I think you hit the nail squarely on the head when you mentioned the physical limitations of the tiny driver (receiver) of an HA, and add to that the extremely limited power available if you don’t want to be changing batteries every hour. There is just no possible way to approach high quality headphones. But when possible, wearing headphones over aids and tuning both to let the headphones do the heavy lifting (low frequencies) you might get satisfactory results.
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Just my personal opinion, buf if someone can hear the difference between SACD and standard CD, maybe they don’t need a HA at all.
As I wrote in an earlier post, I can’t even hear the difference between 320kbit MP3 and CD, and (although I’m still waiting for my audiogram) I believe my hearing is almost normal up to 3500-4000 hz.
The good thing about this is that there is no point paying extra for higher quality. Money I can spend on buying other music instead.
On the other hand, I have no problems hearing the difference between a good and bad recording, remaster etc.
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Yes. I am still waiting for a reply from the programmer.
Thanks.
Streaming EQ has been programmed into my HA app.
I do believe the problem is the physical limitations of a HA compared to a headphone.
Signia claims to use 24 bit A/D processing in their hearing aids. It can help with the input dynamic range of the aids.
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There are some physical limits to the hearing aids. Using a closed fitting can help the receiver boost the lows. However they are not going to sound like a good stereo system with a sub woofer. I would say my streaming is pretty good, but my stereo system with a subwoofer through the normal hearing aid mics sounds better.
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I agree. To me even my headphones sound better.
Sorry. Missed this.
This thread is mainly about headphones, not hearing aids. I want to set my headphones for my hearing loss just like my HAs, so I can listen to music the way I used to do it, before my hearing detoriorated to todays level.
When choosing HAs I asked for the best sounding ones for music playback, no matter the price. The audiologist recommended the Linx Quattro. I have later seen tests claiming they are among the best on the marked.
Still, to ME, even my Bose QC25 headphones have a much better sound quality.
There’s one sound engineering guy who posts on here occasionally who will tell you that a simple equalizer will never fully compensate for hearing loss. I wish I could claim that I understood the science. I didn’t. He sells a custom hardware solution for thousands of dollars.
A few of us own and love Nuraphone headphones. The Nuraphone uses the otoacoustic emissions from your cochlea to personalise the sound. They are designed for people with normal hearing, but if you go by the small sample of Nuraphone users in this group they often work for hearing-impaired people as well. My hearing loss is in my profile btw.
The Nuraphone is the closest I’ve been able to get to enjoying music again. If it does work for you, the great thing about it is its portability. You can use it with any source and get the personalisation. The main drawback is the cost.
Hearing aid corrections are based on what the wearer hears when listening to normal ambient sounds. The sound we hear is a combination of what comes through the hearing aid microphones and what comes in through the vents in the hearing aid fittings. For those with open fittings, much of the lower frequency sound comes in through the fitting vents, assuming they have good low frequency hearing. The problem comes in when you are streaming and there is no natural sound coming in through the vents. And in fact hearing aid receiver produced sounds leaks out the vent, especially in the low frequencies. For that reason, especially for people with more open fittings, the sound balance will be way off, with a real lack of bass. For that reason a overlay correction needs to be applied on top of the normal hearing aid correction.
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Interesting to learn that someone is building an EQ with greater range for hearing correction. That isn’t particularly challenging technically, it’s just not something with a large enough market to be readily available. Your typical home or commercial 31 band EQ has a range of +/- 12db, occasionally 15db, so that’s a total of only 24-30 db differential to play with. Keep in mind that’s not about the worst/highest number on your audiogram, it is the difference between the lowest and highest values for a given ear. So if you have a common ski slope starting at -30db and you are at -80db at high frequencies, then ideally you want an EQ capable of +/- 25db. Again, it can be done, there just isn’t a practical need for that in normal applications.
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Blind listening tests have proven that people cannot differentiate between CD quality sound (PCM) and the other higher formats. I have SACD and its an illusion of better sound. What I can here is the compression in MP3’s and the awful compression in HA’s. For music I prefer to take my HA off and just listen. Classical music and opera are the worst. There is so much clipping when the orchestra is playing and 4 or 5 singers are belting out. HA’s just can’t handle the dB level. Is high-resolution audio (like SACD) audibly better than than CD? | Tim Anderson's IT Writing
I’ve ordered the AirPod Pro and will use an equalizer to see if they are better.
For stationary music listening a pair of excellent Sennheiser headphones sounds great if a bit claustrophobic. Playing acoustic or electric guitar, or live piano - I have to remove the hearing aids. One time I complained to my luthier that the guitar strings were buzzing. He looked at my ears and said “Take out your hearing aids.” Buzzing went away,
A good thing to remember is that it is just sound and no one has golden ears. Most of the musicians in a symphony orchestra are deaf or going deaf from the dB levels when 25, 50 or 100 musicians are playing around you at full tilt. The 1st violinist is the most likely to go deaf since he/she is in front of all those players. Of course, rock and country musicians are deaf as well.
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I should add that any program that processes the audio on your iPhone is likely to introduce distortion or noise. More EQ bands are generally better allowing you to tune the sound more carefully than HA bands but the question is can you hear the difference.
Sadly, no one is reviewing EQ programs objectively. There is a list of 10 EQ apps and if you read it - they are all wonderful. That’s of course not true.
The good news is they cost less than $10 each so experimenting is not costly. I’m sure we’d all like to read what people have tried with their HA’s and their opinions.
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I don’t know anything about equalizers; however, I’m not so sure that hearing music at it’s best is such a “luxury” (especially for a classically trained musician). Just a thought–since BOSE was allowed to begin selling otc hearing aids in 2019–and considering what the company is best known for–perhaps they would be at least a good source of information for you.
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What Bose is best known for going back to at least the 901s is effective marketing of controlled distortion, but that’s another topic. 
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Yes, I remember the Bose 901. It was loved by some and hated by most audiophiles. The Bose claim to fame was quite simple. They reflected sound of the back and side walls to give the sound a more live sound due to the time delays of the reflected sound. It was made from cheap speakers, but it did something that others were not doing. This was way before the time where time delay electronics were feasible. Now Bose is pretty much doing the same thing but now digitally, with multiple speakers around the room. Simple concept and they have made a fortune out of it.
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I enjoyed the Bose comments. When I was a younger audiophile, I looked down my nose like many at the Bose manipulation of sounds. I did buy my daughter a Bose setup with tiny satellite speakers and marveled at the relative quality. Today 71 and failing hearing my fave speaker is the Bose Soundlink Color simply because it’s battery-powered, portable and the music sounds like the music. I have 4 hi-fi or studio-quality speaker systems in the house - Dynaudio BM5a, Neumann KH O300, and KH 810 sub, Definitive Tech, and 40-year-old Danish Dynaco A25’s. The Bose gets the most use because of portability. Second in line is the Dynaco’s because they front the TV. Convenience trumps perfection, which is also why iTunes is my go-to music library
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Are you using the Smart 3D app with your HA’s? I have ReSound Qauttro’s and my audiologist added the Music program which is very good with non-streamed music. For Audio Streaming with my iPhone, I open the Smart 3D app after streaming has started and click on the Sound Enhance sliders to adjust the bass, middle and treble frequencies as needed. My hearing fluctuates as my loss is associated with my Meneire’s disease issues.
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Same problem. I bought the Aumeo headphone personalizer which lets you do an audiogram and stores the settings for playback. It works pretty well but the price has gone up. I also found that the large cups on my wired headphones are big enough to fit over my hearing aids such that the microphones work.
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I have a pair of Even H3 headphones, which can give a hearing test and adjust their sound based on that. While they don’t give quite enough boost in the high frequencies for my moderate ski slope hearing loss (sorry, no audiogram), they are a good solution for me, and I use them for hours every day. They do not sound as good as good speakers or live music with my OPN 2s set on the music program, but they are far far better than uncorrected headphones. They are not super expensive and have held up very well with constant use.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Even phones mentioned here before.
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