This has been a valuable thread. I have had progressive hearing loss for almost 30 years. After trying several models over the years and previously owning Oticon Epoq I now have Widex Beyonds. I didn’t know at the time (4 yrs ago) that they were better for music, but I listen to a lot of music and that probably influenced my choice.
I have found that my high frequency hearing loss has now become more limiting for my music appreciation. I have come to realize this over the past several years in interesting ways.
First I now find that I sometimes have to concentrate to recognize the song even when it is something I have enjoyed for many years. The frequency shift in my HA program alters the pitch enough to make even favorites sound different enough to miss initially. This is especially true for instrumentals.
Second, I find it hard to enjoy music I have never heard before. I suspect that with music I know and enjoy, my brain fills in what subtilties I can’t hear with my memory of it. I can’t do that with music I have never heard. before. That is a loss that I have more recently come to notice since I use to add music to my collection by listening to Pandora or other music streaming services to hear new things. The effect is that I have not added any new music previously unknown to me in a few years. A new and interesting piece playing in the background while I work doesn’t catch my attention the way it did before. That’s been tough to accept, but forces me to be more proactive to seek out new music and consciously listen to it.
Of things that help I have found that I actually have better luck listening to music WITHOUT my aids in. Whether I use headphones or even earbuds the richness still comes through better. I assume it is because of larger more powerful speakers than those on HAs… I also find that wearing noise cancelling headphones is the best of all as background noise can have a significant detrimental impact on recognition.
I guess that the difficulty for a performer to hear pitch correctly shows up with listeners in a similar way. The loss is the same.