Heater - thank YOU for this thread. I am a composer/producer and mixer, and musician, and I found this thread and your research with gratitude. I wish I could pick your brain about self programming, and I’d be happy to pay you for a consult. I had SSNHL in my R ear three months ago, (and existing hearing loss in my L), and have been trying to figure out a solution to staying in the game. all told, I have mild to moderate HL. Like you, I am trialing widex sheer, and have an audiologist that doesn’t get my needs, and may not even know how to tweak under the hood. I’ve been researching music expert audiologists and have discovered a few - Marshall Chasin, Julie Glick, and a few others, and might go see one of them, BUT I also see me needed to take the levels at some point. How might we connect? I just joined here so I’ll see if I can send you a PM. Thanks for making me feel hopeful.
Lifelong musician/audio engineer dives into trials of HAs...here's my story and experiences thus far
Hi SOL - what product/software did you use to create an inverse EQ curve? THanks
which manufacturer are you referring to here please?
Oticon. I use the More .
Here’s a link to there spec sheet.
I’m sure Widex and most of the other mfgs have close to, or the same bandwidth.
I own one of their hardware units Products and I used one of the DSP EQs that comes with it, in another application I used FabFilter Pro-Q 3
wait…oticon makes metric halo and fab filter? (I love the fab filter plugins)
I’m seeing 9600, which is definitely kissing distance from 10k. is that what you’re referring to? Am I missing something? How do they feel working on music?
Thanks PVC - I thought frequency response was the ticket…what’s fitting bandwidth? meaning it will in situ test up to 10k? That’s also impressive. widex (I believe) stops at 8k
I’m no expert on comparing this Oticon spec against other manufacturer specs. But the (*) notation says
*Bandwidth accessible for gain adjustments during fitting
Which I am guessing; means that you can adjust your dog whistle frequencies.
ETA: I shouldn’t joke around. Dog Whistles are much higher than 10kHz. It means that you have gain handles at the 10kHz frequency that can be adjusted to provide more gain or less gain.
- Does anyone need these adjustments to high frequencies? I dunno.
- Does a typical hearing test measure these high frequencies for your Audiogram? I dunno. I don’t think so?
My take is no. Why? 'cause if you could conceivably hear up to 10k you wouldn’t be here (Punny!)
Even if the gain can be set that high, it’d probably sound like distortion, or artifacts, or warble.
You’d be correct.
All the audiograms I’ve seen only measure up to 8k:
This is such a great thread. I’ve come to realize that Puresound is not recommended for much of my hearing loss. I’m currently using Philips 9030’s and considering the Widex SmartRIC and the Philips 9050’s if they ever are available at Costco. Huge price differences. I’ve done some DIY and have recently combined two music program attempts that seems to work, although I still lower the gain in the app by two steps (5dB). Obviously there’s not much being applied at that point but seems to be a bit better than no HA and much better than the general program for my guitar playing. The 9040’s and 9050’s look to be a lot better for noise in general but not sure about music. I’m not really an audio expert like many of you and much of this conversation does go a bit over my mechanical engineering head, lol. Here’s the live music program I’ve arrived at (all noise and feedback off of course). I’ve had some guidance from others here but feel maybe there’s more to be gained to enhance what I’m hearing without making the the distortion I do hear (at higher note, bending, etc). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
That feedback measure makes me cry. Do you have an option to have custom tips made?
LOL, yes me too. I am getting a lot of feedback these days and almost like it just started along with some hiss. I dialed things back to 90% and even did the feedback calibration program (measure) to adjust. I’m not sure what’s going on and I had the open bass dome from the start. I got a set to double bass domes to try and them could help a lot I guess. I only get feedback when I’m near something with my ear but maybe the hiss is related to feedback? I don’t get any feedback in the music program though and the feedback control is off there. So to read the feedback it’s how close the blue shaded area is to my gain curve?
Ears full of wax maybe? Unless you’re suddenly not getting them all the way into your ears.
The dotted lines are your prescriptive gain targets and keep in mind that unless you have very small ear canals the manufacturer targets tend to be under what you need, so you are currently way under target. The shaded area is the feedback zone. In a good fit, the shaded area shouldn’t overlap the gain targets. Open domes probably aren’t great for you, but closed domes may also not be.
No wax and an audi looked at them last week. I made an appointment to have a hearing check at Costco in two weeks and in meantime I’m using the double bass dome. I did an in situ test for the first time too. Set the aids for 100% and ran the feedback program. This time it bumped the midrange on the right ear down, left is still close. Before I ran the measure program, graphically it looked like I had very little blue area and lots of margin but I did have more feedback when I put them in. The Insitu boosted the highs and lowered the lows but the problem area seems to be mid-range. Had to redo my music program a bit too. I do have still have feedback but only when I touch the HA. I can just lower in the app and get these reset in two weeks. Funny thing is that when I tested the Widex which were set to my audiogram and then she did an insitu, I had zero feedback or hissing and I liked how the Widex handled wind, outside noise and voices as I walked around with them. And the audi gave me open domes too. Will see a 2nd audi on Wednesday that takes my $3K insurance and says the SmartRIC 440 will only cost me $1500. more
In Situ is better if you can get someone else to run it for you. If you know when the beeps are being presented it will naturally give you better thresholds than an audiogram, but that’s not really the definiteion of a threshold.
Some manufacturers have better feedback management than others.
Widex 440s have one of the better wind noise management systems currently available, and the smartRIC adds to that.
Yes so I tried to be conservative with the insitu and maybe too much so. Way too much high freq gain. The 9030’s are terrible with wind and the new 9050 are much fatter like the Oticon intent but the SmartRIC is very comfortable and thin. Fit perfect for me first try and no feedback even with open domes. Speech seems very clear in my short test of them and Puresound was even better to my ears. If the quote of $4500. I got is for the 440’s and not the 220’s I’ll probably get them since I have $3K off of that. I did ask for a 440 quote but the price sounds too good. I have to probably go back and reduce some of the gain on my Philips for now to make them bearable.
How far into hearing aid use are you? It’s very common for new users to experience appropriate high frequency gain as too much high frequency gain. I’m my experience, engineers in particular are likely to ignore the wetworks–the brain adapts over time. Has anyone done REM for you? Do you know if you are hiring high frequency prescriptive targets?
I’m about 2 years now and I can confirm even at 80% in the beginning it was painful. I doubt my brain will go much further but it did happen very slowly to the point where up until recently 100% was mostly tolerated well. It took about 1 to 1 1/2 years to go to 100%!!! And REM was done in the beginning but then they changed domes without re-doing that which the fitter said was not necessary. I tried to tell her it was but she was a bit stubborn and cranky if I asked or suggested anything (did that gently to try to not offend her, lol). I am using the different fitter at Costco now that is going to retest me in 2 weeks to include REM and reset the aids so we can determine if the receivers need to be changed or the HA have some issue. I took a pretty accurate online test that said my hearing was close to the same but there is some additional loss at 3K-5K where my hearing is just into “severe”, maybe 5 dB worse in one ear. That might be why the insitu settings were way too uncomfortable for me and loud. I suffer from hyperacusis as well as many of us do so adapting probably is more limited for me.