This question is based on experience I have with my Widex Evokes which compensate for my high-frequency hearing loss.
Sometimes they enhance my hearing as they should. But other times they just add unpleasant edginess. Even when I turn the volume almost to off.
This has made me wonder if the problem is actually in the microphones. We all know that in sound recording, an overloaded microphone will produce distortion. This distortion can’t be fixed by turning the playback volume down. You’ll just hear a softer signal that’s distorted. Is it possible the sensitivity in the Widex microphones is set too high, and this is causing the edginess? And if so, is it adjustable by my audiologist?
So when does this start to happen, as in what environment are you in when it happens, or is it something completely random?
You mean sharpness? As this would be the higher frequencies set for your loss, how long have you been using the Evokes for?
So are you hearing distortion or sharpness (tinny type sounds)
This is not something that can be done in the software, microphone replacement is not uncommon but I don’t think this is the problem for you.
Have you got the Evoke app on your phone, if so when if happens again, go into the app and turn down the treble ( higher frequencies) in the equaliser and see if this makes a difference
Thanks, tenkan. I’ll answer your questions as best I can, not necessarily in order.
I have tried turning down the treble in the equalizer and it does help. But then I think, “basically I’ve just told the hearing aid to stop doing the thing it’s supposed to do!” (Boost the high frequencies.) But maybe I shouldn’t think too hard.
As far as environment, I haven’t found a correlation. Sometimes when I listen to music it makes the music better, and other times it makes the same music intolerable. Sometimes it helps me understand the dialogue on TV, and other times it makes it unpleasant. Sometimes it helps at a concert, sometimes I have to take them out. I really never mind what it does with voices in conversation, because even if it’s making people’s voices sound a little “edgy,” it doesn’t bother me, and is bringing a benefit. The one situation the hearing aids consistently make an improvement is when I’m playing the piano. I feel like they’re adding vibrancy to the sound, which is wonderful. But with the stereo or TV, sometimes they make me say, “Oh my God, is this the way the system really sounds? Am I now hearing what other people hear all the time? Because if so, how can they stand it?”
I guess it is more sharpness I’m hearing, but that seems like distortion. (Like there’s a “dirty” edge around voices, if that makes sense.) I’ve had the Evokes for about nine months. I suppose if I wore them all the time, my “head” would adjust to the sound eventually, but I don’t wear them all the time, because I don’t need them all the time. And they make things worse as often as they make things better, so I don’t want to.
Ok so I have no idea what dirty, or edgy, sound is, but I can tell you this. Unless you have fluctuating hearing loss, you do more than likely need the hearing aids all the time, and your brain will never adjust to them if you aren’t wearing them all the time.
I worked both sides as a one-man studio/stage engineer and designer.
Yes, microphones and their preamps overload. Close to guns, drums, trumpets. I’ve heard it and cured it.
HA mike overload is lower than studio mikes. But AFAICT much higher than most “nice places”. Even that LOUD restaurant or most city streets.
IMHO, the “edginess” (a tizz/rasp around some sounds) is your ear(s).
Wear them! Even when you don’t need them. Your ear nerves have gotten out of practice. It takes nerve coordination to sort-out the overtones of complex sounds (most normal sounds). The sounds you have not been hearing (typically the highs) have lost touch with their neighbors and your brain. Even the soft sounds you are not interested in DO help re-train your hearing. Refrigerator, floor creak, wind, dog-claws, newspaper or chip-bag rustle.
Yes, some of these can be VERY annoying. Because you have not heard them in (typically) years! When a faint high sound is boosted to you, your ear says “WOW! WTH is that???” And like learning Greek, or planing a board, or typing with your thumbs, it WILL take many-many repetitions to become “natural”.
I’m about day 47 at 9.0 hours/day, 400+ hours. “Tizziness” was horrid the first week. To your point: yes it sounds like mike overload except it did NOT correlate directly with sound intensity, frequency, any simple physical process. The random specificity of the “tizz” strongly suggests my ear has damaged “sore spots” in both frequency and intensity. And it HAS been getting much better week to week.
And yes the TV set seems especially good at crossing through those spots. (I should not go off on a rant about TV sound mixing.)
I don’t know any about fluctuating loss. Bad hardware is possible but rare. “Odd sound” is almost universally reported by beginning HA users, until the ear-brain interface re-learns the lost sounds.
Yes - if it’s in BOTH ears - more likely, it is you… Or a very poor set of receivers. The Signia I tried were terrible. The receivers they sent with the aids were supposed to be way more than adequate for my loss. WRONG!!! They gave a muffled feeling with sharp raspy transients.
I found your whole post very helpful, Paul, but singled out this phrase because “tizz/rasp” is an excellent description of what I’m hearing. Better than I was able to do.
The replies are all helpful in their way, but they split into two camps! (So I guess I have to pick one to believe.) One camp (yours) says just wear them all the time. The other camp says there may actually be something wrong with them, in which case wearing them all the time is just going to make me more miserable while I wait for something to get better that never will. I suppose experimentation is what’s needed…wearing them all the time and seeing if things seem better in a week.
I’m sorry but I just have to ask…tizziness…dirtiness…edginess…Are these old timey audio words? I have no context for what they mean in describing sound.
You confirm my impression that many people do not have a language for sound. It isn’t taught in schools (except a few back-rooms). It isn’t everyday conversation for most folks.
Talking about sound is not as futile as dancing about architecture, but similar.
The sound-shop guys talk about “good” sound. Obviously there is “bad” sound too. If ‘sharp and clear’ is good, ‘dull and muddy’ may be the opposite.
Sub-Bass 16-60Hz, pipe organ, more = powerful, too much = muddy
Bass 60-250Hz, rhythm section, less = thin, more = fat, too much = boomy
Mid 250-1000Hz, most instruments/voices, too much = honking
Mid 1-2KHz, piccolo, too much = tinny
High Mid 2-4KHz, hard consonants, too much = fatiguing
High Mid 4-6KHz, Clarity and Definition, too much = forward
High 6-8KHz, Brightness, too much = sibilant
High 8-16KHz, Crispness, too much = brittle
…missing timbre, detail and texture.
…missing attack, sustain, decay, timing, rhythm.
Still no sign of something warm, smooth and soft…
The language used to sell High-End Audio can really go off the deep end. What do those guys smoke?? The language for “bad” sound is not so rich, but it does help repairs to differentiate thin-bass from screechy middles or ear-bleed highs. Lack of balance from loose parts rattling around inside.
First, want to say @efigalaxie’s definitions are a perfect match for what I’ve been experiencing. Right down to the grossly exaggerated sibilance.
Now, want to report on my positive experience last night. Following the advice of @PRR to “just wear them,” I did. Following @tenkan’s suggestion to use the Widex app’s equalizer to turn the treble down, I turned it down all the way, to minus 6. The result was a pleasant experience listening to music and watching television.
Some might say that turning the treble down to minus 6 is negating the entire purpose of wearing the hearing aids, but on the other hand, I left overall volume at the default of plus 5, and the hearing aids continued to do something. I know they did, because when I did the “hair scratch test” near both ears, the devices clearly sent that sound into my ear canals. Plus I had a sense that I was getting a bit more information from the stereo and the tv.
So that will be my plan. Perhaps in a few days I will adjust the treble to minus 5 instead of minus 6 and see if I can tolerate that. Just wanted to see if anyone has any thoughts on the plan. I really appreciate the input so far. Wouldn’t have performed last night’s successful experiment without it.
This is a very interesting topic. I remember back in my audio equipment loving days I had my pair of AR3a speakers refurbished. The reason being that when I came home from a conference back many years ago I found that the sound from my stereo system had become dreadful. Apparently my heavy metal loving son had brought his collection of records up to the music room and played them at full volume. When I went to survey the damage, I found that the woofers had lost their rubbery surrounds and the tweeters had scorched voice coils. My hugely expensive system was sounding like a tinny cheap radio made somewhere in Asia! So I had the surrounds replaced and the tweeter and midrange speakers had the voice coils rewound and the controls replaced. When I got them home from the shop they did not sound much like the original pair of AR3a speakers I remembered. They actually sounded much better! But to try and describe the difference to my audiophile friends was a daunting task indeed. Less scratchiness, better cutoff of deep sounds (no boominess) and so on.
