I appreciate that supportive response. I guess it’s certainly worth learning about, and doing myself right in my own studio.
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Thanks. I have had the same thought. It is the first. I had my mind set on widex when every professional I knew that wears HAs mentioned them before I did. But trialing is already such a weird process. I think i like their input gain structure and low latency the most
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If you can, please be patient with new hearing aids. And for what it is worth, name brands really are not that important. Find a fitter and aids that are local. Try to help your fitter with good information about how you hear in different circumstances.
Costco is a great place to start. You can always move on if unhappy but hopefully get educated about what you really need before spending big bucks.
Good luck.
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The audiogram does help. As others said, your loss is not that complex and seems easily corrected. But, so its mine and I spent a lot of big bucks on different HAs and lots of audiologists and DIY equipment and accessories before finding the combination that works for me. My moderate loss was having a very profound impact on my life and work. Once I finally got the right treatment I quickly recovered all my expenses because I was able to continue working. And, the rest of my life improved too. How much is that worth?
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GOAT according to who. I never heard of him. The goat title is limited to the users hearing loss. That goat title certainly gets thrown around a lot.
Have you considered doing the fitting yourself? As a music producer, composer, musician, I do believe you are able to do it just fine on your own. I don’t say this because I have any inherent distrust on audiologists. In my opinion, setting up hearing aids is a very subjective thing that depends on a lot of subjective cues, language, impressions, etc…
I am an amateur/couch guitar player (at most) and was able to design a little system that led me to a great music program, for what I need it at least.
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I think you can find a good audiologist that knows about fitting for musicians that also provides hearing aids. I am DIY and have a music program with no compression or sound recover. I agree, you flatter loss is much easier to deal with. The very high frequencies are not coming back because they are out of range for the hearing aids.
Maybe this article is helpful.
Guidelines for Musicians with Hearing Loss to Bring to Their Audiologist.pdf (213.1 KB)
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Ask these professionals that recommended Widex for Audi recommendations.
Since this is your first experience with hearing aids, you are in for a very complex & subjective process. As I recall, you are comparing the skill and knowledge between a Hearing Instrument Specialist vs a GOAT Audiologist specializing in Musician fittings. Research their credentials, and education required to become HIS vs Audiologist. Look at this like a Business decision.
I would travel in a heartbeat, if it allows you to excel in your profession.
That said, you probably can DIY very effectively - and which person do you want to guide you? Look at this as a business expense / investment.
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I guess I’m in the minority as i would totally do it if I was near him. I think the audiologist is more important than the hearing aids. For those of us still in the working world, with hopes of moving up or sometimes even being taken seriously, $2200 CDN would be worthwhile experiment for me. I have done DIY on Sonic and Starkey but since my previous audiologist has retired, the value of a good one is now more obvious to me than ever.
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I’m also thinking this could be worth the money. I’m a musician. My audi was clueless about setting up a music program correctly. Mine come with a ‘musicians program’ pre installed, but it simply did not work: lots of warbles, etc. I brought in the pdf mentioned above and walked teh audi AND a Signia audi on the phone through what I needed. The Signia rep too was appalled when I asked to turn off several programs that she treasured as selling point for the aids. They did it, it was simple, and the aids work great for playing now. That said…if the GOAT audi really understands what you need going in, has a lot of experience, and will work with you remotely for further tweaks going forward…it may be worthwhile.
I’m too incompetent and impatient to learn to DIY when it comes to my aids. And fearful of messing things up. Again, I’m happy with what I have and my program was set up for free as part of normal dialing in the new aids that I bought from the provider. But I don’t really know if yet more could be done. Hence…your GOAT may be worthwhile, in part just to learn and assure yourself that you’re getting everything from your aids. Given you’ll be wearing aids from now on, and will eventually get new ones, this experience would also inform you as to what to do then as well.
Getting used to your new aids before going to the GOAT is a good idea. How’s the musician setting now? Did your local audi do a good job?
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I think I know what goat means. You can’t be a goat quarterback if all your receivers are sub goates. Or your coach prefers to run the ball every play. If your hearing loss is so bad the goat is limited to how much of a goat he can really be.
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Well, the thing about musician programs is, they require a fitting that’s the exact opposite of setting up HAs for speech, speech in noise, feedback management, wind block, etc. Many–most–audis are confounded and maybe a little appalled when a patient comes in and starts telling them to do things to their high end aids that seem bat crap crazy in terms of everything they’ve ever learned (assuming they’ve had no exposure to musician settings. Which aren’t the same as ‘music’ settings.) Doctors, audis, nurses, all encounter patients who think they know more than them, when in fact they don’t. So it’s no wonder it’s hard to get a good music program set up. The audi is 90% of success, the brand the remaining 10%. But to finally get around to my point: a GOAT audi isn’t one who can magically restore hearing beyond the capacity of an aid. But it is one who can match the patient with a functioning program that gets all that’s to be had from the HA’s to help the patient. It’s a skill and an art.
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Well I certainly do hope it works out for you.
Interesting to see the pricing. I think the cost is reasonable even edging on low considering that you’re not really buying a fitting so much as you are buying his individualized advice from decades of experience of someone working passionately and prolifically in this specific field and who has a lot of other things going on that you are buying time away from. He’s a busy guy. (Plus his office is probably quoting in CND.)
In terms of whether it is worth it, that depends hugely on you and your own cashflow vs. time. Marshall is a generous guy who is obviously interested in education as he shares his knowledge widely and constantly with other clinicians and patients. I doubt that this is a case of him having a secret sauce that you can only get directly from him–if you have the time to dedicate to reading it, he has likely put all of the information out there. I’ve seen retired music and engineer types on this website who read textbooks and DYI or collaborate heavily with their fitter very successfully and, more than that, enjoy the process. Hobby time during retirement can be very powerful. On the other hand, if you are someone who just wants to get it done and get it done right and get back to your life of doing other things, then it might be very worthwhile to purchase expert advice. Additionally, it is probably valuable having a directly accessible source who likely has piles of practical tips on hearing aid use and expected limitations in the specific environments and interfacing with the specific technologies that musical types use.
Tangentially, how are you music guys protecting your ears?
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I play classical guitar. Not a very loud instrument! A violin is loud…and even closer to one’s ears.
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Violin is one of the things we ask about when we see asymmetrical loss. 
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Interested about the ear protection. My son is an operatic tenor and just 25. Between the music and his genetics, I do worry for his hearing. Do the inexpensive ones from an AuD do the job?
Custom musicians plugs are not so inexpensive these days. But worth him going to see an aud to discuss hearing conservation for sure. The degree to which he will need protection will depend on his exposure volume and time.
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@user172 , it would be fantastic IMO if a forum member would go to Toronto for the full Marshall Chasin treatment and then start a thread here with a detailed report, and answer questions about the experience. I have considered making the trip but I live far from Toronto and, at this point, I am only what most people would call a semi-pro musician. It’s probably not worth it for me.
Just throwing it out there, but maybe some forum members could help you by contributing to a crowdfunding effort to make your proposed trip more affordable in return for your report. I’d throw in a few bucks. @jeffrey ? @SpudGunner ? Anyone else interested?
Your current local audi (or a different local audi) might be very interested in working with Dr. Chasin and learning from him about the process of programming for musicians, even to the point of offering you a slight discount on a HA purchase. The specialty skill of learning how to program HAs for musicians might become quite valuable to an audi, especially now as remote programming seems to be coming into its own.
I’m sure it would be beneficial for you to learn DIY programming, but imagine your audi reading a few books and forum posts about audio recording and then trying to come in and produce a quality recording with your recording equipment, compared to you producing the recording with your years of specialized training and years of experience. I would think that that would be a good analogy to you learning DIY programming compared to visiting Dr. Chasin. Some stuff to think about. Good luck.
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