Could anyone please advise why my new on-trial hearing aid, despite repeated adjustments by my audiologist using the manufacturer’s fitting software and manual changes, still delivers sound from my various good quality radios and new TV that is rasping and too distorted at the high frequency end for comfort. (I listen to the radio a lot). I have experience of using digital aids when my hearing loss was confined to the higher frequencies - the low frequency loss is fairly recent(virus).
The aid is a 15 channel Widex m-4-m with a partly open claw mould and a wide tube. My one ‘good’ ear (the other is dead from surgery years ago) shows a tent-shaped audiogram: 35-25-20-15-15-35-55-55 at 250-500-750-1k-1.5k-2k-3k-4k. However, listening to a radio with a simple small earpiece gives pleasing and pure sound. In everyday social settings, conversational speech with the new aid, whilst over bright, is clear and satisfactory.
The new low frequency loss occurred 18 months ago (virus): the high frequency loss was
noticed 5 years ago (age) and was then successfully corrected with an open fit thin tube aid. I don’t have Menieres.
Could the distortion be due to ‘channel smearing’ or use of an aid with too many channels? Any views would be gratefully received.
Thank you
I am not familiar with the widex aids, but hearing aids are set up so that you can hear speech better. Assuming your aids have numerous programs then one of those programs should be set up for music, and that program will be the one you use for the radio and t.v. My aids sound terrible when listening to music or i am trying to listen to the car radio. When I switch over to the music program it sounds 10x better. Talk to your audiologist.