So I have had hearing difficulties for the last 12 years. I am a clarinetist and play in a few upper end ensembles. I use a simple hearing amp for general wear and speech, but cannot play with it in because it makes the clarinet sound like a kazzoo. I am determined to go with widex because many musicians recommend it. I actually bought a used pair of Widex Dreams adjusted to my prescription and it worked pretty well with one in only one ear. However, the aid stopped working and the ebay vendor actually refunded my money. I am not in the the position to spend 6 grand at a regular dealer and have not had satisfaction with most audiologists anyway. I was planning to buy one on ebay…they are selling moment 330’s for 1600 brand new and getting a basic program on it so I can tweak with the app. I know the 440’s are are better and the Sheer is the top of the line…would I see a difference going up to these top models? The whole line is very confusing.
I’ve trialed most of the major HA’s and Widex SmartRIC was by far the best for sound when I played a violin. What I didn’t like was that the SmartRIC’s had limited connectivity with an iPhone for phone calls and the speech in noise wasn’t as good as some others. However, there is a new Widex HA called the Allure that claims to have improved phone connectivity and speech in noise while retaining the good sound.
I’ll be trialing those next week.
HI. I have a totally different suggestion. The only thing that sounds better than Widex, is an analogue Lyric hearing aid. Now that may not at all be suitable for you depending on your hearing loss and it is £250 a month, which may be out of your budget. However, it might be an idea to see if you can find a Lyric clinic and see if your hearing loss would match the Lyrics proscription. They are analogue, so they do not tamper with the sound. However, they are not configurable for exact band adjustment and they have no speech in noise programs. Just an idea. If you don’t want those and if you can wait for the Allures I think they will sound great. I tried Widex a couple of generations ago and they had really good sound. I am totally blind so sound is, naturally, very important to me 
Thanks so far…there is a canadian company selling new Widex Moment 330’s for 1500 a pair. They also include adjusting to your hearing test. Got good reviews on ebay. What do you think?
For ANY Hearing aid, the fitting is paramount. There will be a half dozen tweaks required in an office setting to make aids sound as good as they can. I play classical guitar. I have signia AX7 aids. These come with a dedicated pre installed musician program. That sounded awful for playing my guitar. A few tweaks were necessary to make these aid–ANY aids–sound as good as they can for playing–not jsut listening to–music. So when you buy a pair of aids on Ebay and simply program them to match your hearing loss–it will not be enough. Even with Widex. Perhaps you can find a provider who knows about musician settings that you can pay to program these aids. But that’s a tall order! it still might be cheaper than buying through an office. And there’s a thread here dedicated to self programming. But it requires some knowledge about how HAs function and how music is completely different from–completely–to program than for voice. The latter is the default method of programming, and it simply wrecks music.
My provider allows me pay off my aids interest free over a year. That helps.
After auditioning the Lyric, they fail, horribly, at frequencies below 200 Hz. Absolutely now low end.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with this at all. The thing is, most hearing aids don’t offer any sort of significant boost below 200HZ, no matter what they say on the box. What you might be experiencing is a blocked ear because of the Lyrics leading to less audibility of low freqs. I personally experienced a little bit of this but I have low freq loss anyway.
In which case, probably Widex and vented tips are the answer though it depends on hearing loss of course.
So…I just ordered a new pair of Widex 440 smart rics from a trusted vendor for 1850. 3 yr warranty, programming included, one lost replacement included. Now starts the journey