Music listening fatigue with Oticon Opn S

Hearing Aids
#1

I’ve got Oticon Opn-S minirite hearing aids on trial now.

When I listen to music on my home audio system I’ve noticed that my ears get listening fatigue after listening to music for even a half an hour at average volumes in the 70db with peaks up to 80db.

Before hearing aids, I would listen to music at around twice this volume - average volume in the 80db range with peaks in the high 80s and my ears didn’t get tired unless I listened for hours.

Is it just that my HAs are cranking up the intensity of the mid-range tones that are damaged in my ears?

Could it be that the ribbon tweeters on my home speakers (Magneplanar MG- IIIa) are now too intense/bright for some music?

Maybe I now need more bass to help balance out the sound now that I hear more mids?

I have tried the Standard setting on my HAs and it sounds good but pretty bright. If I reduce the volume on that setting by -1 it sounds more balanced.

My audiologist created a Music setting on my hearing aids that turn off all the extra processing (noise reduction, compression, etc) so they amplify the frequencies where my hearing is damaged but no extra processing. That setting sounds less bright but sometimes sounds lifeless and “flat”, like a really compressed CD.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to get moderately loud music at home while listening with HAs?

#2

Just a guess, it’s not the dB but the added frequencies you are now getting using aids.
Your brain is actually getting a whole lot more music now?

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#3

Part of it may be just getting used to hearing sounds you have not heard for a long time. The other part may be the prescription the fitter has used for your hearing correction. It is common to apply compression which increases the gain for soft sounds and reduces the gain for loud sounds. If this is overdone, it may flatten out the sound of music, pun intended!

If you go to the top right of the blue bar at the top of the screen you can enter your audiogram. That will give us a better idea what you are dealing with. The other thing to do is to ask your fitter what prescription formula he/she is using. Some use more compression than others. And, regardless the fitter can reduce the compression on the music program only, and also tweak the gains to brighten up the sound.

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#4

My audiologist turned compression way down formusic mode and disabled noise reduction, frequency shifting, etc - all the advanced computer processing which can interfere with music reproduction.

I have since observed something interesting about my HAs. When my HAs are in General mode (the default), when the downdraft fan on the kitchen stove in running I can hear a high pitched hissing sound. When in Music mode, the hiss disappears. Down the street is a series of large metal enclosures containing electrical equipment. The boxes emit a hiss when my HAs are in General mode but the hiss disappears when in Music mode.

I think the HAs may be boosting the frequency of those hissing sounds in General modem

I wondered if HAs boost some frequencies even more than necessary to compensate for hearing loss, ostensibly to make speech more understandable?

Standard mode and music mode should have the same frequency response and should sound the same. They should compensate for individual hearing loss the same way. The music mode just disable the extra processing that can distort music. Right?

#5

I would say that “normally” the music program would use the same gain vs frequency curve as the general program. It is kind of hard to guess what the music program may be doing differently. Probably best to describe to the fitter what you are hearing, and what he/she might suggest for adjustments.

#6

I don’t have the OPN S, I only have the original OPN 1. When I wear headphones to play the piano, if I’m in the default program, I can hear a slight momentary hiss right immediately after each note I play, which goes away within half a second or so after the note stops. I don’t hear this hiss when I put my OPN 1 into the Music program. Or in the Phone mode.

I attribute this to the OpenSound Navigator doing the sound processing that it does, like noise reduction, etc. I only notice this if I wear headphones playing my (digital) piano. I don’t notice this momentary hiss if I wear headphones listening to regular music with the default program. This is probably because the music is continuous and not quite as discrete as having piano notes struck singularly one at a time, so any hissing is probably not noticeable because the music keeps on going continuously.

The only other time I hear hissing on my OPN 1 (like a floor noise caused by amplification, and only if it’s quiet enough around me to notice) is when I put my OPN 1 into Full Directional mode in the Directionality setting. I’ve read white papers that say this is a normal side effect of doing full directional beam forming amplification, that the lower frequencies are amplified in such a way that causes the noise floor to be raised significantly enough to become noticeable. But with the OPN 1, I don’t really use the Full Directional setting in my normal day-to-day environment, so this hissing is not become a problem for me because it never happens.

As for the fatigue listening to music, you didn’t say if this is the first hearing aids you’re using or not. If yes, then it may be an acclimatization issue for you to go through, that’s all. But if you’ve had other hearing aids before and never had this issue with your other hearing aids, it may be that you have the Speech Rescue frequency lowering turned on. But I don’t know how likely this is because you never post up your audiogram, so I can’t really guess if your audi turned this up for you or not. But if you had it turned on, you may hear more high frequency sounds at lowered frequencies, which may make you have the listening fatigue if you’re not used to hearing it before.

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#7

You said music has less compression. My guess is that is why you can hear it in general but not in music. You can hear those high sounds with compression bringing them into a range you can hear.