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Music lover: still chasing hifi equipment

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Just Added my to profile…

Retired last few months, have chased hifi equipment my whole life, mainly hard rock genre…
I’m so down now as I cannot hear anything in right ear.
Really have had significant loss last 2 years.
Have Starky , getting soon from .

Q. Can EQ of a receiver be dialed in based on audiogram?

Wonder where my hearing is while listening to music it sounds so artificial and I can’t stand the way they feel in my ears (surgical ear).

I find myself feeling ridiculous still looking at all this high-end audio equipment thinking it’s going to bring me the magic sound…

Q. I would love to hear some people who have that high frequency hearing loss and what methods they have used for a compromise…

Thank you

14 people in this conversation9 min readJump to latest

I’m kind of thankful for my hearing loss, as it’s saved me from spending tens of thousands in my retirement chasing “the perfect sound.” Last year a friend invited me over to hear his “retirement” system. He’d spent about $40k on it, and had picked up several items like the amp and speakers pre-owned to get even more bang for his buck. The sound was incredibly clean and detailed, and the soundstage! He played Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” and Kris Kristofferson was standing “right over there” holding the bongos and cowbell for Ken Buttery. But no matter what the music, I couldn’t hear cymbals, and on a Derek and the Dominos tune it sounded like the band was just vamping for eight bars, but I know actually Eric or Duane was playing way high up on the neck of their guitar.

An EQ could help with the frequencies under 2k, but I don’t think you’re going to get enough gain to make the music sound like what you remember. Me, I’ve accepted that music isn’t going to sound like it did 30 years ago, but I’m going to listen to as much as I can now before my hearing gets even worse.

Oh thank you for great comments…
This week I unplugged all the DAC, separate power amps, tube preamps yada yada

Just using the Denon AVR and rebooting my attitude and expectations…

Q.
Do you use headphones? Hearing aids?

Thanks again…

Edited

In my experience, digital streaming directly to the hearing aids via Bluetooth, or TOSLINK to a transmitter, or the new is by far the best music experience for me, now. My Phonak have a separate streaming program for music, so my audiologist can tune the HAs response across the number of channels that the HAs support… essentially a graphic equalizer.

I don’t much use Bluetooth streaming for music as it isolates me. Instead, I listen to music over my Sonos system. I got a pair of Era 300s because they support Dolby Atmos. I get a better listening experience when tracks have been recorded for Atmos. I recently added a sub-woofer which allows the speakers to focus on highs and mids for greater clarity. This small system fits nicely into our smallish sitting room. I’ve also fine tuned the music program for my Phonak spheres. It’s taken a good amount of time but I’m now on an extended test of 2-3 weeks to let my ears and brain adjust.

Another ex-audiophile here due to age and especially an acoustic neuroma. The big Thiel CS 3.6s got sold if that tells you anything. My Phonaks sound horrible and no amount of tweaking in Target over 2 years of experimentation has significantly improved it. Live music is laughably defective to the point I simply remove my and listen with no high end. I’m planning to try Widex as soon as my provider has things set up. Many good reports from the music lovers, as you can read on this list.

At the moment my best listening experience is to use Apple’s Headphone Accommodations feature on my iPod/iPhone with earbuds. This allows you to use your (entered thru the Health app). It’s not perfect in that it only uses the EQ for your “good” ear on both channels. But the earbuds do have decent freq response and distortion is pleasingly low. WAY better than my HAs. On the Mac, they also support this feature but you have to buy Beats headphones. Pretty sad when the hi-end equipment is sitting there unused while I listen to MP3s in earbuds but that’s the best solution I have at the moment :disappointed:

This is a joke I have:
Spending on audio is inversely proportional to losing hearing.

inverse
We keep chasing audio quality all the while losing our hearing.

I have been doing hi-fi, broadcast & audio engineering for about 65 years.
Well my inner ears are broken, so its been a while since I listened to hi-fi.

Yes you can do a reciprocal of an with a multi-band EQ.
But you can only go so far.
It will be a challenge for your Left ear, I think that your Right ear is beyond hope.

In reply to @paul.cleary.nz

I think the main limitation of regular EQ systems is not enough boost… Typically 10-15 , compared to our losses which can be like 40+ but it’s better than nothing. At least it’s clean, and you can fiddle with it anytime.

I looked at the OP’s which shows quite a variation between left and right ears.
The RME ADI-2 DAC/headphone amp is a more suitable hifi device as it has separate left and right channel equalization, but it is costly.
In practise a hifi equalizer can supply up to 20db of sound level variation, e.g. for my hearing loss where low frequency has no loss but high frequencies are in the -40 db level I would compensate to a limited degree using a hifi equalizer by setting low frequencies to -10db and high frequencies to +10db.

In reply to @iarooster

@iarooster said:

But no matter what the music, I couldn’t hear cymbals, and on a Derek and the Dominos tune it sounded like the band was just vamping for eight bars, but I know actually Eric or Duane was playing way high up on the neck of their guitar.

Yeah, you have a steep loss. Phonak, and Oticon have good technology, which brings those highs down into your range.
It may sound off until you get used to it, but it’s worth a shot.
Afaik, the Phonak uses a compression algorithm, and Oticon uses frequency shifting.
@Gary_NA6O may also explore this option.

@Jlm86 said:

Do you use headphones? Hearing aids?

I use Sennheiser HD 6XX with my for excellent music listening.
I mainly stream from amazon music unlimited Ultra HD through the headphone amp of my Xonar Essense STX soundcard.
I’m thrilled to be able to hear from 30Hz to 8.5KHz.

TLDR; The only equalization, ideally, you should rely on is the prescriptive setting in the hearing aid. Widex is the choice for musicians/music lovers, the brand uses a higher sampling frequency and lower delay and IME it’s noticably better.

I hear ya. Us music lovers, and hifi heads, have an extra demand from our hearing aids - one the industry really doesn’t want to get dragged into, audiologists aren’t trained for and even my own avoids it. Most all models have a “Music” mode these days which, as a non speech oriented mode, turns off processing features - they do help.

I trialled Phonak and didn’t find they were good enough, but Widex was and the improvement was obvious even with Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac. For classical and luthier work, the Widex was the only viable option.

Thank you
My right ear is so far gone now I’m wondering if anything’s going to help…
My Starkey hearing aids seem like they’re not giving me any sound on the right side…

I tried some behind the ear and bone conduction hearing aids over at Best buy
Minimal sound…

Is surprising how much the left ear will compensate, and trick the brain regarding stereo 2 channel…

In reply to @flashb1024

Great…
I have Sennheiser HD650 that I occasionally use…
Though trying to squeeze as much out of two channel stereo floor standing jbls…
I think I’m beating a dead horse now cuz I don’t think I can hear anything out of my right ear…
Thanks again

In reply to @user715

Couldn’t help but reply to your “reply” user715. I too found Widex after a failed attemped with Oticon’s. Stevie was my measurement tool as she was who I first noticed had lost some edge in her voice. 440’s brought that all back and more…

In reply to @Gary_NA6O

Thank you for sharing…
I’ve been there for a lot of years now…
I’ve spent a few $k on equipment thinking there is some magic bullet of technology…

Acceptance is therapeutic and enjoyment can be enhanced…
Thanks again

In reply to @Gary_NA6O

Lol…I live in Lexington where Thiel was manufactured, toured Jim’s offices way back when, had 1.2s long time ago…
Always thought I would end up with the 3.6s , but reality has smacked me in the face re: hearing loss…
Have JBL 580s, HSU VTF15 sub.
Denon AVR…
That’s it now, and looking at this forum for my hearing impaired music lovers.

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