I am 56 years old and only have very mild hearing loss in high frequencies. I can hear words people say in most situations, only it is difficult to hear endings in a classroom if the student is farther away and doesn’t speak up. So I wonder if hearing aids are necessary in this situation. Another function of the hearing aids is tinnitus retraining therapy, listening to some pink noise several hours a day every day. So I think I will keep the hearing aids mainly for that latter reason.
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If your not hearing the ending of sentences and have tinnitus then hearing aids would benefit that. But you need to wear them the whole day to get used to them and to benefit from them not just in certain situations and then leave them in a draw somewhere
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What’s the classroom set up like?
Well, the audiologist said I should not use the hearing aids in public transport or noisy environments to protect my hearing, and I am in noisy environments quite often during the day so I would have to keep turning off the microphones, on and off, all day long. I cannot imagine using the microphones for example in the subway where it is painfully noisy even without microphones and I have to cover my ears when I ride in the subway. Almost as noisy are buses and trams, and driving on motorway is too noisy for me, too.
Like 16 students sitting in several rows, the farther away are about 24 feet away from me.
Your audiologist said that? Are you sure you heard them right, seriously that’s ridiculous if so, everything you’ve said in this post clearly shows they have not been programmed correctly for your loss, there’s actually a thing called “noise reduction” plus settings for “sudden noises” and to have the HAs set up for a acclimatization period, so this gradually increase the gains over weeks or months so you can get used to them.
Post your audiogram as this would really help.
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Yes to this. You need to go back to your audi and have her make adjustiments.this is your first pair of aids. IT may take several sessions to make things sound right.
could you give some more detail about what you mean by “Everything sounds like its spoken through a microphone”?
do you mean, there’s a lot echo? everything booms and is over loud? tinny, or too bass sounding?
etc. My aids sound pretty natural.
but it’s true that it takes some time to adjust to the new soundscape. Your disappointment suggests there’s more to it than that.
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@jeffrey : With all due deference, Jeffrey - are you sure this fellow has a competent audiologist? I’m not convinced, if the advice he’s dispensing is as the OP has described.
That’s just my opinion, of course - YMMV
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well, you certainly have a point.
so, let’s say, the op has to go back to an audiiologist and have the aids adjusted.
they simply shouldn’t sound as bad as characterized, if they’re one of many major brands. Maybe there’s another audi in the business where these were bought. Or work with the original audi and see if things go better. If not. go elsewhere.
the op does need to verbalize with greater specificity how things sound. and maybe after all it’s primarily an issue of getting used to hearing sounds in a new way, that’s actually closer to how regular hearing folks hear, at least in terms of loudness.
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Remember to get your audiograms back from that audiologist and, as suggested, post a copy here. It certainly sounds like you are not going to a satisfactory audiologist/hearing technician. Your complaints are not normal ones; the hearing aids can be programed to adjust for loud noises and soft ones. Take note of the return policy/timing and return the aids for a refund, if not satisfactory. You can find success elsewhere.
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They are basic ReSound Key 4 hearing aids. I was surprised and disappointed that I saw on the screen of the PC that the audiologist was using to set up the hearing aids for me that the limit of the frequency range is only 6000 Hz, and it cannot be adjusted any higher than that, but as I remember, my hearing loss is mainly between 6000 and 8000 Hz. So how can they adjust if the device is limited to 6000 Hz. Even the cheapest earbuds have 20 000 Hz and have no problem playing cymbals, crickets and similar sounds, but these hearing aids cannot reproduce such sounds without distortion. Music sounds as if it was played from the worst earbuds you can imagine. Just a tinny sound, like a tiny radio. I suppose hearing aids cannot compete with dedicated earbuds, but I was shocked to find that the music sounds that bad, no bass and no treble, just a very tinny sound. Is that normal with hearing aids? It is also frustrating that it is basically impossible to find specifications for your hearing aids, it seems the companies keep them secret and only show some of the specs to the doctors. How can I find out the frequency range of expensive hearing aids? I am considering switching to Phonac but don´t want to pay twice as much and get sloppy results.
To explain my problem with the sound when the microphones are turned on. I stupidly imagined that the hearing aids would work like an equalizer. Even basic earbuds have a mode called transparency mode. When you turn on the transparency mode, you can hear high frequencies better, speach is not muffled, but the volume is normal. I hoped that such expensive hearing aids could AT LEAST manage what basic earbuds with active noise cancelling and transparency mode can do. Instead the noise supresssion is almost non existent and turning on the microphones you get volume, not a different sound. The difference is just like talking to someone without using a microphone and with using a microphone. You hear your voice - which is unnatural - and everything is louder. Not the low frequencies, but middle and high up to the limited 6000 Hz.
I just did a quick check. The Resound Omnia, their flagship hearing aid, goes up to a little over 9000 Hz.
Hearing aids are designed for speech, not music.
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Thank you, so music is basically impossible to listen to, not whining, just asking for a fact, people with mild hearing loss may like to listen to music using earbuds, so I suppose they find the sound of music coming from hearing aids useless, right? Then I wonder why so many hearing aids feature music streaming, who would listen to music if the quality is so horrible. For padcasts maybe, ok. Also , I managed to find the specifications looking at this site. For ReSound Key the limit is 8000 Hz but the audiologist was working up to 6000 Hz, I was looking at the screen disappointed asking her, you cannot go higher than 6000? And she confirmed. But according to the specs, it is possible to set up to 8000 Hz. ReSound Key Hearing Aids | Models, Reviews, Prices, and Videos
When checking your audiogram, if I see it correctly, you have about 100 dB loss between 4000 Hz and 8000 Hz. Can you still hear the sound of crickets or cicadas in nature? Would it be possible to set up the hearing aids so only sounds over 6000 Hz are amplified but nothing else?
I found something interesting:
With the improvement in hearing aid and wireless technology, hearing aids can now BECOME your headphones . There is no longer a need to figure out how to wear headphones over your hearing aids, or take your hearing aids out completely to listen to music with headphones.
That would mean that hearing aids should be at least as good as the cheapest earbuds. I wonder if that is true. Because my are worse than the cheapest earbuds. Also what does not make sense, I should wear hearing aids all day long, but what is the noise reduction eg. in the subway? I would need to reduce the noise from 85 dB - to say 60 dB. I doubt my hearing aids can do that. They cannot replace ear plugs, can they?
Yeah a lot of questions going on here, I’m just wondering why you haven’t asked these from the clinic that set these up for you, the key 4 are a very basic HAs, drop them and go for something else, and no HAs will never be as good as any earbuds or headphones, but they can get close to sounding good, music streaming is a given now so the big 5 /6 are putting a lot more effort into this, so you gotta dump those key 4 and go for something else, on the forum here you’ll notice a lot people who are having success with other models, I use ReSound Ones, and I’m very happy with my music program including how they stream it, took many hours of DIY over a long time to get these set up, you too could do this if you wanted, the main problem for music is the receiver, you cannot compare with headphones or buds,
Of course they can, but you have basic models and don’t offer the same reduction features as premium models.
Yes but only when they’re not programmed right, are you using open domes? This is a problem for bass,treble is the high frequencies, sounds like you’re getting that if sounds tinny.
Again have you tried Costco and if you can, post a audiogram would be helpful.
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@user38: No offense, but I’d like to read your source for this. My experience is that a balanced armature HA can’t come close to a can’s ability to move air, which is what good sound is all about, in the music business.
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Well the problem with my audiologist was / and we are talking an central European country here… she gave me like 30 minutes first appointment, and I had no chance to ask such questions, the appointment would last two hours I guess. Also I am afraid that she is not interested in dealing with people like me, she probably prescribes hearing aids to people with serious hearing loss. If I ask her about listening to music or crickets, she would go nuts. As you can notice from my questions, I am into subtle details. She thought I just needed to hear speech of my mumbling students clearly and use some white noise background. She also only offers ReSound and told me I could try Phonak but with a different audiologist. I did a quick test using youtube videos with crickets - my target sound I guess, and the microphones of my ReSound do amplify the sound a little bit, but also add distortion. I suppose as you said, these are basic hearing aids and probably cannot deal with higher frequencies and distort such sounds. If you know what rain sticks are, no chance, orrble distortion here. Streams, running water, no problem, but anything higher than 8000 Hz seems to cause terrible distortion.No actually, listening to a running water in a stream, distorted too. Oh and the noise filter is ridiculous, maybe 3 dB difference.
@user38: I’m sorry - I don’t know enough about central Europe to understand the nature of the problem. Could you inform me, please?
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