Does anyone who plays acoustic piano (not digital piano) prefer Widex HA’s? Currently I’m wearing Starkey S series, with a program platform from 10 years ago… they are blissful for reproducing classical piano literature sounding natural at a grand piano.
I need to find a current model that will supply live piano music fidelity and very hopefully also produce good speech recognition. As modern grand piano is a complicated mechanism and resulting sound, i’m very grateful for any input from pianists.
May I suggest a subject line edit.
Edit: There we go. 
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Several of us here play the piano (Too much fff in past years? 
). You will get a HEAP of recommendations for what HA has a good ‘sound’ HOWEVER… From my reading and from my limited experience, it appears that whilst WIDEX was considered “The Musicians” HA several years ago, the technology has improved in leaps and bounds since then and most modern/advanced HAs have the potential to be very good for musicians IF THEY ARE PROGRAMMED APPROPRIATELY.
My example… I am trialling the KS10s and am quite happy with them from the piano playing sound point of view. I get the (previously missing) harmonics, no clipping etc etc. As my loss is mostly above 2500HZ I get the natural primary tones of the vast majority of the keyboard without augmentation.
Correct programming includes feedback control (hopefully none!) Noise reduction (none…) Compression ( none-limited almost linear If possible), frequency shifting/compression (…none) etc etc. I am lucky (?) that my Audi is very much on side with all this.
In the end it will be trial and error to find what works best for YOU and YOUR hearing loss - If you get a chance, please post your audiogram - it puts things very much in context for us.
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Thank you oz-tack, and I agree to appoint with your assessment of modern hearing aids. Yes I will try to post my audio gram and it includes original low frequency hearing loss which complicates setting up what works for me.
I’ve tried Widex 2 previous times before now and both times there was an impression of Wooley Wolfie overall sound quality— maybe their algorithms for low frequency had that effect? Second time I tried them in the Audi’s office with a Yamaha digital that my husband brought and set up. Surprised to hear the resulting sound as something close to a flute or calliope or clarinet! My husband tried to explain this as a square wave effect.
So I’ll see how it goes this time with different Audi is very very supportive.
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I think it might be helpful to know if your current solution was tailor made in some way. Apparently, part of the issue is that the mic needs to have sufficient input range (dB) and the input circuit as well. Many standard ones were/are not capable of dynamic range of live music. Are your mics the typical ones or were they “bumped up”? Marshall Chasin has written a lot about this.
I’ve had Widex but prefer Phonak. I self-program. Only way to know is to try. YMMV
The Starkey aids I’ve used for 11 years have all original components and programs. What I found fascinating is that my audiologist offered four choi7()ces of different music genres for me to choose from in the music program: pop, Jazz, Country western/folk, and classical genres. I find it interesting that three are using amplification and producing the music sounds and classical does not.
BTW, I just purchased a newer pair of this Starkey S series from the company dated 2016 and 2017… my original pair dates 2010. So if someone is interested to trial Starkey S series version 11 I can highly recommend them… but you might have to convince your Audi and Starkey representative to get a pair for trial.
Yes I’m familiar with Marshall Chassin and have read various of his articles.