I have age-related high-frequency hearing loss, and have been using (Widex SmartRIC 440) for the past 1 1/2 years.
Despite the fact that I have lost a significant amount of high-frequency hearing, when listening to classical music I frequently find that higher-freqency sounds - such as higher pitched violin notes - are very harsh. My audiologist suggests that I am hyper-sensitive to certain high frequencies, and an ear specialist agreed that this was a possibility. I’ve played around with various test tones, and I’m guessing I may be hypersensitive to sounds around 2.8kHz and/or 4.25kHz.
Unfortunately, my audiologist has no suggestions about adjusting the HA to counteract or minimize this hyper-sensitivity. The ENT suggested something along the lines of it might be a good idea to reduce the maximum power level of the HA - though I’m not exactly sure what he said because I wasn’t wearing my HAs at the time and he had a very strong accent!
Does anyone here have any ideas I could pass on to my audiologist about what adjustments it might be helpful to make to my HAs?
I also have the Widex SmartRIC 440 (and I love them , more than anything I’ve tried before).
Have you tried creating your own program by either : Use the equalizer (it has a setting for lowering the highs ) or , use the tool (Sound Assist).
The thing is : you have high frequency loss . If you want the high frequency gains lowered due to sensitivity then, what would be the benefit of the aids ?
The Widex fitting formula is conservative for the highs unless the fitter enabled the high frequency boost . Ask if this feature is enabled. .
Also, ask your fitter to add other programs that you could switch to if you experience the issues you describe , such as the Comfort program . This program can be programmed with less gain at high frequencies
The fact that you said the fitter has no options surprises me . The Widex programming software has tons of options to play with . That said, I don’t know what the has already done so, take this comment with a grain of salt .
As @tenkan usually says: is good, this may be a good case for it.
I had a somewhat similar experience and initially assumed that certain frequencies simply needed to be reduced. After discussing it with my neuro-, I learned that what seemed logically obvious to me was not what was happening clinically. The problem could involve how loudness grows once the sound becomes audible, rather than just the frequency itself.
Modern hearing aids can be adjusted differently for soft, medium and loud inputs within particular frequency regions, so reducing all high-frequency gain may not be the best answer. A trained audiologist should be able to investigate compression, uncomfortable-loudness levels and maximum output, especially for a separate music program.
I would describe exactly when the harshness occurs—what volume, which ear, aided or unaided—and look for an audiologist experienced with music and reduced sound tolerance. These devices are sophisticated enough that general user advice may not identify the actual cause.
@OcramSagev Thanks for the reply! I’m not trying to just reduce all the high frequencies, which would obviously defeat the point of the hearing aids. I have in fact done some programming with the (I have the Compass software and a Noahlink), setting up a separate program in which I’ve tried to notch out specific frequencies where I’m guessing I may be sensitive. But so far as I can see it’s not possible to notch out a very narrow frequency range even using the Compass software - the available frequency bands are simply too wide to accomplish what I’m trying to experiment with.
I guess what I’m really asking about here is the ’s suggestion related to reducing the maximum power levels. Can anyone give me any insight into what he was talking about?
I’m also a user, although I work with Phonak rather than Widex. In my own case, something I initially interpreted as a problem with a particular frequency turned out to involve what happened as the sound became louder, rather than simply the frequency itself.
My understanding is that the may have been referring to maximum power output, or —the output ceiling of the hearing aid—not necessarily suggesting a very narrow notch. Before changing MPO, I would look in Compass to see whether you can duplicate your music program and reduce only the gain for louder inputs by one small step in the general frequency region where the harshness occurs, while leaving soft-input gain unchanged.
That would help distinguish a frequency problem from a loudness/compression problem. If the harshness appears only on the loudest peaks, then a small MPO adjustment might also be relevant, but I would save the original fitting and change only one control at a time. Lowering MPO too much could simply squash musical peaks rather than solve the problem.
Thanks! This is very helpful. I think both of your replies make a lot of sense and explain what the was trying to tell me. He was talking about how my ears may not responding correctly to volume increases at certain frequencie, failing to hear those frequencies at low volumes and then suddenly “turning on” once the volume reached a certain loud level. And yes, I think the ENT was referring to reducing maximum power output.
This gives me some good ideas to talk about with my audiologist, and if her adjustments don’t help I can definitely make a copy of the music program and play around with the gain for louder inputs at the suspect frequencies. This is where can be very handy, since it’s going to be a trial and error process and it will be a lot easier to experiment with small adjustments at home rather than having to go back to the audiologist for eacj change.
@J-I This may be unrelated to the type of hypersensitivity you describe, but I find female voices singing the very high notes to be highly irritating, almost intolerable. On the other hand, female singing voices in the lower register are very pleasing. An example would be Whitney Houston on the one hand and Roberta Flack on the other. The latter being the most attractive singing voice I have ever heard.
Since you said you can do , go to CompassGPS , go to the menu and you will see what MPO is for.
MPO stands for maximum power output. it is usually adjusted for people who need very high gains but those gains may be near the uncomfortable level.
At this point , I think balancing speech vs comfort requires expert knowledge and, you have said that you cant fix the problem with the software.
You’ve tried multiple things. Tell your what the said and let the AuD do the job, it is the role of the clinician to ask the right questions, build a diagnostic and find a solution,
Rather than assuming that you’re hypersensitive, get your audiologist to measure an and repeat . Some people have strange peaks in their response that can result in overamplification and if you’re using an average RECD (most audiologists do for adults) then you probably won’t know about it any other way.
At this point , I think balancing speech vs comfort requires expert knowledge and, you have said that you cant fix the problem with the software.
You’ve tried multiple things. Tell your AuD what the ENT said and let the AuD do the job, it is the role of the clinician to ask the right questions, build a diagnostic and find a solution,
Speech comprehension isn’t an issue here, since I’d be setting up a dedicated program for music only. But you’re absolutely right that this problem likely requires expert knowledge that I just don’t have. I asked the question in this forum because my audiologist initially told me she didn’t think she could do anything about the problem, so I’ve been looking for suggestions that I could bring to her. She’s open-minded and easy to talk to, so with the suggestions I’ve received here so far I’m hopeful that we’ll find at least a partial solution!
Rather than assuming that you’re hypersensitive, get your audiologist to measure an RECD and repeat REMs. Some people have strange peaks in their response that can result in overamplification and if you’re using an average RECD (most audiologists do for adults) then you probably won’t know about it any other way.
Interesting. However, I hear this high-frequency harshness when listening to certain types of music even without the hearing aids (though to a lesser degree), and I’ve also heard it with the two other hearing aids I’ve tried and with various different domes, which makes me think that the issue is with my hearing as opposed to something created by the fit of the hearing aids. But I’ll ask the audiologist about doing an , which I don’t think she’s done previously.
If you hear the harshness even without the aids then it might be more reason to measure an as it could be characteristic of the frequency spectrum of your hearing. If they cannot measure an RECD they could also measure an and fit your aids using insertion gain (using the hearing aids verification mode) instead.
my ears may not responding correctly to volume increases at certain frequencie, failing to hear those frequencies at low volumes and then suddenly “turning on” once the volume reached a certain loud level.
This isn’t just you–the was describing how hearing loss effects everyone. This is how the ear works when there is damage. “Soft” is lost. Around 4 kHz you have few outter hair cells left which results in a rounding and widening of the balisar membrane motion and in turn a larger number of inner hair cells are firing when there’s enough power to make them fire at all, and therefore the loudness growth is not as gentle and the frequency acuity is a bit smeared.
You’re listening through a damaged system and the harshness is there even without the hearing aids. There’s nothing special you can do with the hearing aids to get around it, just can only reduce it by reducing gain at the frequencies where it is more bothersome. With consistent wear you may notice some changes in the perception of the harshness over time, particularly in how moderate and loud sound, but with soft you just have to make the decision to hear it or not.
Hearing aids are often hardest for musician and music lovers, because they cannot return things to how they were before the damage.
I’ve found that hearing aids can wreck music. So for my hearing aids I’ve created a music profile. In this profile I have disabled all special processing & automated features. I have also set the gain levels to match for all three volume levels; this stops the tone from changing as the music dynamics change. Basically, for music, I only want volume compensation for high frequency loss - nothing more, nothing less.
Your issue probably won’t be improved by the above, but the music should sound better than it does with the default settings.
Interesting. However, I hear this high-frequency harshness when listening to certain types of music even without the hearing aids (though to a lesser degree
This comment resonates with me (sorry if that’s too much of a hearing pun). My entire remembered life back to childhood, and long before I suspected hearing loss, I’ve had a very specific reaction to certain sounds and never really knew if the reaction was normal or just me being sensitive. In my case, the best example I have is when flying on an airline and the flight attendants close an overhead latch or a compartment in their service bay, something about that click goes straight through me. I get it on the ground as well, but it is always worse in lower pressure. As far as music goes, I play flute recreationally and am typically fine un-aided, but with there are certain pitches that cause definite issue regardless of my program.
I had similar issues. There is a setting for impulse sounds that my audiologist didn’t set and turning that on myself using Compass GPS pretty much fixed the problem or at least helped a lot. Hearing higher frequencies was great, except clacking dishes and certain short bursts of those sounds were painful. Reducing frequencies levels isn’t a fix because it replaces one problem with another. Just setting the impulse sounds to be detected and suppressed was the correct fix and I was shocked my audiologist didn’t just try that. Maybe she wasn’t as familiar with Widex as other brands and didn’t know what the setting did. Anyway, check into that.
One of the issues with hearing tests is that they focus on specific frequencies, which makes sense since it fits the EQ bands of and it is the standard and the tests have to draw the line somewhere. I found that when I tested specific frequencies other than the tested ones, that some were within my hearing range, so that the hearing loss was not the same across the entire range. Maybe you can’t hear 2K, but can still hear a few frequencies below or above that specific frequency. The impulse setting clamps down on sudden bursts in the higher frequency range and does a good job taming those isolated frequencies that the band adjustments miss. Assuming loss across the entire range when damage may be for most of that range, but not equally flat addresses the test results, but may in some cases miss the isolated frequencies that aren’t all damaged equally. They do the best with the technology they have and we have to accept those limitations. That’s why there are additional settings that can help beyond the fitting based solely on the . That may help fix your issue. It did for me for the most part. It’s at least worth checking into.
I’m also a musician, and if I wasn’t able to adjust the settings in general and for the audibility extender and the feedback levels, then I would have been going to the audiologist every week and probably never be satisfied with the results. Being able to get real time testing on what works gets to the root of the issue so much better than describing something and getting an adjustment and then having to verify if it helped or make another appointment. I never changed any of the original settings the audiologist put in to match my audiogram. They were valid based on the tests and I accepted that and focused on the other adjustments. I only adjusted volume levels for the entire range and changed the individual settings and AE and feedback levels. The results aren’t perfect and never will be, but they’re as good as I can get them and I’m good with that.
Ideally, those adjustments that don’t change the original fitting should be able to be tweaked by the end user. The attempt of having the app do that with minor EQ settings was useless most of the time for me. It was OK for some environments, but didn’t do anything of value for most. If they let us have more control without allowing us to do stupid things by messing with the basic fitting, we’d all be a lot better off, but that’s not how the business model works and I don’t expect that to change.
So for my hearing aids I’ve created a music profile. In this profile I have disabled all special processing & automated features.
Yup, that was the first thing I did. Going forward I’ll try playing with the volume gain levels - setting them to the same volume for all frequencies, reducing the high volume level for selected high frequencies, etc.
There is a setting for impulse sounds that my audiologist didn’t set and turning that on myself using Compass GPS pretty much fixed the problem of at least helped a lot. Hearing higher frequencies was great, except clacking dishes and certain short bursts of those sounds were painful.
Interesting. Oddly enough, the “hypersensitivity” I’m experiencing seems to occur only with classical music, and usually only with more sustained tones rather than transient attacks. Listening to pop music and to everyday non-musical sounds it’s not a problem. But I’ll definitely try playing with the impulse setting.
I’m also a musician, and if I wasn’t able to adjust the settings in general and for the audibility extender and the feedback levels, then I would have been going to the audiologist every week and probably never be satisfied with the results. Being able to get real time testing on what works gets to the root of the issue so much better than describing something and getting an adjustment and then having to verify if it helped or make another appointment.
This. Trying to fine-tune for music is very much a trial and error process with lots of small adjustments. If I had to go to the audiologist for every slight tweak, then go home and listen, then return to the audiologist for another slight tweak, it would take forever.
I presume you mean set the gain the same for all three volume levels at each frequency slot, and not the same for each frequency setting from low to high. You want different gains at 500Hz & 4KHz to compensate for your differing amounts of loss between highs & lows. But having the same gain at 80 & 65 volumes reduces tonal shifts and squishing of dynamics.
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