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Understand speech - yes. Sounds good - no

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Great advice and astute observations!
I had to laugh at myself, though - at first I read your
“?50 years” as “750 years” and then realized I had misread it!

In reply to @SaxMan

@SaxMan said:

That is awesome @marf !!
I am really pleased that you had a wow moment with your new Oticons. I was hoping that this was possible !!

It would appear that my experience with two other sets of hearing aids over 12 years has not been ideal. I did not know what I did not know.

I am feeling rushed by my current audiologist - I have had my Signia hearing aids for less than 2 weeks and my so-called trial is up in a few days.

Based on my trawling of this forum, I have come to the conclusion that I agree with you - what I am experiencing is unacceptable.

Hello SaxMan,

I think you already got a lot of good advice here that I would like to reinforce with my own experience (I have been using for about 30 years).

  1. Yes they are expensive but you must realise you’re not just buying a piece of hardware: there’s a lot of R&D behind it. They will provide essential assistance every day for several (5 , 6 or 7) years so, personally, I would recommend buying the best set you can afford.

  2. Whatever the HA’s you choose, they will be only as good as what your audiologist (or yourself if you DYI) set them up to do… and not all audiologists do a good job at it -in fact, relatively few do so-. I had a pair of Oticon OPN S that I was relatively satisfied with except for a few problems that my audiologist was unable to fix. I decided to go with another one for an upgrade to Oticon Intent after over 5 years but the results were nowhere near my expectations. So I tried the Signia (they were not too bad but not totally satisfying) and the latest Resound (which I found very disappointing) before returning to the Oticon with yet another audiologist … and that time it worked very well right from the start. It was day and night with the 1st trial and I ended up buying them. I guess the difficulty to find the right audiologist is the reason why may people on the site go DYI.

  3. It is great to hear the feedback of other persons but you must keep in mind that one set of HA’s that are perfect for one person might not be right for you. It’s very much up to each one to judge. Also we get used to the way one brand sounds and it is often more comfortable sticking with it.

  4. Yes it takes time to get used to a new pair of HA’s and, in France, you get 1full month to 6 weeks to test them. Having said that, you get rapidly a feeling whether it’s going to work for you or not … and that may just be because the audiologist is not doing a good job.

  5. Most audiologists work with one or a limited set of HA’s for commercial reasons and/or because they feel comfortable fitting them. They need to master the fitting programme and philosophy going with a given brand. So if what they warmly recommend you to choose does not suit you, move on!

It takes a lot of work to select and fit a new pair of HA’s but it’s worth the effort. Courage and good luck!

Regards

Hello SaxMan. Your Signias are no doubt more up to date than the pair I tried. Like you, I’ve worked in sound. I was dismayed by mine: huge overshoots on sudden sounds (likely a design shortcoming, not
amenable to adjustment), grainy distortion and mechanical resonance in the ‘speakers’ with different pitch left and right so that musical instruments skipped about. Fortunate in my National Health audiologist, she dug out an obsolete pair of Phonak M70, adjusted the EQ and volume compression on actual sound, and they work well from about 40 Hz up to my cutoff at 4k. Covers most of the piano!

You may be encountering the same problem that I have had in that the that measures the threshold of where your hearing quits is not necessarily a good representation of what you hear at more normal levels. When I had hearing aids adjusted to my Audiogram results the volume was way too loud and the high frequencies were way overcompensated. As an audio engineer and amateur musician I did my own testing and was able to work with an audiologist that did not insist that I just needed to “get used to it”. As a musician you know what things should sound like. Tell you audiologist to ignore the Audiogram and set up your aids so music sounds like what you know. It is actually really bad advice to be told to “just get used to it”. That can lead to your brain being trained to overcompensate for bad settings on your aids. I can tell you from my own testing in my electronics lab that the Audiogram may not be an accurate indicator of what you are hearing at more normal levels and how it needs to be compensated.

I would keep trying different models and makes, they do all sound different. I believe that Apple iPod are about to be launched as hearing aids, they sound good with music so can only be better and cheaper.
I have Oticon and they are OK but not good with severe tinnitus

In reply to @Electroniker

@Electroniker said:

When I had hearing aids adjusted to my Audiogram results the volume was way too loud and the high frequencies were way overcompensated. As an audio engineer and amateur musician I did my own testing and was able to work with an audiologist that did not insist that I just needed to “get used to it”.

So you’re underfit, eh?

Edited

I am also a musician and live in Melbourne, just started my journey into the world of hearing aids. My GP referred me to an specialist as I have unilateral hearing loss, got an done to rule out any tumours and then referred me to an audiologist that was conviniently located outside his clinic. When I spoke to the audiologist and told him what my requirements were as a musician, he did not take them into account and straight away put me on a trial on some Oticon Intent. They actually worked great for music with the music program but I did not like the speech program too much. I also asked about Widex brand and they weren’t too interested about it. After some research, it turns out that a lot of audiologists have relationships with manufacturers. See video below,

This sounds about right as the audiologist I saw didn’t know much about hearing aids for musicians and more like a sales man pushing certain brands.

Now I’m looking for a independent audiologist from

Independent Audiologists Australia - Home2

Independent Audiologists Australia, IAA, find an independent audiologist, audiology for general practitioners, audiology for public, code of ethics,

I also had a recommendation that the one at Melbourne Uni is also independent.

In reply to @Neville

@Electroniker said:

When I had hearing aids adjusted to my Audiogram results the volume was way too loud and the high frequencies were way overcompensated. As an audio engineer and amateur musician I did my own testing and was able to work with an audiologist that did not insist that I just needed to “get used to it”.

@Neville said:

So you’re underfit, eh?

I was just about to ask the same question. The hearing isn’t only about the sensor (cochlea). Hearing is also about processing, not only in the auditory tract in the brainstem, but also in the auditory cortex in the brain. I was underfitted for much of my life and I simply had to get used to the new gain. As a result, even classical guitar sounds great.

There are many stories of patients who were willing to make an effort to become accustomed to the target gain, with the prize in the form of a better understanding of speech.

@Electroniker, in which way you measured gain from hearing aid, which should be done 1-3 mm close to the eardrum? You have equipment?

They should not sound this way. There are adjustments which can help you have better sound quality while still enabling good understanding. My first suspicion is your not used to the high frequencies. Did he do real ear to fit you? I would go back and ask for adjustments to reduce this sharpness. It can be gradually added in as you adjust to hearing. JMHO

In reply to @Bimodal_user

First, I should mention that at this stage my hearing loss is quite modest. Basically, i need a mild boost at frequencies above about 2 kHz. I don’t wear my hearing aids all the time – only when I am in situations where a bit of help is useful. I did my own testing because the way overstated how my hearing actually works at normal levels. I have described this before, but I used an audio signal generator, over the ear phones, a circuit to measure sound levels, and an oscilloscope. My interest was in exploring what I was hearing and not in anything else. I was also able to duplicate my results with a good stereo system and a multiband equalizer. I encountered the typical “just get used to it” from several providers until I found one who understood the technology and was willing to listen and work with me. The results have been great. No more hissy and tinny sounds. The problem was, and is, not with the hearing aids – it’s finding a good provider who isn’t overly reliant on the usual testing methodology.

Your speech intelligibility index in the better ear is 30%. I’m not sure I’d call that “modest”. Unless you made an error entering your thresholds into this site, you have a fair bit of low frequency hearing loss even in the better ear.

Edited

@monke posted a topic “UPDATE: DSLv5a Pediatric Fitting as an Adult” that you may find useful, regardless of brand or model.

@SaxMan : He mentions the effect of the program on his music perception.

Edited

Update : firstly, what an amazing group of helpful people here on this forum. THANK YOU !!!

B) I returned the untuned Signias and found a new “supplier” - there are a few websites that offer cheaper prices and then they direct you to one of the clinics they have a relationship with. I did this, as their prices were easily $1000 cheaper, and they had a couple of clinics not too far away from me.

I made an appointment and it turned out the audiologist was a wonderful young woman a few years out of university who taught me more in 15 mins that the other guy did in 3 x 1 hour sessions. And she did it for free, whereas the other guy charged me for the session. She slapped together a demo pair of Beltone Envision 17. She tweaked them for less than 5 mins (and asked several questions along the lines of “I’ve done this, because of this reason, how does it sound ?”)….and she got them sounding very good.

While these Beltones (I’d never heard of this brand) were good, they were always just for loan because she felt sorry for me and had a spare pair. I’ve done a lot of research over the last week or two, and today I went back and ordered a pair of Phonak Infinio Sphere Audeo I90.

So, with a bit luck I will get them in a week or two, and I will get the seemingly amazing audiologist to do her thing.

Fingers crossed…… :saxophone::+1::grinning::hear_with_hearing_aid:

In reply to @djd_oz

Thank you @djd_oz . That video is both amusing, informative, and alarming…and disappointing. And it makes perfect sense, unfortunately.
My goal is to hear speech in noisy environments - preferably that does not sound tinny, sibilant and nasally. Hearing music would be a bonus, but I can probably get around this with my nice speakers at home, or even my apple airpods. And the bands I play with or go to see are so loud that I use my custom earplugs: definitely no assistance needed from hearing aids required. Why are bands so loud ?

I hope your search proves to be fruitful. :saxophone::+1::pray:

In reply to @Dr_Palmer

I agree @Dr_Palmer ! They should not have sounded the way they did. There should have been some more tweaking and adjusting and questions and suggestions. But the sentence “if you can hear the speech then the hearing aids have done their job”, plus the overall experience, was a deal breaker for me.

As per my original question here on this thread, surely for several thousand dollars, the sound from these expensive devices should be really good, or useful, or both !

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