Headphones over hearing aids

@Volusiano said:

If you use Tcoil and Mic, then the mics will be enabled to pick up the sound in your environment, which is not a desired setup with the headphones scenario. So just use the Tcoil only program

@e1405 said:

Feedback aside, the best signal to noise ratio is with both mic and tcoil on, no? In my case with the Intents that’s how music sounds best with my over the ear headphones. The catch is I need to lower some frequencies to avoid feedback.

Well, when you’re listening to content that’s coming out of the headphones in the Tcoil only mode, there’s really no noise per se to worry about something such as the signal to noise ratio in the first place, unless you’re talking about the floor noise when there’s no sound from the content. But in this case, during moments when there’s no sound from the content and you don’t or can only barely notice the floor noise, then the floor noise is really not any issue to be concerned with.

The only reason that you want the Tcoil and Mic option when listening only to content from the headphones is only if you want to be aware of your surrounding sounds and don’t want to be isolated 100%. For example, you want to hear the phone ring, the door bell chime, a clock alarm, somebody calling your name, etc. Technically, those sounds would be the “noise” that you want to tune out if you want the best signal to noise ratio, no? So why turn on the mics to let those sounds in?

I would surmise that music sounds better on your over the ear headphones with both the Tcoil and mic turned on is because it would give you a volume boost from both the sound that the mics pick up, and on top of that, the sound that the Tcoils pick up, albeit they’re really the same sound from the same content. I’m just guessing that maybe if you use Tcoil only with no mic, then turn up the volume so that it’s as loud as with the Tcoil + Mic option, then perhaps it’ll start to sound just as good. But that’s just a guess, of course. There might be other factors at play as well, although I can’t really think of any right now.

@Volusiano said:

I’m just guessing that maybe if you use Tcoil only with no mic, then turn up the volume so that it’s as loud as with the Tcoil + Mic option, then perhaps it’ll start to sound just as good.

To be honest, I’ve never tried turning the volume all the way up using just the tcoil. I aim to keep my music around 65-70 dB at most. At this volume, the sound quality I get with the tcoil + mic combination is noticeably better than using just the tcoil. When I mentioned signal-to-noise ratio, I meant that having both inputs allows for a stronger overall signal reaching the hearing aids. Additionally, each input method has its own strengths and limitations in terms of music reproduction. Therefore, having both activated enhances my music experience.

Edit: I’m giving the tcoil another try with my music program on the Intents. I’ve made some adjustments so that the humming I usually hear with the Mores is less pronounced with the Intents.

@e1405 said:

When I mentioned signal-to-noise ratio, I meant that having both inputs allows for a stronger overall signal reaching the hearing aids. Additionally, each input method has its own strengths and limitations in terms of music reproduction. Therefore, having both activated enhances my music experience.

Ah, I see what you meant. Well, you do have a dip at around 500 Hz on your audiogram. Normally, for people with a more typical ski slope loss with flatter hearing audibility in the low end and no dip like yours, they would be able to benefit from the actual natural sound delivered by the headphones in the low frequency region where they still have good audibility, so they only need further amplified compensation from the hearing aids’ receivers in the mids and highs where their ski slope loss starts to take a nose dive. This is an ideal scenario for headphones use because the headphones deliver the lows naturally, and the hearing aids make up for the rest by delivering the needed mid and high amplification via the receivers, where the receivers can perform better there, but not in the low range. So the headphones take care of the low range sounds, and the receivers take care of the mids and highs, and the user (with a normal ski slope loss with no dip in the low) is happy.

In your case, that dip in the lows at 500 Hz probably means that the natural sound at around 500 Hz as delivered by the headphones is not adequate by itself to take care of the low amplification compensation for your hearing loss. The receivers will need to pull double duty and that 500 Hz “fill in” that dip in the lows for you as well. However, they’re not able to perform as well in the low regions due to their physical limitations. So they need all the help they can get, and this help comes in the form of a doubling in input intake, from both the tcoils and the mics, like you said above.

So I’m guessing that that is why using both Tcoil and mic seems to work well for your specific hearing loss scenario here, due to the reasons above with your 500 Hz dip.

@Volusiano said:

I would surmise that music sounds better on your over the ear headphones with both the Tcoil and mic turned on is because it would give you a volume boost from both the sound that the mics pick up, and on top of that, the sound that the Tcoils pick up, albeit they’re really the same sound from the same content.

I’ve always wondered about the differences in hearing aid output (if any) with a tcoil and a microphone input. I was able to find an old paper comparing the frequency response of tcoil vs microphone input at the NIH library. The authors found a significant difference between the inputs at low (200 Hz) and higher frequencies (above 3 KHz). The tcoil output was low by more than 10 dB at 200 Hz and higher than the mic input above about 1600 Hz. I have NO idea if this kind of difference exists with modern hearing aids as I haven’t found a newer paper but my goggle skills probably are lacking.

Another thing I’ve noticed in a conference room in my building at work is there is significant noise (probably 60 Hz and harmonics and maybe other sources) that is loud enough to interfere with the hearing loop/tcoil signal in the room. With my Real 1 aids, the hearing loop and tcoil results in significantly worse performance than the aids in the normal program using the microphones. It may be that the output of the hearing loop is set too low but that is just speculation on my part.

I expect that most audiologists don’t worry much about the performance of the tcoil setting - I know mine was just turned on without any adjustments and I don’t know what adjustments are possible in the hearing aid programming/software. I also don’t know how one would test unless the sound booth has a loop that has been correctly set up and calibrated. Is there an equivalent machine/interface to do what might be REM for tcoil input rather than microphone input?

In the app on your phone you can change the “programs” that Oticon provides for certain situations e.g. for Music or Speech in Noise or whatever (I am not a Oticon user so I don’t know exactly what they are called)… One of these programs will turn on the Telecoil functionality and give you certain adjustments to your taste which you can save for future use.

gotcha…thank you…I don’t have the app on phone yet (getting new phone prior to fitting). I’ll explore once I get…

thanks.

You’ll need to ask your HCP to set up a tcoil program in one of the four slots available of your Oticon hearing aids though.

@Volusiano said:

Add a Tcoil program into one of your 4 allotted programs and use this in conjunction with your headphones. This will avoid any feedback issue you might have if you use the normal program with your headphones. That is because the Tcoil program doesn’t use the mics to pick up sound from the headphones, thereby possibly inducing feedback. The Tcoil program activates the induction coil in your hearing aids to pick up the electromagnetic field generated by your headphone speakers, and the mics are disabled.

I’ve just started using Philips 9040s from Costco, and asked the fitter to include the telecoil mode as one of the four available programs. I also asked her to make sure that the HA mics were turned off in the telecoil mode, if possible. However, when I try to HAs in telecoil mode, it’s clear that the mics are in fact still activated. So far as I can see, the Philips Hearlink customer-facing software doesn’t allow users any option to turn off the mics (please let me know if I’m missing something). Does anyone here know for sure whether the Philips professional software allows fitters to turn the mics off in telecoil mode?

I like the quality of head phones as well. I’ve been using Sennheiser hd280 pro over my Resound Preza’s for years now and much prefer it over streaming. No problem with feedback either.

My t-coil program is set so the microphones are lowered 5 db. It is perfect for my needs.

My HA specialist recommended I wear headphones over my hearing aids as part of my instructions to wear HAs at least 8 hours daily to train my brain, instead of me wearing Apple Airpods 5 or more hours daily while watching TV after meals.

Without that advice I would have fallen short of that 8 hours of HA use, as I am retired and do not have a job that keeps me actively using HAs that many hours daily.

I never considered that…that’s a great point and good reason to try to make head phones over ha work. I was afraid it would be considered overkill and didn’t want to push it with audiologist (we haven’t had that discussion yet), but many here have stated it is possible…

Thanks for the insight. 9 more days till I get my ears…i cant wait!

I have been on a long journey with HAs and over-the-ear headphones and am sending (long post) some addn comments from my experience.

I have a moderate mid/high frequency loss, and currently have Phonak Lumity HAs which I like very much. I find the HAs by themselves to work very well with speech frequencies – i.e. phonecalls, Audiobooks and TV with a Phonak streamer. BT connections are very convenient with Phonak - it mostly “just works” for all of my use-cases including Android tablet and phone (Samsung). HAs alone for all of this are just fine.

Music is a different story though. I use closed (silicon) tips but lose all of the base frequencies with just the HAs. You can adjust (increase) base somewhat with apps, or through your provider, but that doesn’t do it for me. I’ve also spent a lot of time pursuing custom molds without success (different topic for another day) – have tried several different mold types and materials and just can’t get the fit to work successfully with my ears.

In theory, custom molds will seal up much better and capture lower frequencies, but that’s not working for me. So with music, I use over ear headphones which in my experience restores pretty full fidelity with music - much better than HAs alone.

I went thru a dozen or so different headphones until I found one that fit me well enough with both ear pad circumference and headphone depth to accommodate my ears with behind-ear HAs. Best Buy usually has display models on the floor to try out while wearing your HAs, or if you travel the In-Motion stores in airports are good for trying fit. Or … Amazon 30-day return policy is always useful

I have Bose Q45s now, and I remember that the Bose 700s were good also for fit. The Bose ear pads are memory foam and compress such that depth with headphones wasn’t sufficient on one side – it doesn’t take much contact/pressure to make them quickly uncomfortable. I found some aftermarket ear pads on Amazon that don’t compress as much, but are still comfortable, and this provides enough clearance for my (left) ear.

Bose Q45s are wireless. My Phonak Lumity HAs can connect to several BT connections at once, so an initial challenge when I wear HAs and headphones at same time is to manage connections – lots of BT connections with phone, TV Streamer, computer, etc. and they’ll step on each other. I haven’t had feedback problems, but concurrent BT connections could definitely lead to that. With over ear headphones, I have to turn off all of the BT connections to my HAs, and then initiate BT connection from whatever I’m watching (TV or computer or tablet/phone) directly to headphones. It gets easier to adjust all of that after doing it couple of times.

Good luck with your new HAs … I hope they are fabulous for you! Keep us posted on your experience.

One thing to be aware of with headphones is the style - Bose 45 are “on ear” headphones while others such as Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic are “over ear”, i.e. the pads surround your ears and do not rest on them. I find my Sennheiser HD569 over ear headphones to be both comfortable and to have very good audio sound quality.