Musicians and hearing aids

I am a recreational guitar player and I have found that most of the high end hearing aids do extremely well with music. The trick is to pick a hearing aid that has multiple programs slots available so that you can get your audiologist to use one of them for a program that is dedicated exclusively for music. When you program a slot for music you are typically turning off all noise reduction, compression, etc.

The other trick is to try and get a hearing aid with an open fitting if you plan on singing while playing. The occlusion you get with CICs and other closed ear mold fittings will drive you crazy when you try to sing and play at the same time. Other things to consider are multiple mics for directionality, wireless connection capabilities for listening to iPods and/or music systems.

Right now I am testing both the Phonak Audeo Smart IX and the Resound Alera 61 and they both do amazing with music.

Jordan.

my honest opinion is to avoid digitals like the plague! my owm experience is to buy the best analogues you can buy. no sound processing or modes. just the sound as is. i trialled all the different digitals even the top of the range and honestly none of them even come close to the set of starkey genesis dx which i picked in the end due to natural sound and no sound processing!!! i have found once the hearing aids take over from the brain when it comes to processing thats when the problems begin!! another plus point i could buy two sets of analogues for less than one set of digitals!!! for me digital is not an improvement, people seem to forget you need the complete sine wave in order for the brain to process correctly not the compressed and cut down digital version!!!
for people who have worn digitals with no probs i would suggest that possibly they haven’t heard a well set up set of analogues!! the sound quality difference is night and day!! also because no processing takes place there are no lagging issues.
Sorry for such a long winded post its just i have been wearing has for many years and feel that inferior digitals are being pushed although they aren’t best for everyone, higher profit margins maybes?

Thanks for the great suggestions.

I am certainly looking for a natural sound. During the day, I work as a band teacher. I will know quickly if my flute section sounds all digitally altered. Depending on the day … that could be a good thing! Fortunately, the Verite 9 does have 4 program slots, so I can get them set for specific situations. The America Hears option sounds fascinating because it says you can tweak them on your own, but I am in Canada. My audi is willing to work with me to get programs that work but in the end, it is how natural it sounds is what will count for me.

Like matfam, I also am a sound tech at church. I believe I come up with a great mix especially when I get enough volume but it will be interesting to hear what it really sounds like. This will be my first ever try with aids, so I am very interested in hearing what I have been missing and compensating for during all this time before I was willing to give aids a try.

As far as analog aids go, I went to 3 suppliers and was not even shown them as a option. I get fitted this friday so we will see how it goes. I am very open to hearing from others what has worked for them.

I have an Phonak Audeo Smart V for my right ear only. Frankly, I think music is a mess with these aids. My audiologist didn’t even test below 250 Hz which is middle C. I’m quite sure that I have more severe loss in the lower frequencies (as well as the highs) so that the bass section is completely lost. I get some lingering atifacts at certain musical pitches which may be noise filtering or feedback suppression? Fortunately the hearing in my left ear is still good enough for music including the low notes. I really just use the right ear aid for speech comprehension only in certain situations.

@wmmc said:

Thanks for the great suggestions.

I am certainly looking for a natural sound. During the day, I work as a band teacher. I will know quickly if my flute section sounds all digitally altered. Depending on the day … that could be a good thing! Fortunately, the Verite 9 does have 4 program slots, so I can get them set for specific situations. The America Hears option sounds fascinating because it says you can tweak them on your own, but I am in Canada. My audi is willing to work with me to get programs that work but in the end, it is how natural it sounds is what will count for me.

Like matfam, I also am a sound tech at church. I believe I come up with a great mix especially when I get enough volume but it will be interesting to hear what it really sounds like. This will be my first ever try with aids, so I am very interested in hearing what I have been missing and compensating for during all this time before I was willing to give aids a try.

As far as analog aids go, I went to 3 suppliers and was not even shown them as a option. I get fitted this friday so we will see how it goes. I am very open to hearing from others what has worked for them.

In the end it’s how well your audi understands your descriptions of the problems and your descriptions of what you are and are not hearing. I found the communication between the audi and my mom was a big problem. For example what she described as “hollow sounding” wasn’t the audi’s definition of “hollow sounding”. The beauty of self-programming is real time programming and testing in your enviroment, no middle-man (audi or fitter) to set adjustments based on their understanding of your descriptions, and the ability to change settings without appointments. In your situation where the sound of music is so critical, I would find an audi who would supply you the software and sell you the hardware necessary to adjust the aids yourself or give you access to his adjusting set-up after hours so you can adjust the aids with your muscical instruments, etc.

I’ve never asked America Hears if they sell in Canada, but they might.

@MatthewJones said:

WkRose… If you’re not hearing the 250 range then go back to the audiologist. The Smart V goes down to 125. So this range may need to assistance. What is the hearing loss in the other ear? Write your audiogram here to review.

Also - have your audi create a specific program for music… There are 4 programs available. Like previously posted the music program turns off conpression and other features to allow a fuller, richer sound. They can also boost the low ranges for you in the music program (or others).

Here is my audiogram - the audiologist extrapolated the same value at 125 as it was in 250 after I complained about lack of bass. I’m sure it is much worse.

Could it be uburoibob ? I enjoyed his music

NINE YEAR thread necro. That has to be a record.
It doesn’t look like bigbeck came over from the old forum either.

I hope others are still reading this site. I have a situation similar to BobbyBoomer. For years, I wore Westone musician hearing protectors when I performed. But my hearing has gotten enough worse that I wear hearing aids (open style) now, and actually hear music better with the hearing aids. However, they offer no protection against overly loud sounds, including music. An example nightmare situation is leading rehearsal of a student ensemble in a classroom: it is so loud that I’m concerned it will cause further damage to my hearing, so I put in the Westones; the ensemble stops for a moment to discuss an issue, but I can’t hear a thing, so I fast and furiously change to the hearing aids - then they start playing and I change to the Westones again … Of course this changing back and forth would be nearly impossible during a live performance, when I want to be able to hear audinece members, hear the band well, but not get my ears fried by the volume of the music.

If you all are familiar with within-ear monitors for musicians, they can block out excessive volume sound. My dream is to have something like these that 1) does frequency adjustment that corrects for my hearing loss, so I can hear music well 2) protects me by blocking out (attenuating) any sound above a certain volume; 3) lets me normally hear everything around me, including audience members and conversations (thus, they would need to have some sort of microphone system, as well as the frequency adjustment).

Does anyone know of any product that does what I’ve described?

@stuartr said:

Does anyone know of any product that does what I’ve described?

Any hearing aid can do this, its the basis for hearing, you’ll want to go down the DIY path to get the best results for you particular use, plenty of people from right here on the forums that can help with software and programming, just use the search tool from right here on hearingtracker.

Thanks for your reply! My open-style hearing aids definitely won’t do this. Although I described this all to my audiologist, the audiologist felt that open rather than closed hearing aids would be a better solution for me. Tenkan, are you saying that you believe regular closed-style hearing aids would adequately attenuate sound from a loud live band situation and, with DIY programming to address issues with music, would sufficiently address the issues I described? If so, I’m surprised and curious why my audiologist recommended against them…

p.s. - I’ve also noticed that older musicians with hearing loss, such as Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones, all seem to wear open-style hearing aids. Perhaps they do nothing to protect themselves from loud sounds onstage? I’m not sure …