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Your/my opinions on music programs - Phonak Lumity 90, Oticon Intents, Resound Nexia (plus Resound Linx 3D)

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Hi all, new user here. Ex-musician who ruined his hearing playing in loud bands with no ear protection. I’ve been wearing Resound Linx 3Ds for over 5 years, now trialling Phonak Lumity and Oticon Intents. While all round performance is important, the music program is very important to me as I record and mix my own music. I recently found a really good audi who tweaked the Linx 3Ds so they sound really good in my home studio when I listen to music. The music program in the 3Ds is really good and I don’t need to adjust the eq at all to get an excellent listening experience.

I’ve decided to upgrade my and have trialled the Phonak L90s for a couple of weeks. Overall, I was disappointed. The overall listening experience was not as good IMO as the 3Ds (I couldn’t hear the TV as clearly and speech in noise was no better) and the music program lacked the warmth of the 3Ds. Detail was good but music felt “sterile” and lacked warmth in the mid range and upper bass frequencies. Definitely not an upgrade from the 3Ds for me.

I’ve just started trialling the Intents and already I can feel improvements in general speech and TV listening. However, the MyMusic program is truly awful IMO. It’s so bass-heavy and boomy, it needs serious EQ adjustments to get close to acceptable reproduction for me. I’ve read some of the posts on here about how Oticon have adjusted (in clearly a bad way) the way MyMusic handles upper mids. One recommendation was to customise the general program rather than use MyMusic.

I have yet to try the Nexias, so I would be interested in feedback from any musicians/audiophile types on here about their experiences with the music programs on different brands of hearing aid. I realise it’s highly subjective but any opinions would be welcomed. I’m about to make a serious financial commitment and listening to music is a really important aspect of this purchase for me.

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@OldMusicGuy said:

so I would be interested in feedback from any musicians/audiophile types on here about their experiences with the music programs on different brands of hearing aid.

People like Widex but my friend is a professional musician and loves Phonak. She’s currently wearing Phonak Naida B90 UP.

This question is very individual and also depends on how well the Aid is programmed.

Thanks. I see that Widex gets a lot of love from musicians generally and I am wondering if it is worth the effort of trialling those in addition to Phonak, Oticon and ReSounds. I realise it’s highly subjective because I found the Phonaks not as good as my current ReSounds. I am listening in the studio through studio monitors rather than playing live though.

Fortunately I have found an audi who is very knowledgeable and is happy to work with me on custom programming, which is probably the way to go.

@OldMusicGuy said:

I have found an audi who is very knowledgeable and is happy to work with me on custom programming

Sounds good, the best way to go!
What impressed me personally in my try-out’s was also different prescription formulas and trying out different domes and custom moulds with different ventings.

I have the Jabra Enhance Pro 20s which are the same thing as the ReSound Nexia 9s. I got them from Costco. I love streaming music much of the day. Initially my did a default fit with open domes but the bass response was lacking to say the least.

After reading others posts here (responding to the similar questions as yours) I went back and asked my HCP to adjust their 3 levels of low end bass up in the Music program and also increasing the bass in the Streaming function. I switched to and had remarkably better sound. Just too much base leaks out from open domes for me.

I since switched to their M& Receivers and power domes (many prefer custom domes) and I am delighted by the sound difference, especially in Streaming and the All Around programs. The streaming is a much brighter, fuller and broader frequency sound.

They have up to a 10kHz frequency response. The ReSound/Jabra app is also one of (if not) the best.

Enjoy your upgrade which ever way you go. It is great you have an HCP who is willing to work with you to better tune your to your music listening preferences.

I have had a good experience with Oticon and a custom program using the v5 fitting rationale (I only use DSL for music, otherwise I prefer Nal-Nl2). I am one of those unhappy with Oticon’s stock MyMusic program

The Phonak has a music program in the automatic program. When it hears music it switches to the music program. You can completely customize the settings for the music program (increase/decrease gain at different frequencies, sort of like a 20 band equalizer).

Also, you can create an additional music program and manually switch to it. The difference is the automatic music program kicks on when it hears music. When you switch to the manual program, it stays on music regardless of what’s actually playing.

So if there was a pause between songs, the automatic would switch back to something else, calm or noise, whereas the manual would not switch back.

The Phonak doesnt come set up with much bass, but you can boost it up and it has plenty!

In reply to @e1405

@e1405
But you are then one of the lucky ones that choose for Oticon as as far as I was informed by the guys over here it is the only brand that allows to have different fitting formulas used as a custom programm. And one of the brands I do not have in my collection at the moment to try it out. So I am happy to hear this from you here, thanks.
@Don thanks also for this explanation here.

In reply to @e1405

Thanks very much, it was your posts that alerted me to the possible issues with MyMusic, and I have been reading through how you did the custom programming. My audi is very open to doing a custom fit and I am sending him details of what you did plus links to the MyMusic white paper that explains what Oticon did to it.

I’ve been correcting the EQ of the standard MyMusic with a 9-band equaliser (when listening through studio monitors) and I’m having to cut around 125-250 and boost from 1K to 4k particularly around 2k to get a sound that I like. But I will also have to look into the compression…

In reply to @RSW

@RSW said:

I got them from Costco. I love streaming music much of the day. Initially my HCP did a default fit with open domes but the bass response was lacking to say the least.

After reading others posts here (responding to the similar questions as yours) I went back and asked my HCP to adjust their 3 levels of low end bass up in the Music program and also increasing the bass in the Streaming function. I switched to closed domes and had remarkably better sound. Just too much base leaks out from open domes for me.

Thanks for this. It’s encouraging to hear good things about these aids, as my current ReSounds are excellent for music. So far I am preferring the ReSound app over Phonak and Oticon. I’ll be trialling the Nexias next…

In reply to @Don

@Don said:

The Phonak doesnt come set up with much bass, but you can boost it up and it has plenty!

Yes, this would be a possibility. The Phonak music program was definitely better than Oticon MyMusic IMO but so far I am preferring the Oticon for everyday speech and noise situations. So unless the Nexias are better, I may be going the Oticon with a custom music program.

In reply to @Emile030

@Emile030 said:

Doesn’t compression distort your musical/ tonal sense? Or is it not bothering you?

Yes it does, I don’t want any on the music program. I could be wrong, by my understanding from reading other posts about this is that there is some compression on the MyMusic program. So when I get the custom programming done I want to ensure there isn’t any compression on it.

If you can take out the compression in the fitting software it works well.
But I was wondering you were going to try out the compression in your try outs…. so not for music, you’ll get the wrong frequencies in.

@Emile030 said:

But I was wondering you were going to try out the compression in your try outs….

No, for all the general/automatic/speech in noise type programs I will leave them as standard. At least during the trial periods.

@OldMusicGuy said:

Yes it does, I don’t want any on the music program. I could be wrong, by my understanding from reading other posts about this is that there is some compression on the MyMusic program. So when I get the custom programming done I want to ensure there isn’t any compression on it.

Yep. Lots of musicians dismiss a brand of as being awful for music without ever having their dedicated music program adjusted. This last can make a night and day difference. I found the pre-installed Musician Progam on my Signia AX7s to be unworkable. My audi was flummoxed: what’s the problem? She wasn’t familiar with setting up aids for musicians. I finally got her to turn OFF several features that had been ‘reduced’ in the Muscician program. That did the trick.
I COULD have said that my Signia AX7s were horrible for playing music had I not known what had to be done to make the aids work. Now, I love them–although I’m eyeing Widex…
My point is, one can’t evaluate any brand of aids before they’ve been properly set up, and this can take time and effort.

@jeffrey said:

She wasn’t familiar with setting up aids for musicians.

This has been a constant frustration for me. The first audi I used (about 15 years ago) had a lot of experience with musicians. Sadly he retired and since then I have been disappointed with the lack of technical knowledge in all my audiologists. I have put off getting new hearing aids for this reason. However, after a lot of searching (and I mean a LOT) I have found an audiologist that has knowledge of all brands, understands the technology behind them and can also do custom programming. I am hopeful that I will get a good solution out of the process…

I’ll give you a better answer tomorrow after band practice. I have Intent 1s, disliked the music program in Real 1s, like the speech in noise feature of Intent, but need to put it through a practice standing next to (heaven forbid) a banjo in the hands of a really poor player, trying to listen to the bass player at the other end of the room and having speech issues in the practice room. I will say that in practice at home I have found the music program pretty good and not requiring adjustment so far, but your mileage may vary.

I’ll try to post again over the weekend. I will say my issue is far less when on stage and hearing just the monitors not the mains and having the banjo buried at the back of the stage and thankfully damped down in the mix.

(With the Real 1s I found the music program emphasized vocals to the detriment of instruments and I was intent on hearing the instruments (non singer), and the general program was better for hearing the instruments.)

In reply to @eliotb

@eliotb said:

I will say that in practice at home I have found the music program pretty good and not requiring adjustment so far, but your mileage may vary.

Thanks, that’s interesting. I don’t play live anymore but record and mix my own music at home. I found the MyMusic to be very bass heavy and lacking in the 1 - 4 Khz range, thus needing pretty severe EQ adjustment to make it acceptable. But as you say, we are all different, which is why I think custom programming is the way to go. I have also just discovered the section of this forum and will definitely go down that route as well.

@eliotb said:

need to put it through a practice standing next to (heaven forbid) a banjo in the hands of a really poor player,

Sounds like purgatory! I am glad the only band member I have to complain about any more is me…

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