Music and over the Ear Headphones

Tried over the ear. Not good, feedback city. Now on the ear AMAZING. My residual hearing optimized with help.

Open domes or Closed?

If you have tried headphones/earbuds of some variety to work WITH your HA’s, pick the ONE option that you found that you think works best for you.

  • a. Over-the-Ear Noise-Cancelling Headphones
  • b. Over-the-Ear NON-Noise-Cancelling Headphones
  • c. On-the-Ear (not over) Noise-Cancelling Headphones
  • d. On-the-Ear (not over) NON-Noise-Cancelling Headphones
  • e. In-the-Ear Device That Works with My HA’s
  • f. None of the Headphones I’ve Tried Works With My HA’s

0 voters

I have closed domes which are quite deep in the canal
almost to the second turn.

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I believe that Poll sort order is not under your control and will eventually resort to most voted result first.

OK. Sorry. Didn’t know that to begin with. Yes to resorting according to # of votes. Too bad there is not a way to control that. Seems like it should be an option of the poll designer as sometimes the relative order of poll choices is more helpful to understanding what’s going on than what items have gotten the most votes. If it gets resorted BEFORE a new poll taker votes that NEGATES the whole point of hiding poll results until one votes - not so great design by whoever designed the original template that is redistributed to website users of the forum engine.

Guess it could be that the poll only gets resorted from the original order AFTER you vote and get to see the results. But if so, then it would be good to let the poll creator see BOTH the BEFORE VOTING and the AFTER VOTING views of the poll because after voting, if the poll is sorted, the designer can no longer see the poll in order it was originally created. I only see the “after voting” sorted order of the poll now.

UPDATE: There is a button that I see (does everyone else see it?) that says “HIDE THE RESULTS” After clicking that, the poll goes back to its original view and order of creation for me and shows the item that I voted for. So MY BAD, there is no problem of BEFORE and AFTER views. I still think there ought to be the option for the creator to NOT have the POLL RESULTS view sorted according to voting as it can SOMETIMES be easier to see the original structure and point of the poll if the choices remain in the order offered in the first place, IMHO.

And I see for the following poll, even though I haven’t voted in it yet, I can see the BEFORE and AFTER voting results. Poll - Does your Professional hearing aid fitting include REM/Real Ear Measurement

Hi Mark, this is a subject that is very important to me - an audiophile with hearing aids!

I have Oticon OPN 1’s, my first set of HAs, since October of 2016, with open domes. I worked with my provider to create a “music” program that only incorporated my needed frequency adjustments, with no additional processing. This has been very successful for me, both for headphone listening and stereo/home theater listening as well. Generally, I’ve found the main/default setting on the OPNs to be good with simpler music, but it struggles a bit with more complex passages. The music setting with frequency adjustments only is really very good, and handles more complex music much better, for me.

I also went on a bit of a headphone experimentation binge a couple of years ago. The following are the ones I kept and rotate through regularly - all to me are very good or better, with my quality rankings listed. The first two are “on ear” models, the 2nd two are “over ear”.

4 - Sony MDR-7506
3 - Bang and Olufsen H6 1st Generation (2nd Gen has emphasized Bass)
2 - Beyer DT-880
1 - Monoprice - M1060 - (just purchased).

Good luck on your journey!

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Nice write up benney, thanks. I can’t use the on ear for the same reason I can’t use my Bose ear buds—closed domes (soon to become molds) muffle the sound so I’m pretty much limited to over the ear. And I’m happy to see you rank the over the ear units higher.

The last three years have been very disappointing music wise but I’ve been trialing the Evoke 440s and they are fantastic. And after the last agonizing three years even streamed smart phone MP3 stuff is nice. I’d like to go wireless and I don’t want noise cancellation. I am leaning toward the Beyerdynamic Amiron wireless. I like everything about them right down to the huge ear cups. Well everything but the price that is. They’re basically a car payment. I spend time reading the reviews and then log on to Amazon to get them but I haven’t been able to pull the trigger. What if they’re not as good as they’re touted to be? What if they are that good but are limited by the aids? AAARRRRRGGGGGGH. I think I just need to bite the bullet and get them, put them on, sip some bourbon and let the sound assuage the guilt.

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I must be a one off here. I have tried headphones over hearing aids, but the phone feature of the aids activated because of the magnet in the headphones, putting what came over the right side of the headphones into both ears. I was surprised that I didn’t get feedback.
I don’t normally listen to music with the aids in. They make everything sound strange, and I don’t like that. Speaking of headphones, back in the day, I had a pair of Koss electrostatic earphones. Absolutely flat frequency response and capable of very high sound levels. That may be partly responsible for my current loss. They had liquid filled ear cushions, and were heavy. Also took a power amp to drive them. I don’t know whatever happened to them. Great phones.

That was true with my last aids. Music was thin, empty and lacking warmth. None the less they did bring back the upper registers that were absent, especially in classical music with full orchestras. The new ones are far better though. Night and day actually. As I noted above though when I use a set of Bose ear buds without aids the highs are awol even when the equalizer is pushed to the max.

Amazon does have a pretty good return policy, though you’ll likely pay for shipping.

I can live with that though I hate doing it. Buy it, try it and return it. Too many do that and it raises the prices for everybody. I need to find a hi fi shop where I can test it.

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I’ve always been to scared to try this! I believe you could damage your hearing more. I play keyboards & have them plugged into a mixer with a equalizer & use open back headphones. But I have to say, I do have trouble hearing cymbals etc. So When I do play through speakers with my aids on. I can hear the extra sounds that I was missing with the headphones!

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Aids are safe with headphones if you’re careful not to abuse the volume.

Another headphone review. This one from NPR. Concludes with admonition to save your hearing by turning down the volume just as Mark recommends - or using earplugs in noisy places if you’re not wearing headphones to help filter out outside noise:

The second half of the following article has a discussion of Sony 1000mx3 over-the-ear headphone properties. The NPR review cited in my previous post opines as to why over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones are never as good as on-the-ear straight headphones but in my usual noisy listening environments, I’m not going to appreciate any real sound much if I don’t get rid of the noise. As the subtitle of the article says: “The pragmatic power of DSP.”

Well, I went ahead and got a set of Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless headphones. They are absolutely incredible.

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I spent a good amount of time going back and forth between streaming directly to the aids and then through the aids via the headphones and there is really no comparison. And that was with lossy MP3 files off the iPhone. Don’t know exactly why they’re better as it is the aids they are playing through but they are. Separation of instruments and clarity is significantly better. Bass is fuller. Everything is better. Everything but my left ear. My left ear sucks.

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Hi Mark, sorry for the delay in replying - I don’t get on here frequently, not that I have much to add in the wireless headphone area anyway!

I’ve done very little with wireless phones - auditioned a few inexpensive “bang for the buck” models, and settled on the “Avantree 40 hr. Wireless” from Amazon.

Good luck with the new Beyer’s - they make very good stuff.

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I think you can get some real bass with the headphones, but not streaming directly to the hearing aids.

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