Over-the-ear headphones with hearing aids

Hearing Aids
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I’ve been separately told by two audiologists who have experience fitting hearing aids for music that HAs won’t function well with headphones, and the results will be poor if I try. This surprises me, since I routinely use my hearing aids (RIC with open domes) with high-quality over-the-ear headphones and the sonic results are very close to what I hear listening to the same recording played over good quality loudspeakers in my room. Admittedly that’s not great - I’m still in the process of trying find a HA and/or fitting that will be acceptable when listening - but the point is that listening to music with headphones seems no worse than listening to loudspeakers. And I’ve also read multiple accounts on this forum of people using their HAs while listening to music over headphones.

Any idea why an audiologist would tell me that headphones won’t work well with headphones (I asked the audis, but did not get a clear explanation)? Are there any issues in particular that I should listening for?

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I wear over the ear headphones with my MiniRite aids. Now I must say I have custom ear molds so I don’t have the feedback issues that people with domes have. I do lower the volume of my aids to -1 or -2 to prevent any artifacts and the possibility of feedback.

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I use headphones with my hearing aids with open domes and my hearing is worse then yours.

I was listening to piano music this afternoon and it sounded OK to me, but I’m no audiophile.

However, some music sounds better to me when not wearing my hearing aids. But I don’t have a music program currently in my aids.

I would say if the music sounds OK to you, then wear the headphones over your hearing aids.

The feedback I experience is when putting on or removing the headphones. Once the headphones are on, no feedback.

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Usually because of feedback. Depends on the loss and the fit of the hearing aid and the headphones.

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Interesting. I’ve never had any issues with feedback when listening with headphones (including when using the Music programs in which feedback protection circuitry is turned off or minimized), and I thought the audiologists were aware of that…

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Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that most audi’s are not proficient in programming HAs for music, and thus deem it non essential.
I use my headphones for doing diy on my Oticons, and consider myself a amateur audiophile.
Once you’ve dialed in a good music program, you can experience excellent sound (as much as your loss allows for).

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I slso used my headphones to program my music program and my streaming program and am happy with both

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Aware of what? That sometimes it works? I would have guessed most were aware of that, but who knows. Feedback management in hearing aids has also progressed tremendously over the past ten years.

Or maybe you’re tremendously underfit. :wink:

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Occurrence of feedback depends on many factors, among them is the openness of your acoustic coupling (I guess you have an open dome). Another is the necessary gain - you need little gain - perhaps this is the case.

Contemporary HA has sophisticated active feedback cancellation even in its weakest setting. Last, but not least, someone may not hear whistling, but has a subcritical (for feedback) level of gain, which may lead to oscillations.

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If you have HAs with telecoil and use the telecoil program then all feedback and quality issues disappear with over the ear headphone. (I have posted on this several times if you search).

It amazes me that people (especially audiologists) don’t know this.

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T-coils used with headphones suck.

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Telecoil works good only for some. IIRC, it has reduced bandwidth, has poorer quality and is susceptible to interference.

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Probably it is personal. I hate headphones over my HAs, just put them directly over my ears and crank up the volume and treble.

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The only headphones I’ve been able to use with my oticons have been AirPod max. No feedback for me.

All other over the wear headphones I’ve tried have some sort of feedback in my situation.

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I have a set of TOZO HT2 that works for me and they are less than 70 dollars. I also have a set of older Bose that don’t sound near as good.

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Rob, you’ll make what little hearing you have left circle the drain doing that.
Have you tried a decent over ear set of cans? Beyer and Sennheiser are great chices with good size ear cups which will cover your ears and aids. If you want bluetooth Sennheiser, again for music quality.
Use a Music program, and Turn DOWN that volume!!

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I’ve tried a ton of headphones with hearing aids, and they all gave me feedback, unless I have telecoil in my hearing aid and enable it with over the ear headphones. Even then, there is some feedback.

I dived deep into this rabbit hole and stumbled upon the various types of headphones, over ear, in ear, on ear. I sampled over-ear, and returned all of them. I then sampled ON-EAR headphones and found a one that work really well for me, with telecoil hearing aids, and without telecoil hearing aids

The one that I use regularly and can highly recommend is the Jabra Evolve 75. This is more of a headset for zoom/teams than an audiophile-grade headphone.

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I meant to say that I believe that the audis were aware that I was not experiencing any feedback when using my over-the-ear headphones over my hearing aids.

I tried this using the telecoil in a Philips 9040 HA. Unfortunately, it was a total failure - the telecoil picked up a huge amount of 60-cycle hum. This was true both in my apartment, in the hallways of my building, and in the streets throughout my neighborhood.

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I’ll have to order a set of AirPod Max to try. What kind of hearing aids do you use them with? Behind the ear with domes, or molds, or in the ear?

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@Abe1 I have Behind the ear with molds.