Are any of you playing acoustic piano and finding a hearing aid that works to for you while playing the instrument? Currently I am trialing Signia Pure with removable batteries. Using the” musician“ program the basic sound of my 6 foot piano is very good but mostly with single note scales. I’m trying to factory settings for this dedicated music program. When I repeat large cords in both hands and slowly crescendo the hearing aids at first do not respond then suddenly crescendo much louder.
Tomorrow I need Audi and company rep two hopefully work out a solution for this live music playing effect.
Are any of you playing acoustic piano and using Signia?
I jsut bought Signia AX7 aids. I play classical guitar. What was essential for me–essential–was turning OFF the feedback management function in the Musician program. Neither my audi nor two signia reps understood this. The feedback management is turned as low as possible in teh standard Musician program. It doesn’t matter! It has to be OFF. And while you’re at it, turn off other programs such as Wind management etc.
My issue was different than yours–I got terrible doubling artifacts on notes. turning off feedback management instantly stopped this. Maybe your issue is different, but give this a try. I frequent Adult Musicians With Hearing Loss web site and this issue with feedback management is very ,very common across brands.
Now I really like the Signias!
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Thank you very much Jeffrey for the recommendation to turn off Feedback management in the musician program. Do you have any idea what is the setting for compression in the musicians program?
I just take my hearing aids off. Much simpler. Of course, this depends on the degree of your hearing loss.
In my signia AX7 aids, I don’t feel a need to adjust compression. The program seems to have done that pretty well. It’s definitely much less than in the Universal (everyday) program. I recall that in trying to resolve the distortion issue in the musician program, my audi and the Signia rep decided to turn down gain on the high end of the decibel range. This was not the issue, it didn’t help. But the aids were receiving sound right up to the limit of my (their?) range, which suggests that the compression is off, or mostly off.
This still might be an area worth exploring. Also: Adult Musicians With Hearing Loss forum is a good resource for these matters. They have a pdf for fitting HA’s for musicians that covers what programs to turn off or adjust. I posted it here somewhere…I’ll look…
I think some of this is going to depend upon your specific hearing loss. Adding your audiogram to your profile will help folks give you informative responses.
I do not have Signia hearing aids. I was a musician. Since losing my hearing, doesn’t seem to matter what adjustments were made, everything sounded off key. Very sad.
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Well, in this case colorrama is having issues with the aid. Feedback management and compression and the rest are adjustable.
Check out what the musicians are doing and how they do it here.
Thanks Tenkan; those two pdfs are excellent and what I had in mind. I sent my audi the first one.
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Signia Feedback Management cuts gain off. That means you don’t get enough volume at the frequencies where feedback occurs. Resound and Starkey have the best feedback systems without cutting gain. Use a program “Live music” because it has no noise reduction, no directionality etc. What is also important when you choose the hearing aids is a broad bandwidth (up to 16K Hz (and more) and wide dynamic range ( more than 110 dB SPL).
I have the feedback management turned off in the musician program, as I mentioned. My issues was that the FM was ‘doubling’ certain tones by dropping them down a near octave in an attempt to manage feedback that way. I would still hear the tone I played with my ears, plus a lowered tone through the aid. Like a bad ‘chorus’ effect pedal on an electric guitar. solved with turning off FM.
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Jeffrey, what do you do when your hearing aids have feedback?
Feedback management is still on in my Universal setting and other non musical settings. So far feedback hasn’t been an issue in the music settings–knock on wood. I have custom ear molds.
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Did you have a real ear measurement verification?
I’m taking notes on everyone’s recommendation about feedback management custom ear molds check the compression for the musician program… Will see my Audi this afternoon Friday, January 7
I’ve been searching for the past two years and have tried about seven or eight major brands. Prior to current trial of Signia I tried Widex Moment.
In 2010 my Audi recommended Starkey S series level 11– highest and most expensive. For five years I had not played acoustic piano then in 2015 as I begin reworking major classical repertoire at a 6 foot ground I found no hindrance between the hearing aids and sound representation of this instrument… but they’re 11 years old!
I took two articles of Chassin and Baumin so Widex could be programmed with no compression… Close to former Starkey but had weird clunk at initiation of piano sound where the key is initially depressed…!
I’m finding that the more generally clever current hearing aids are in eliminating environmental noise to hear speech, these digital improvements are not syncing with requirements for representing piano instrument sound as one plays— but I’m still pursuing.
My programming for the signia went well yesterday January 7 with both rep and Audi. On the musician playing instrument program rep deleted Feedback management. I asked Moore about possibilities of changing compression ratio and she informed meSignia uses“ adaptive compression.”
Can anyone explain the difference between adaptive compression and general compression?
Trying the new setting at my grand piano the feedback management turned off was definitely a step in the right direction. But now I’m quite sure there’s a problem with tweaking the compression.
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That’s really good, it’s a good start.
This is something she should of explained at the time, but honestly this is quite complex, maybe best to read the white paper from Signia to begin with, then reach out to the Pro’s on here, or wait till you get back to see your audiologist, this will be a trial and error thing to be worked out over time, more linear or more compressive fitting (XFix only I believe) dynamic range, compression knee points, compression ratios, attack and release times, oh man it gets really complicated, for the pros only 
See here
Just to add to the mix…
I am a pianist too, and have higher frequency hearing loss.
I have been using the KS10s for around 6 months and find they are fine (beneficial!) when playing the piano.
As recommended by others, I have a custom program with ZERO feedback suppression, zero noise/wind reduction and low compression ratios. Generally this works very well. On the few occasions I get some feedback - which I suspect it is due to interaction with room acoustics depending on where I am playing - I simply turn down my HAs a notch or two - this has not failed me yet…
The Big picture is that there is likely to be a solution that will work well for you unless you have unusual or profound loss that is hard to fit.
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Thank you TenKan and oz-tack for directing me to dig into the compression mishmash and advice from a pianist actually playing and using hearing aids!
I found a video explaining adaptive compression from Oticon (I think). I began watching it then got swamped with the details so I’ll try again because it seems user-friendly if I’m just patient to listen to it all. I feel really productive about working with this rep from Signia.
May I ask what are the hearing aids he referred to as K-10’a, oz-tack?