic.
I’m also glad for some recognition about hearing aids and music that is not music streamed directly to the aids. That’s another animal entirely.
This article about Myths and Misconceptions About CD players and DACs I think pretty much summarizes what I concluded about the technology 8 years ago or so when I bought my CD6004. Separating the CD player and DAC opens a whole can of worms that is really difficult to put back in the can again.
This said, now that I am into hearing aids and realize how bad my hearing really is, this is all pretty much a moot point! Compared to the issues that hearing aids induce in our music quality, the CD player or even the phono playback system is the least of our worries…
With one of my Trax 42 programs set to eliminate compression, feedback reduction, and all possible digital processing, I am getting good results with music. I don’t turn the aids up as far as I do with the regular program. I’m not getting feedback, but if someone needed higher gain, feedback could become an issue with this approach.
Interesting article. Do you know the date? It is not on the page. I read it not that separating the CD player for the DAC as a problem, but as having the master clock at the CD player rather than the DAC as the problem. The author advocates having the clock at the DAC, which is what is normal now. With any good quality DAC (maybe all standalone DACs), the clock in the DAC is used as the master. In fact, my Auralic has a separate, optional, master clock unit. So, really into separates over here!
Although, now that I think about it, I may be closer to your approach than I initially thought. If I were to use a CD player, it would be my Blueray player. It is the $100 CD player approach he talks about that loses nothing when fed to a good quality, clock controlled DAC.
And, my DAC is actually a combination streamer/DAC so, for streamed files, it is like the integrated CD transport/DAC combo for streaming.
Are we losing everyone else yet? 
No!!!
Not that I understand everything or have the money for these whizbang doodads.
I used my OEM cd drive in my laptop to rip my CD collection to flac. yeah yeah I know.
A weird sense I sometimes have is that some sounds seem like they’re somehow moved to the back as it were. Maybe that’s the DAC in my laptop. Dunno. That is not with headphones. If I headphone jack out from the laptop to another little amp I guess with its own DAC then I sometimes get that sense.
Either that or it’s my stupid ears.
Ripping CDs with your laptop is fine. It doesn’t use the laptop DAC at all since it all stays in the digital domain. I use an $80 Lenovo USB DVD drive to rip CDs to flac. As the article Sierra linked, you won’t find a difference in the digital files between rips from a cheap or an expensive CD player.
On the other hand, using your headphone jack, you are using the DAC in your laptop since that is an analog out.
Not sure what you are hearing with recessed sounds. You may just need equalization. If the midrange, or upper midrange, is low in gain relative to other frequencies, you might experience vocals as recessed, for example.
Can someone please help? I got new digitsl HA. Music sounds great to an extent. Vocals sound amazing. I am able to hear all the nuances in music that didnt exist before. However my issue is anything with heavy bass or bass with guitars it starts to sound off. How can I explain that? If I where to ask my Audi? So I can enjoy other genres of music. Mostly Country, Rap, Dance & Pop is decent but if I could just fix the one part it would be perfection, IMO. For example I’ve noticed by using the equalizer and turning the 63 dB all the way down on the equalizer helps but I feel like it’s still lacking. Analog no problem just flip the t-switch & go. Digital I feel like I must be an musical engineer., if I want to enhance my digital beyond what my analogs could ever do. I’m on the right path just need somebody who has a musch better understanding of what I am looking for and how to explain it.