Analogs vs Digitals

Yeah absolutely the problem for us, I’m only 36 still and worn analogues since I was 6 years old, then was introduced to the digitals back in 2006, I’ve still given them a go, I wore them for like 30 minutes outside and at home in my normal surroundings and I was too upset to carry on wearing them, so changed them over. But yeah the younger generation are fortunate as they won’t know any different.

How closely can digital come to sounding like analog?

I hope it’s close enough. I’ve only every tried one digital called Phonak Eterna, was rubbish, so hoping to trial some more and ask them to drop the noise reduction, make it more analog setting

@Sash88uk said:

I’ve only every tried one digital called Phonak Eterna

Seriously? Those would be like 20 year old tech, as for getting that good old analog feeling, a linear with DSL v5 formula could help, but yeah no-one seems to makes analog as such anymore.

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Are they really, well I’m hoping they have some better ones, Widex comes up a lot, I’m hoping they have these on the NHS, if not it’s something I’ll try and explore

@Xonic83 said:

Another thing to consider, I don’t know how old your Phonaks are but I tried Phonaks in 2019 and they sounded truely horrible. like every single thing was a robot. now though, they honestly do sound quite acceptable, at least to my ears and Widex really do sound quite analogue.

It should be noted that you, @Xonic83, have a reverse slope hearing loss, which makes it more difficult to fit properly.

Because of the imbalance (high frequencies are more audible than low frequencies in the reverse slope), the sound can definitely be perceived as harsh and robotic. What’s more, if you had a more open acoustic coupling, such as a dome, low pitched sounds wouldn’t be amplified properly because they would leak out of the ear canal.

In open fittings, comb filtering could occur, where Widex PureSound with zero delay could help a little. However, I have little knowledge of whether this phenomenon is clinically relevant when the average latency in hearing aids is around 5-8 ms.

Can I ask what you mean by reverse slope in terms of hearing, that’s a new term I’ve not heard before.

I totally understand what you mean with Audiology, some vary in how friendly, helpful they are, 20 minutes is absolutely not long enough at all is it, they assume your hearing aids are sorted and I’m like “no sorry it’s still not right” then this is when they lose interest, because they are used to plugging your current aid in the machine to match the digital, which actually doesn’t always work and isn’t always accurate…I’m very fickle and will not settle for something until it’s right, like I say I’ve worn analogs for 30 years, so even though I wear hearing aids in both ears and have moderate/severe hearing loss, I did have some degree of hearing when I was very young, so I know the sounds.

In truth Sasha, the “NHS Audiology Departments” are under immense pressure, they have perhaps a couple of million potential patients, 1 in 7 people in the UK, have a hearing loss, and more akin to 1 in 5 in the more elderly age groups, when austerity struck, these Audiology Departments (around 2008) were decimated, and truthfully never really recovered, natural wastage was imposed, so staff weren’t replaced, IMO (I was employed in the NHS, around that time) management actively discouraged people to seek help with their hearing, various obstacles were in place, to discourage them getting hearing aids, for instance, making folks phone in for an appointment, knowing full well, they struggled very badly on the phone, especially so, when they were unaided, or their aids were broken, but that was the only way to get an appointment! A lot of their best Audioligist “jumped ship” to the private sector… Things have improved slightly in the last few years, my local NHS Audiology Department, does do REM, but not all NHS Departments have access to this equipment, much of this, has to do with training, or perhaps the lack of training, this is perhaps why, the NHS mainly dispenses, Oticon or Phonak, it is more economical for the NHS to train up their A.uD’s on a couple of manufacturers… Over the years, I have met some wonderful NHS A.uD’s, whom went out of their way, to give me a better hearing experience, some gave me Aids, that were new to the market, one in particular bought me “Analogue Aids” (around 1993) out of his own pocket, I was unemployed, and the NHS Analogue aids I had, were atrocious… He was giving me a leg up, in the fond hope, that I would find work, a wonderful example of the kindness of human nature…If you are a difficult person to fit Sasha, the NHS isn’t the place to seek help, they don’t have the time or the resources, and a 20 minute appointment won’t cover a challenging fit, but that’s what they are allocated… Many of these NHS Audiologists, don’t really care, they are totally disillusioned, I know several who left, scarred by the system! Some place’s like Boots Hearing Care, will allow you to pay up for your aids, over 2 years, with a 60 days return no quibble policy, for a full refund… Costco UK, are even cheaper with an excellent no quibble return policy, so there are options, if money is tight… Good Luck, cheers Kev

@Xonic83 said:

as all hearing aids are built the other way and tend to bias high freqs

no where do you get that information, any audiogram cam be entered into the software and then the appropriate frequencies are programmed into the HAs, the question then is will you like/ accept it.

Sorry but I disagree. I had fairly ok hearing for many years and I tried different types of hearing aids. What the science and the marketing says is that you can put an audiogram in and get an acceptable result and that is true in a way I guess. However consider, any home cinema enthusiast will tell you they will never let the microphone calibration configure their AVR receiver, they’ll do it by ear. Why? because despite something saying it’s producing all the right frequencies, there are just too many variables to compute and the speakers end up sounding rubbish. IN fact you are discouraged from calibrating the base with a microphone because it never gets it right.
I don’t need information to know that HA’s bias high freqs. I put them in my ears and even in neutral mode, everything is much sharper than it should be. Stick a set of Airpods pro 2s in your ears, not the HA mode but just regular mode, and the sound is a lot more flat.
I mean consider for a moment that most hearing aids only go down to about 200 hZ. even 200 is probably stretching it because the receiver is so so small. think where 200 hz is in the audio landscape for a moment. It’s here by the way:

There are so so so many more frequencies below that, so many sounds you miss by cutting stuff out below that. Hearing aids are tiny mics, tiny recievers and just overall tiny. You’ll never get proper balanced sound from something like that. I don’t care what the science and wat the studies say, if they can’t even sound as good as a modern earbud, then as far as I’m concerned, there is frequency bias. and why not? most people don’t have reverse slope hearing loss so it’s exactly what they need The problem is, this is what we have these days. So everything in the audiology landscape says these are the tools we have to work with, this is what we’ve gotta make work. Again, why not? would be rubbish if everyone just accepted they didn’t sound very rounded or great would it, no one would ever sell them that way
They are definitely getting better I’ll give you that. however in terms of sound reproduction, we’re a long way off yet.

This is something I’m interested in about frequency, as I don’t actually know the levels on my audiogram, I’m going to ask for a copy and compare with anyone on here. I couldn’t tell you much about frequency levels and I don’t know how much frequency is what, such as people talking, tv, cars, smoke alarm. To be fair I know I can hear smoke alarm without my hearing aid which is good to know for ever in emergency.

Not sure exactly your point, I mean most have an opinion on this, but no one said that you have/or should accept what the software has done, so what actually happens in a fitting is it’s a work in progress, so this means lots of additional adjustments over time, this can be said for any type, Cooke bite, high frequency (ski slope) reverse slope, so it’s a given fact that we all hear differently, 125Hz to 8000Hz fits the speech banana quite well, over and below for music-sure, but it’s speech the manufacturers are focusing on, and true they are getting better for music reproduction, this is why we all have different opinions on which HAs and which “hi-fi” system etc is “best” this is also why DIY works so well for many people, only we know how we like things to sound, no one else could possibly know this, so some don’t have satisfactory results because they weren’t set for how they like things to sound, but this isn’t to say for others, and do remember that nothing is perfect when it comes to HAs, size doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of hearing well, your posts are always an interesting read and agree with most, cheers