#7

Hey y’all, thank you for the quick and super-helpful replies!

Tenkan, yeah, I’ve heard that it’s best to have low expectations for music-listening with HAs, but I’ve been overall happy with my Widex ones (Evoke, then Moment) for music. Only downsides have been a tendency to have feedback when I get close to other people or walls or even sometimes randomly when playing piano depending on the motion of my head (annoying but not terrible) and what seems to be mediocre help with hearing-in-noisy-environments or even with teammates speaking softly / whispering (more frustrating). So my hope was that the latest Oticon would be close to as good as Widex with music, and noticeably better re speech-in-noise.

I haven’t gotten to test the latter so much, but plan to soon (I have ~3 weeks to try these things out).

Good to know that I can get these (or the new Widex smartRICs) from my current audiologist office and then take them to a more experienced specialist for fine-tuning. The only downside of that, aside from obviously the subsequent cost, is that it’s hard for me to know whether I should buy the Oticon Intent or the Widex smartRIC (I had at least informally narrowed down to these two, though I know the other major brands also have flagships).

Vulusiano, thanks for the bit o’ history re Oticon and their music program. As a tech geek by day, I’m definitely intrigued by the idea of DIY, but I’d need to buy a Windows PC (I presume), acquire the relevant hardware and software (probably not too onerous), learn how to use what I expect is kinda badly-designed software and so on. Hmm.

fbacher1, thank you for the info & guidance! I’ll be really curious to learn what you think about the Moment 440 (which I have and like overall for music) or the SmartRIC (which I’ve heard is equally good for music, and better for speech-in-noise given the mic placements). Either way, hope things work out great with the new audiologist!

flashb1024, I’m dating myself, but… while I have a lot of fond memories of 1980 boomboxes, yeah, I don’t wanna recreate them musically in my ear.

As I whined about in my original note, my audiologist office was bought out, all the senior audiologists retired or fled, and now there are two very junior audiologists left (basically just out of school). So with that (and my visit today), I don’t have any hope whatsoever that they’ll be able to smartly help me further optimize my Oticon HA for music :(. So I’ll either need to go back to Widex (getting the SmartRIC) which I expect is largely great for music out of the box, or buy an Oticon for ‘free’ with this current audiologist and then immediately book some (paid) time with a more experienced audiologist.

My next appt with my current audiologist is on May 28, so I have some time to further research and contemplate and will make sure to provide more of an update here then! (and of course, happy to continue chatting in the meantime).

Thanks again y’all for the helpful replies to my first post here!

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#8

Hi Musicguy, from an OldMusicGuy. Whose hearing loss is similar but worse than yours probably because I subjected myself to stupidly loud music for longer… :wink:

I posed exactly the same question a little while back (well about music capabilities in general) in this thread: OMGs initial question about music reproduction

Here’s the thread explaining why I chose Oticons over others, despite the poor music handling: OMGs choice reasons

Bottom line: I really disliked the Intents built in MyMusic program and I suspect you will because it is very bass and mid-heavy, and you don’t have low frequency loss. However, I still went with them.

If you go with Oticons you will need a very good audiologist that understands the needs of musicians (mine has a degree in sound engineering and acoustics) and also the ability to self program at home. After two tweaking sessions with my audi I have the MyMusic program almost in a very good place. It’s still not quite as good as my previous ReSounds but it’s nearly there. I will be doing the final tweaking at home in front of my studio monitors.

If you mix and produce your own music and can handle a DAW, I would strongly recommend you get the Noahlink capability at home so you can do DIY adjustments. There are a lot of people on here who will help you get up and running.

I will also add that with the program tweaking I am really happy with the streaming sound I am getting on the Intents using BT LE audio.

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#9

Yes I knew that customs can be vented but don’t you then get right back to the equivalent of open domes by the time you eliminate the oclusal effect? And I realize I’m right on edge of needing custom domes. Probably with a newer audiogram I’m ready for custom. But I can barely tolerate the gains I currently have in the general program. I’m at 100% but have dropped mid freq by 2 dB and high by 4 dB. I could not stand 80% when I first started so this is progress!

So is it the fact that the customs seas up perfectly the advantage of getting customs where the venting is also custom set? I do get some feedback with my open domes if my hand comes near my ear or my ear comes near something but it’s just a momentary thing and I’ve tried to use the “measure” routine in the program to adjust the feedback control. I don’t get any feedback playing music and of course it’s because of the very low maximum gain settings I have.

I know I have hyperacusis as well which makes larger gains harder for me to tolerate. And I’m not sure how much of the distortion I hear when playing guitar is me or my HA. I met another HA user that had all the same complaints about music that I had. We both agreed that we never seem to know if we sound is too trebly or bass heavy or how to properly adjust our amps and guitars to equalize. At this point I don’t even know if my acoustic guitars sound good to others or if they suck, lol. I’m hoping the Widex will be the answer and I can get them for no more than $3K along with my insurance of $3-3.5K. I can use this benefit once every 3 years too.

#10

I can’t help you with the issue of taking the units elsewhere, but I’m a quasi amateur musician (folk- and country-rock mandolin) and my Intent 1s serve me well. That said, I think I mostly just use the general program when playing or practicing and am quite happy with it, or sometimes speech-in-noise (if only to damp down the bass, drums and a really bad banjo behind me while on stage.) I like what I’m hearing out of the monitors or mains in both settings. I need to fool around a bit more with the music program, but my recollection is it’s a bit of an improvement over the Real 1s which elevated vocals at the expense of the instruments. I don’t sing that Real feature was a minus for me.

#11

Please do let us know how this works out for you.

#12

Yes I will report back after my Tuesday visit.

#13

Not quite sure what you mean here, but usually the venting size is determined by your audiogram results.
Even if you think you’re on the border, believe me, custom molds are far better for overall fit, and sound.

This is something you really need an expeerienced audi to be able to help you with.
Proper REM and gains fitting needs to be programmed.
If you go the Widex route, you’ll have a good chance of getting an experienced audi, hopefully.

#14

You need to shoot the banjo player!! I know you mentioned that in another thread.

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#15

Yes, like Costco they do REM but probably a much better result. I meant that the molded custom is a perfect fit unlike domes so the actual amount of venting can be controlled better…no unknown leakage. I already have issues with the sound of my own voice due to bone conduction and could not even use the double domes because of that. It was not so bad until I got up 100% of the prescribed gains. Some days it’s not terrible and other days or times it is and maybe that’s the variability of the way the domes fit, can’t be a perfect fit. I will ask about customs and no doubt when they do a new audiogram they’ll recommend the customs.

#16

Not sure how you’re fitted, but that loss screams ‘open’ in terms of domes generally or at least a single power or tulip dome.

Stuffing your ear up completely really isn’t going to work.

If you’re struggling, REM (REAR) using Live Speech Mapping is probably key with a music source sound to see where the aid is saturating and causing the feedback manager to walk over the sound. On a 20-24 channel aid you can be quite judicious about only reducing the channels causing the peak resonance and the fluttering.

#17

I’m fitted with the Oticon/Philips Open Bass domes, 8mm. They accidentally gave me the older open domes and while they worked they did feedback a bit more. The open bass domes are much more difficult to keep clean but the HealthSuite program doesn’t even support the older open domes for the 9030. I think they might have been used on the 9020 or earlier models.

For music all feedback is turned off and noise control as well. No feedback issues with my DIY music program but the gains are very low so that’s not surprising. It’s not bad until I start bending note up at the 12th fret or so and then it’s…“am I bending half pitch, full or what” and just sounds so out of tune to me so I ended up lowing the gain another 5 dB with the app. It’s better but still not ideal. And playing with my trio my guitar always sounds way too thin and bright only to me as well. But when I play alone under the same conditions and room the guitar sounds better to me, fatter and more bass tone…not thin. I’m so confused about what is real when it comes to my playing now and while I think the new and soon to be released Philips 9050’s will have better noise/wind control than my 9030, I have doubts that music will be much different so I’m going to try Widex on Tuesday and and a real audiologist (this one also plays guitar) so I’m hoping she has some experience with this.

Oh I was going to say when the Costco fitter was doing REM I could see she was having major issues around 1000 hz or so and could not adjust things closer than 10 dB so I don’t have a lot of faith in Costco. And they are even more lost when it comes to music adjustments.

#18

Sounds like the MPO is limiting the peaks when it detects the average ambient gets above certain levels and the bass is getting lost too. Due to the Lombard effect you expect your output to go up too, like how you raise your voice in a pub, but, what’s happening is that only the mid-high are retained in the canal and the lows are lost to the environment.

The only real way to combat this is to either occlude the canal or use a set of monitors. The problem with hearing aids is that your normal hearing situations benefit from leaving the canals more open, but you want the opposite for your group playing.

Why not switch to a pair of double domes when you’re playing ? It’ll screw the general acoustics a bit, but if you’re in the music program, the gain will be much reduced anyway. Technically there’s no reason why the aids can’t be set up (and REM’d in that program) on the understanding that you’d swap them to the more occluded domes when needed.

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#19

That’s a good suggestion and will get some double domes to try that. I think the fitter originally set me up with double domes at one time but for the general program the occlusal effect was too much for me. I don’t think the program allows for one to use different domes than another one but I’ll ask about that. My DIY music program is so far from the general program that speech is not enhanced that much anyway. Yeah I have tried just removing the HA for music and that eliminates these issues but also most of the treble too. I’ll just drop by Costco today and get a couple of sets of more restrictive domes today. I try out the Widex tomorrow and who knows…might be coming home with a set.

#20

I’m jumping in late to a lot of good suggestions, but I wanted to add my experience in case it might help. I started with Oticon Reals back in December (my first HAs so I’m not very experienced) and I couldn’t bear to play the piano while wearing them. Listening to digital music was okay on the My Music program, and I could hear some high-pitched birdsong that I hadn’t heard in a while. But I was hoping for more. So my audi had me try a pair of demo ReSound Nexias–bright crisp bird sounds and at higher frequencies than the Oticon seemed to provide) but everything else sounded shrill and awful (especially music).

So I asked her for a trial with Widex and they’re the ones I’ve decided to go with–the open dome helps and the Pure Sound program (with pitch changing and feedback reduction and the other features that need to be turned off) is working very well for me. I also needed to have the volume reduced quite a lot on that setting, but the piano sounds MUCH better than with the other HAs I tried and much clearer and richer than with my addled ears. I also like to be able to tweak some things myself and the app lets me do that. Hope you find what works for you!

2 Likes
#21

I tried the Widex SmartRic for the first time today. The audi set them up for my current audiogram that is almost 2 yrs old, no REM and just a quick sound check to outside of a booth. It was just a free demo. But I loved the first of the SmartRic right off the bat. My Philips 9030’s have a decent sound but the Widex was better and more clear to me. I didn’t get to try with my guitar but music also sounded pretty good from the youtube video we watched and the program did an automatic switch, recognising music. Zero feedback and I can it sometimes with the Philips. No hair noise or any artifact noise either with the Widex.

And the Puresound mode was even better which is what I preferred. I went outside to listen to about 50 construction workers putting in rebar and making a loud racket on a big project and while I could hear them and the traffic, it was not obnoxious and didn’t have to switch to a noise program like my Philips. Have to have the top tier, 440, as that is where you get the better wind noise reduction. Cost is $6900. less my $3k insurance coverage, wow!!! So a lot more than costco so now I have to decide…but I think I already have. The 9050 Philips if they ever get sold at Costco might be a lot like the Oticon Intent and much better at many things than my 9030’s but probably won’t do much better for music. And I have yet to really test out the Widex with music and just day to day stuff and will get 60 days to trial them out. It will take 2 months to get approved and ordered, etc once I say go…which will probably be tomorrow…but man, $4K is much more than Costco. But I think the Widex will be worth it. Wish the Oticon/Philips was just a bit better, less artifact noise and wind noise and really had a strong rep for live music.

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#22

I’ve never tried Widex, though I constantly read very good reviews of them from musicians and music enthusiasts. I just want to share my experience with the Intents – and Oticon hearing aids in general. The stock MyMusic program is awful, especially if you play the guitar or any other string instrument. Even when fine-tuned, MyMusic does not sound that great.

I’m using my custom program with the Intents and they sound absolutely fantastic. I write about crafting a music program here. My guitars resonate right and beautiful, making it such a pleasure.

It seems Widex has a better first fit for music and perhaps better hardware, but all Oticon hearing aids with the “clear dynamics” option (starting with the OPN) can sound pretty decent for music.

A word of caution, though: I use a fitting formula that I like only for music (DSL v5) - I prefer either NAL-NL2 or VAC+ for everything else. Philips hearing aids won’t allow you to have programs with different fitting formulas, but I suppose you can craft one to your taste with the formula you choose.

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#23

Yes you’re right about the Philips not allowing the different fitting formulas. I’m not sure I can do all that you detail in your link or even understand it. But I can see why most audi’s don’t know what to do. I have a modified program that works but like you said, I’m never sure about when I feel my guitar sounds thin and shrill that normal ears are hearing the same thing. It’s very frustrating. For me it might be better to start with something like the Widex if they get me much closer with minimal tweaking. I think my DIY program probably works because the gains are much lower and that means I’m probably far from optimal with it. I’ll look at your link and maybe comment some more there, thanks. I wish that Costco had the Philips 9050’s now but I’m stuck with the inferior 9030’s for the time being. Thanks

#24

It is a sound approach. However, if you still want to tweak your music program, I guess the “Calibration tool for Headphone + Hearing capability” should be able to get it sounding “flat” for you. This is what I end up using to make my custom music program sound right. You will only need a Windows PC and good audio monitors or headphones - assuming you’re able to self program your hearing aids or your HCP is willing to help you with that. Let me know if I can help you in any way. Good luck!

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#25

Okay, an update!

I trialed both the Widex SmartRIC and the Oticon Intent for a few weeks in parallel… at crowded restaurants, in airports, on a plane, listening to music, playing piano, at a workshop, etc.

In every single instance, the Oticon sounded significantly less natural, slightly compressed / warbly, especially when compared back-to-back in the same context with the Widex.

Switching to the Music preset of the Oticon improved this a bit, but not to 100%.

The Oticon was slightly better with all speech-in-noise contexts, with the relevant voices being slightly louder / clearer.

And the Oticon does have a significant advantage with the on-device buttons that can actually perform multiple functions! (press to adjust volume, press-and-hold to change program, press-and-longhold to turn off)

But I just couldn’t take the artificial day-to-day sound (especially with any car or microwave chimes sounding particularly warbly, etc.). And my Widex integrates wonderfully with my Apple Watch, so it’s just two taps to change a program or volume.

So in the end, I decided to go with the Widex and I’ll be trading in my demo model for the real thing this coming week.

I suspect that I did not get a fair trial of the Oticon, since the person fitting me is not many years out of school and has – by her admission – never fit the Intent before and hasn’t fit many Oticon HAs.

But this is the only place within 30 miles that is in-network with my insurance, which means I get any premium HA for free (since I’ve hit my in-network OOP maximum for the year).

In contrast, it’d be thousands of dollars for me to go somewhere else to test and buy a HA :(.

All that said… I am considering paying a super-well-reviewed and very experienced local HA out-of-pocket to do another hearing test + adjustments on my upcoming Widex just to be reassured that I do have it set optimally.

And then in another year or three, depending on my insurance at that time, maybe I’ll try Oticon again.

Anyway, thank you again for the helpful and interesting commentary, and apologies that in the end, I wasn’t able to give these hearing aids a particularly fair test :\

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#26

No offence here, but that’s hardly a fair ‘like for like’ comparison: at least get them fitted by people who know what they are doing.

That said, I’ve found the standard P1/ Automatic/‘Dynamic’ program doesn’t suit everyone: for some losses, the flatter un-modified MyMusic works better as there’s less compression, less AI interference and less noise control. This is especially true for long established users with flatter 50-60-70-80dB possibly mixed losses. Less so for new users, less so for sloping losses and less for purely sensorineural losses.

Also the Bernafon might have suited you better.

Not everyone likes or wants to ‘learn’ the AI function of hearing aids and there’s an argument to be made outside of extreme noise in retaining the ‘original quality’ of the sound.

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