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Hearing Aids and Frequency Fitting Range

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Another question, I couldn’t quite find the answer to while searching the forums here. The frequency fitting range of different hearing aids and how that correlates to my hearing. I have my attached and just started a trial of the Oticon OPN S3 10 days ago now. Something I found out at my last visit to the audiologist is that the S3 has a range of 125Hz-6kHz. The same range applies to the S2, and the S1 is 125Hz-8kHz. Whereas ReSound Quattro fit 125Hz-9kHz and Phonak Marvel 125Hz-8kHz.

My question, after all of that preamble, comes down to, how would the extended frequency fitting range impact the ability to hear and the clarity of speech? I’m thinking I will certainly trial the Phonak M50 and the ReSound Quattro to get a first hand experience with their product. I’m also thinking to trial the KS8 from Costco and if the KS9 launches any time soon in Canada, that also has potential.

Thanks in advance for the help and information!

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I think those high frequency claims are more marketing than anything else. With a loss like yours and mine, we are not going to hear much over 6 kHz. About the only advantage is that if you are willing to do frequency compression, then the hearing aid mics can hear those higher frequencies and then shift them down so you can hear them at a lower frequency. The KS8 are claimed to do up to 10 kHz, and the Signia 7Nx which are nearly identical are claimed to go up to 12 kHz, but I suspect this is more marketing hype than anything else.

Here is what your loss would look like with a KS8 M receiver (Rexton Emerald 80). You could possibly get away with a non vented sleeve in your right ear, but would most likely need a vented custom mold in the left ear to avoid feedback. This is with a sleeve in the right and mold in the left.

image

The issue here is that if you do a trial without a mold, you probably cannot get a good reading on how they will sound at their best.

This is what it would look like with a non vented sleeve in both ears. The red and blue shaded areas are zones of potential feedback. Your left ear low level gain and even normal gain goes solidly into the feedback zone.

image

Thank you for the detailed reply.

I think those high frequency claims are more marketing than anything else.

This is what I was rather wondering myself, if it’s marketing or what. Frequency compression is something that my audi had talked about, but I would prefer not to use. I’ll keep all of this in mind and make sure to go with what sounds best and works best in the environments that I’m in rather than minding too much about the frequency range.

You have quite a bit of slope there on your hearing loss so you might do well with frequency compression. I’ve been pretty aggressive with mine, starting it at 1100hz, and I’m hearing a lot of new sounds. It moved things out of the dead spots I had. It sounds normal, not sure how they do that.

Can you hear sound in the upper frequencies? If you can then aids that have enough gain can bring those high frequency sounds in for you. If you can’t then lowering those high frequency sounds into the lower frequencies you can hear would be your way to go.

Don and I both have dead zones in our higher frequencies. We have had great results from using Sound Recover 2 in the newer Phonak aids. Thanks to him I now am hearing much better.

@Don @Raudrive Thanks for the replies re: frequency compression, I guess more education on my part to learn how that works. If I can avoid using frequency compression, I think I would prefer that for my work environment. I might inquire about a separate program on my to see how it responds and works for me.

As to can I hear those higher frequencies, I’ll queue up a frequency sweep and test when I have batteries in my HA and test it out. Pre-HA, I know I couldn’t hear high frequency tones when low tones were used to set the volume. ie. set speaker volume with a 1.5k tone, sweep down from 20k, I would start hearing around 4-6k. With the HA, I haven’t tried again to see where it’s at.

It took me buying Phonak Naida V90 UP aids to learn that my higher frequencies were dead. It did not matter how much gain that was added to those frequencies, couldn’t her them. That’s when I remembered reading some of Don’s posts about using less powerful aids with great results.
This is why I ask if you can hear the higher frequency sounds. It makes a big difference about which hearing aids you need. I’ve had two audiologist miss this with my hearing and put the wrong aids on me.

Edited

This is what the Connexx software would do for frequency compression on the Costco KS8.

This is the default compression the software picked. It can be adjusted manually. I did not suggest it because the software did not suggest frequency compression. It does when the high frequency loss is more severe.

image

It is essentially taking the 5.25 to 10 kHz range and scrunching it down into the 5.25 to 8 kHz range. My assumption is that 10 kHz would be moved to 8 kHz, and so on down until 5.25 kHz is left as is.

Edit: Thinking about it a little longer, I’m not so sure you would gain a lot with frequency compression – at least for this default setup. Speech pretty much ends around 5-6 kHz, so there wouldn’t be much or any speech being compressed to lower frequencies.

Oh, and yes at least on the KS8 you can put compression in or not on a program by program basis. The standard for the Music programs is to leave it out as it does not do good things for musical notes.

leave it out as it does not do good things for musical notes.

That’s kind of what I was concerned about also. My work involves hearing tone and working with sounds/audio, so certainly has a possibility that I could not use it in my work environment. However, outside of work, it might work? I’m going to check for a frequency sweep and with my and Fostex X00 see what I hear. Might also ask the audi on Friday to do a sweep and see what higher frequency tones I’m still able to discern in a more standardized manner.

My recollection is that there is a frequency sweep done as part of the Costco test process. But, I don’t really know where the output goes or how it is displayed other than it generates a curve that is compared to the prescribed curve.

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