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Close to despair after months of audiologists (note: PLURAL!) attempting recovery of music and speech

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Have you thought about diy ? I have just gone this route. There’s a lot help here and it’s actually fun too. You can find tune to your needs. Might be worth a shot .

In reply to @billgem

@billgem said:

If I were in your shoes, I would go to the Speech & Hearing Clinic of a nearby university if you have access to one.

Unfortunately I am not, nor will I be when I move in a year or so, near any such facility.

Even if I were, unless they had access to the software which is unique to the GN (ReSound and Beltone) system, they couldn’t shape my profile.

Fortunately for me, I’ve been referred to an audiologist with an MBA in the field, preceded by many years in the medical side of audiology. In my first adjustment period currently (post the initial boilerplate start), things are looking up, at least a bit. Unfortunately for me, the next one isn’t until a couple of weeks from this adjustment, due to previously committed days away for her. But, once that’s done, I’ll continue weekly banging away. Later today I’ll have another experience of acoustic piano, singing (own voice penetration), and group speech (coffee hour after the service) to add to the data for my next adjustment on the 16th…

@billgem said:

I know that your audiologist has 25 years of experience and sits on a state board,

He’s the one who referred me to the above; his first 20+ years was as an independent, working with all then other ‘open market’ brands. His sign out by the roadside still reads merely “Hearing Aids”…

I’m cautiously optimistic…

In reply to @billgem

Apologies, I am late to this thread…
And I am trying to simplify this somewhat…

I tend to agree with the comments made by @billgem in it maybe time to see someone who is up todate with the latest research AND understands the neuroscience of hearing. The reason being that hearing is more than just your pinna, middle and inner ears, cochlea etc. Most audiologist are not trained in deeper issues such as those related to neural pathways in the mid brain that affect the transmission and perception of audio communications. How you perceive audio signals changes as your brain changes with age, this can also be affected by anything that affects your Inferior Colliculus (the primary auditory mid-brain structure) that will impact on spatial organization (also called tonotopy).

If you have not had one, it may also be wise to look at an to rule out other internal problems, your severe ear infection may have been simply coincidental.

In reply to @user392

@user392 said:

Have you thought about diy ? I have just gone this route. There’s a lot help here and it’s actually fun too. You can find tune to your needs. Might be worth a shot .

Can you direct me to diy? My aids seem proprietary (that is: the software is available only to Beltone offices)…

In reply to @ian

@ian said:

If you have not had one, it may also be wise to look at an MRI to rule out other internal problems, your severe ear infection may have been simply coincidental.

My two appointments, one post infection/meds from them, and another very recently, with an and MD there, didn’t include a recommendation for an .

And my un-aided (e.g. headset) clarity suggests a complication with the hearing aid electronics/programming rather than neural issues.

(My uneducated surmise is that if I can clearly - without harmonic distortion - hear music OTHER than percussive instruments in an acoustic setting WITH aids, the atonality of percussive-wave sound is not neural. I’m entirely willing to be convinced otherwise however…)

In reply to @Skip

@Skip said:

Bluetooth renditions of sounds are perfect
Over-the-ear (cups) renditions of sounds from a set of earphones are pure

@Skip said:

I remain convinced that, if the technology is there in the aids

The technology may NOT be there in the aids. Live music is regularly cresting at a louder dynamic range than hearing aids can handle on the input side and so gets distorted on the way in. Over bluetooth, music is already compressed and over headphones you have the option of turning the volume down to a point that the hearing aids can handle it and just turning the hearing aid itself up if you want it to be louder.

To address the live music problem you can move to a Widex or Oticon hearing aid and get a little bit more room at the input stage, or you can use the old Marshall Chaisin hack of layering a few pieces of scotch tape over the hearing aid microphones to reduce the input to a degree that the hearing aid can handle and then crank the volume on the hearing aid.

In reply to @Skip

“And my un-aided (e.g. headset) clarity suggests a complication with the hearing aid electronics/programming rather than neural issues.”

Rings a bell with my past experience as well. I have listened to band speakers that caused a lot of higher frequency distortion, think it was due to the piezo’s they used yet listening with headphones with frequency contouring, the music sounded fine.

As Neville said “the old Marshall Chaisin hack of layering a few pieces of scotch tape over the hearing aid microphones to reduce the input to a degree that the hearing aid can handle and then crank the volume on the hearing aid.” is a good idea to try.

I’ve been known to use dense foam over my ears to stop the high frequency distortion from annoying me at times depending on the source and the level.

I am still surprised at the trouble you have getting your hearing aids adjusted to your liking, which is why I think having an might be an idea if just to rule out another cause. The overload is occurring somewhere in the chain between the source and the way your brain is perceiving what it hears. The distortion can happen in various places in those pathways which does not rule out permanent damage from an ear infection, or hearing aid problems but our perception of the distortion can mask the true point of where the distortion is happening.

Hearing is a complicated beast.

In reply to @user392

@user392 said:

Have you thought about diy ? I have just gone this route. There’s a lot help here and it’s actually fun too. You can find tune to your needs. Might be worth a shot .

This isn’t encouraging:

" About the Hearing Aid Self-Fitting and Adjusting [DIY] category "

Lead line:
** The team at Hearing Tracker recommends that you do not attempt to fit or adjust your own hearing aids.

As the only means of tweaking available to me are ephemeral (the apps for each), they don’t persist, even if I should manage to hit on a solution per frequency range…

I’ll ask my audiologist about the taping hack, but wonder how it’s actually done, as these are pretty small pieces of kit, and the mic openings even smaller…

@Skip said:

Lead line:
** The team at Hearing Tracker recommends that you do not attempt to fit or adjust your own hearing aids.

Well you take that with a pinch of salt sir.

@Skip said:

I’ll ask my audiologist about the taping hack

Ha good luck with that, it’s not something…well maybe something like this.
The team don’t recommend you make any modifications to your “own” hearing aids

LOL as an admin or mod on several forums in which I have some experience others might not, I recognize that I am far from that point WRT hearing aids in general and in specific (the Sam’s being the only non-long-term use remaining).

So, I do tend toward individuals’ comments with the recommended grain of salt - but also recognize that I’m entirely at sea here, other than having been exposed to several different sets of gear, all of which behaved about the same, and a couple of sets, which, with (and which I’ve always maintained as being either the issue or the solution) a talented audiologist at the helm of the mousepad, were orders of magnitude more suited to my ears’ realities (while still not meeting my 3 simple metrics). That leads me to pay attention.

So, disregarding the collective wisdom of the leadership of this forum, as my hands don’t usually fit any gloves (read: VERY large), and the typical chunk of any form of tape I separate from a roll being sufficient to entirely envelop my aids, would you suggest (or perhaps illustrate with photos of one successfully being so altered) how I go about masking the mics just before going to the next opportunity for an acoustic piano experience?

TIA - I need, apparently, all the help I can get, MBAs and 5 gear-specific other audiologists so far having failed to remedy my challenges.

Well said mate, glad you saw through my sarcasm, but in all honesty I have no idea how to do this “masking” it’ll be interesting if the other member could show a picture or two to see.

I think I saw a reference to an accessory mic in this thread. If your W were willing to wear it, that would probably solve your problem understanding what she says. Where are you on that option?

BTW, I’d buy the ReSound branded mic; Beltone’s list prices are look very high to me. My ReSound branded Multi-mic and TV streamer from Costco were $250 each. Beltone’s list is $400 each. Jabra Enhance’s website says they’re $275 and $299 each.

@philbob57 said:

I think I saw a reference to an accessory mic in this thread. If you were willing to wear it, that would probably solve your problem understanding what she says. Where are you on that option?

Yes, it would. But I’ve achieved a stand-alone after an extended period with the external mic, and we’re actually very close on the speech.

So, other than, perhaps, a group setting (where sitting it in the middle of a table can assist in hearing those present more clearly), it’s a royal (not bloody, as that’s not in my cursive vocabulary :smiling_face:) PITA, when we’re actually pretty close.

I was amused at myself as I got so engrossed in the service this morning that I forgot to swap out the Beltones for the Sam’s (mostly for the music side; they, too, are very close on the speech part). So my piano-discordance won’t have a second go, but the funeral suffices for demonstration to my purpose; I’ll see them for another adjustment in a couple of days. I’m not really hopeful on theirs making the cut.

As to other purchases, I already own the Beltones; like most stand-alones, they front-load the purchase, as you get lifetime service from any office, other than out-of-warranty repair on the instrument. I still have about 20 months on the warranty, and have had occasion, last November, to take advantage of an office within easy reach of where I was in an annual meeting, to get a replacement for the receiver which had died. And, on the previous set, likewise in an office near my son’s home in which I was otherwise occupied :smiling_face:…

So, I’m either stuck with or benefitting from - if I can get the music portion settled - the Beltones. Whether I give up and go to added folks in the Vero Beach area, in hopes of getting different results will be dependent upon getting no further with the Beltones.

So, I’m already fully invested in Beltone and needed gear. The Sam’s 3rd set of molds are hard - there’s electronics in them (not a typical receiver as in soft molds), so those are as good as they get. And, feedback is either nearly nil but adjustable to have none, or starts that way (usually, after a tiny bit of twiddling). But the music is horrible and the speech is marginal. If we don’t achieve a sudden improvement on Tuesday’s appointment (proven in the next-Sunday service), they’re history, too…

Sigh…

In reply to @tenkan

@tenkan said:

Not sure what HAs you have, but beltone Solus software is available.

My hearing aids are Beltone Imagine 17s, bought 11-4-21. I don’t recall seeing what the institutional software is/was-when-I-was-being-adjusted, but I know he and the Phonak guy had a very serious piece of bluetooth (I presume) - Noahlink - which communicated with my aids (Sam’s is still in the direct-connect age), and a fairly complex software.

Given the opening blast, so to speak, in the manual,

(“Introduction:
This fitting software (FSW), Beltone Solus Max, shall be installed and used by hearing care professionals only. It is recommended to always update the fitting software to the latest version available.”) (italics mine),

I’m a bit reticent to explore that avenue; I dunno what the cost would be to acquire the hardware and software, but I suspect it’s not cheap - a quickie look at the Noalink makes it look in the hundred+ range, depending on where it’s bought - and while I’m smarter than I was 3 months ago, I’m a long fetch - on which lumpy seas can develop with any adverse winds so to speak (former sailing cruiser) - from being a hearing care professional…

Sigh…

@Skip said:

This fitting software (FSW), Beltone Solus Max, shall be installed and used by hearing care professionals only.

Yeah so what happens here is when you install you then become a hearing care professional, easy no pressure there.

@Skip said:

a very serious piece of bluetooth (I presume) - Noahlink - which communicated with my aids

Well this really isn’t that serious, it’s LE Bluetooth just like your App and your phone.

@Skip said:

and a fairly complex software

Actually not, it’s very easy and definitely not in the area “complexity” at all, there’s plenty of windows software that you could call that, but not this software.

Getting a Noahlink wireless for less then $150 and it’ll pay for itself the first time you , cheap really.
Sure I understand DIY is not for everyone, but some of us just like tinker around with stuff :wink:

Edited
@tenkan said:

Sure I understand DIY is not for everyone, but some of us just like tinker around with stuff :wink:

Y’know…

My earlier pro had jokingly suggested that I get the SW (I hadn’t considered the open availability of hardware, but presumed he could make the SW happen), as his schedule (one of the reasons for his suggestion) was so jammed that I couldn’t come in on a weekly basis, and he was sort of at the end of his rope.

Earlier, he’d laughingly said that I should come out of retirement and become a Beltone rep (I had an level of understanding of what was happening which wasn’t usual in the typical client, mostly because I’d had to gain that knowledge to be useful in providing direction to resolution of my target/s).

So, perhaps it’s not such an outlandish idea after all. I’ll broach the subject to my current (and I believe highly qualified in areas beyond mere manipulation of the SW) audiologist; next appointment is next Tuesday…

As long as I can revert if I screw it up/get it wrong/go backwards rather than improve, perhaps it would be a next step (in place of going to added experimentation with other gear)…

And…

I do enjoy tinkering. In computer terms, I just really don’t want to brick this bit of kit over my ears :upside_down_face: :smirk:

Hmmmm.

Thanks.

You can revert; just make sure you save your first session before making any changes.

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