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Best hearing aids for musicians

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Very well said.

Being in my 80s, I can remember the polio epidemic, and others that were a possible death sentence at the time.

Edited

In reply to @paul.cleary.nz

Perhaps the manufacturers have more reasonable expectations than I have. Provide the hard of hearing with what they need the most. Understanding speech in noisy environments…

for a while I used the music program as my default.
figured if I could hear a wider range of frequencies surely that would be better

In reply to @DaveL

I believe you make a good point, the manufacturers really are helping folks to hear better, and I don’t blame them for not achieving stellar performance in a musical environment, but when it comes to music, it appears that the weak link is the audiologists doing the fitting. I suspect they received minimal advanced training in this area.

Maybe the manufacturers should train and designate specialists that work with musicians. It would take the burden off of most of the other audiologists.

In reply to @jeffrey

I have only had the Widex Moment 440s for about a week but they are definitely better than my Kirkland Signature 10.0s for the sound of my violin under my ear. The widex have a much smoother more natural sound. Sounds almost like a real violin again. And that is even without using the Puresound program, which is the program with lower latency within the Moments. I actually don’t find the Puresound program to be particularly better yet, though maybe it will be after I get used to it. The challenge for me is to get the regular sound of conversation to be as good as the Kirkland aids. This may be because I am new at using the Compass GPS software which is somewhat different than the Target software used for the Kirkland. I’ll try to update in a couple of weeks after I have had a bit more time with the Widex and the software.

In reply to @Emile030

When I’m performing and playing the acoustic guitar with vocals ,i play at reasonably low volumes so it’s not so much of an issue when I play electric guitar with a friend with much more volume I use sensaphonics 3dme bt universal iems ,they are excellent, they have built in microphones in the ear phone that picks up ambient sound an can be blended with the direct feed.
My current signia nx are not that bad ,they are several years old now and as I’m looking to replace them I wanted opinions on other brands as I’m thinking of trying something different.
This forum is such a valuable resource for the hearing challenged.

Edited

Sorry for the long post in advance :cry:
Totally agree with your comments. This forum gives the possibility to all of us discussing and learning a lot from other members.
As one of my hobbies is dancing salsa on socials I am also exposed to loud music now and then and actually want to easily put off the amplification as I do not need it. The beat can be felt if the music is too loud and a bit leaks through my moulds. At the other hand also easy changing to enjoy my classical music, without the need to change my Aids.

I have bought several top class ’s and am a . Experimenting with these is a hobby as I am retired now and have the time for it. Would like to try the Widex 440’s but can’t afford all
Tried some other Widex, Resound 961, Starkey 2400’s and several Phonak’s. Liked the Starkey also very much, more then the Phonak both custom made. (Both try-outs from ’s).

What I experienced is that the custom moulds are a must have for me/ my hearing loss and my appreciation. Second thing I feel like hearing much better with the devices compared to my ’s and my ’s.
Trying out the top of them all in RIC and BTE versions with custom moulds is unfortunately not possible for me as I have to pay to much for that.

At the moment I am experimenthing the older Phonak Paradise Naída P90 in Amply-energy version. (I like the phone app from Amplifon much more then the original phone app from Phonak B.T.W.).
Adding the standard thick tube and also trying the thin tube with Custom Fit Music 2in1 moulds from Pluggerz (not made for HA and unvented). (Planning for custom made c- shells were I do not know exactly which ones to go for…)
And of course changing a bit the hardware changes in the fitting software in respect to venting, tubing, feed back and prescription rules.
But I must say I really like my last experiment of BTE with Pluggerz try- out. Great also the possibility of making changes in balance between streaming and environment volume and in the Amplifon app completely turn of the device volume.

image

Hi, This is my first post, as well. I’m 72 and have used hearing aids for over 25 years. I have been using Widex Dream, Unique and now need new hearing aids. I did a music film and am around music a lot so I wanted true sound. Widex was said to have the best. I have cic only. But I do have trouble sometimes hearing conversations and restaurants are awful.
I used resound for a short time , but the sound quality was horrible, though conversation was understandable. Also, BTE bothered me because i wear glasses and take them on and off a lot, so they hurt my ear. I’m a small person and BTE’s are wide back there.
My thoughts are to get two pairs of hearing aids. One BTE for conversation, when going to plays or restaurants, and WIDEX moment for other times.
I even wish someone would make an earphone-like device that i could just put on like my AirPods Max, with a good microphone and controls, for walking around. I don’t care about how they they look. At this point, I want good sound and convenience. I wish they would make a good In the-ear-device, like what performers wear, with lots of microphones–and sparkles some style. It could be an accessory. Who needs to pretend you’re not wearing hearing aids!

Anyway, thanks for any thoughts.
Elizabeth

I have a difficult time believing that a pair of hearing aids that works well for music, which seems to be a secondary function with most manufacturers could not be set up to also work well in general conditions. Your audiologist should be able to set up a dedicated music program for you to select when needed. These functions are not mutually exclusive. You can have both.

Way back…so it seems.
I was having big issues. Couldn’t hear with my less than a year old Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s. Couldn’t understand words in quiet, let alone noise. For a while my dispensing audi set them up with “Music” as the turn on program. My thoughts back then?

  • Can’t hear? turn up the volume.
  • And surely if I could hear music and instruments and cymbals I could understand voice.
    That went on for several months and a bunch of appointments.

He talked to Phonak Ca with me listening. They suggested that so many sound engineers worked on them he should restore autosense 4 as the control.

I guess that’s what I have working for me now. Autosense is controlling everything except when I manually select one of my dedicated programs.

In reply to @dacuttler

in a way, these two programs ARE mutually exclusive. Although I think what you’re saying is, it’s simple to have two separate programs and toggle between them.

soem on this thread think that they should be able to have a general program that works for playing music on an instrument AND conversation.

No. that won’t work. the two aims are mutually exclusive.

Replying to Roger EM’s question. No, I was not able to set them up to suit my needs. I am an orchestral musician so the challenge is to have the violin sound good at home, and on stage in the orchestra, and be able to hear the conductor when he speaks during rehearsal, …and not be deafened by the horns, flutes and trumpets. It’s a lot to ask of any hearing aid, but I find the Kirkland easier to balance in that way. With the Moments if the violin sounded good, I couldn’t hear the conductor, and the rest of the orchestra was too loud/overwhelming. Nothing I did with the various volume settings/compression made enough difference. And, of course, the other thing is to be able to understand normal conversation easily. I was never able to get things working the way I wanted. I know I am very picky, and am not a professional audiologist, but I found the compass gps software not as flexible and easy to use as the Target software. It would probably be a good idea to take them to a audiogist and and see what they can do with them, but I have not gotten around to that yet.

Hi everyone, this is a great post and I am really glad that I stumbled on it. I have been wearing since I was a kid and have been playing drums just as long. HA’s and drums are the result of hearing loss not because of drums ;). Anyway, the struggle to get HAs programmed for everyday and for music is very real and time consuming and I appreciate all the feedback here. One of the things that I do when I get new aids is to begin with the standard programming, I schedule regular weekly visits to my audi for the next 3-4 weeks and tweak the programs based on my experiences. I do tend to have 2 music programs, one for when I’m playing and one for (live) listening (which doubles as my restaurant program). I never thought to ask about getting the program software myself, but will now. I am trialing Phonak Nadia and the compression feels too strong and I am going to ask my audi for the following and wanted to see if you all have your aids programmed similarly?

  1. Turn off compression entirely
  2. Request linear amplification (or as close as possible)
  3. Set compression ratios in the ‘performing music’ program to 1:1
  4. Turn off noise reduction and feedback suppression.
  5. Increase the input dynamic range (IDR) Maximize the input handling & “kneepoint” settings so the aids don’t clip when i hit cymbals or my snare (drum issue I know, but it might help those of you in symphonic settings)
  6. Mic should be omni-directional
  7. Increase gain for low frequencies (I always ask for this as it helps with what I perceive as ‘true’ sound.)
  8. Reduce the latency (if possible). The newer aids with all the ‘3D sound sculpting’ really bother me and Iam returning to just a power aid.
    Would love to hear anyone else’s technical specs if you have them.
    Thanks much!
Edited

As I, and others, said earlier in this thread, it is not that difficult to learn to do your own adjustments. Your audiologist may be willing to help you and can always serve as a backup. Check the subforum here.

And, yes, my aids have somewhat similar programming. But, I am constantly tweeking the settings and generally do not wear aids for performing.

Post your . That is the best way to get informed feedback here.

In reply to @AaronDrummer

One more: the gains provided by the standard formulas (NAL-NA2, ) are optimized for speech , not music . Additional modifications to the gains may be necessary . For example , NAL-NA2 prescribes the minimum necessary gain >6K , and, if you have high frequency loss, this may not be enough for music (I know this from personal experience , I posted some comparative diagrams in another thread ). Widex has options to enable this but I have not seen this feature in Phonak target or Conexx

In reply to @Psych2

Thank you, I’ll check out the diy thread and get a copy of my audio gram and post, I don’t have my most current.
I wish I could play wo my aids, but I only have 30%, in one ear, and lower volumes are lost to me. And my audiologist prefers that I wear them due to the built in decibel caps, to help keep volume from damaging my hearing further.
Have you investigated in ear monitors, are they worth it?

In reply to @Psych2

@Psych2 said:

As I, and others, said earlier in this thread, it is not that difficult to learn to do your own adjustments.

It’s also easier still to bring the list posted by Aaron drummer in with you to your audi/provider and have him or her make these adjustments in office. In other words, one doesn’t have to become a mini-audi and download all the necessary sofware and learn all the steps on one’s own to get very good results. My provider does all of this for free, by the way.

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