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

I believe I’m reasonably up to speed at the moment, but others following this thread due to similar challenges with music accuracy might enjoy this:

Optimizing Hearing Aids for Music: A Practical Guide5

Do the notes of a piano sound distorted? Or do songs you know intimately seem off, or does all music sound excessively tinny? Don't worry.

Thanks for posting his here!

It’s been difficult setting up my Paradise P90 hearing aids. I’ve finally made some progress.

It would be nice to hear music again!

DaveL

I used to be an active Barbershopper (close 4-part harmony for men). Living and cruising on a boat meant that despite my attempts (even in areas with hundreds of boats listening to the morning net - a VHF radio news-and-weather-and-community broadcast) to find others with whom to sing I was unsuccessful; I’ve been inactive for the last nearly-20 years.

However, visiting grandchildren this week, in the area where I was an active Barbershopper for many years, I went to a chapter (group of guys as a chorus and then quartetting in 4s) meeting.

I couldn’t hear the other notes or myself, to match, despite mucking around in settings in the Beltone HearMax app. Apparently my only hope is singing in the middle of single-note (like a large bass section in a choir) section. I couldn’t hear harmony, even listening (vs singing), let alone trying to match tones for harmony. I’ll wait until I’m home and listen to some BBShop on headphones for confirmation, but it’s not promising.

Color me depressed.

Sigh…

From the promo info on my aids:

Microphone in ear design

Parent company GN Hearing has launched Microphone & Receiver-In-Ear (M&RIE) simultaneously in both ReSound and Beltone products. M&RIE (pronounced Marie) is essentially the inclusion of a microphone on the speaker unit that sits deep inside the ear canal. The microphone is directed toward the outside of the ear, and picks up sound that enters the ear naturally, so that the hearing aid can understand the natural resonance of the ear (and ear canal). In theory, this means the hearing aid can more naturally reproduce the natural sound of the wearer’s ear.

A recent press release from Beltone described the benefits of the new M&RIE system:

M&RIE provides a naturally immersive hearing experience with greater depth and sound localization while significantly reducing wind noise. The most immediate way people will notice the breakthrough is the sound of their own voice."

Is there any experience here to encourage my supplier to switch recievers from the current speaker-only version, particularly since my soft molds would mean that the mike would not be in my canal?

Thanks…

L8R

Skip, struggling

I’ve got soft molds; the receiver isn’t deep in my ear as a result. As seen further upthread, these are snitches from Sam’s after their similarly shaped (theM&RIE is wider at the top than my current receivers, which remain in place, where the Sam’s rectangular ones migrated out) receivers wouldn’t stay put.

Will M&RIE work with molds? My current amplification - I believe - won’t allow soft domes without feedback. I usually have to fiddle with them as I insert them, and occasionally during the day, sometimes, to defeat the feedback, as it is…

This suggests it’s fine:
https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/resound-m-rie-receivers-level-of-loss-suitability/63413 (member archive)

My molds had to be remade to accommodate the larger size of the M&RIE receivers. I have Jabras, another ReSound brand. I tried them but every sound seemed fuzzy. They may have been defective, and I may try them again. I may not, because music that used to be familiar to me sounds familiar again. (I was a music-listener, though, not a music-maker.) That makes me hypothesize that I’ll hear unfamiliar music as it’s intended to be heard. But listening is different from making music.

The M&RIE molds can apparently be used with standard receivers.

As this is a very long thread, I’ll try to keep it short (not necessarily sweet, as seen in the link, later):

My speech comprehension (before any experience post this afternoon’s adjustment) has inched its way to good-excellent, in a large variety of settings, other than in noisy restaurants. It MAY be that I can get around that in small groups (we’re having our Wednesday pizza, this time with 2 couples tonight; it will be a good test) by using my MyPalPro microphone set in the middle of the table.

My music-to-my-brain is fair-good, where it was previously routinely discordant (compression issue presumed) Today’s tweaks MAY improve that to all good or good-excellent as well.

As to my Barbershop experience, I believe it was a quality/accuracy, not tonality issue, in that when I got home, I used a CD of a national champion quartet to prove that I could, indeed, hear the harmonies, and the overtones, if they were actually there Unfortunately, to achieve that required some banging around in my HearMax, so my audiologist mucked around to see if we could make the fuzzy lyrics (tonality and harmonies were there; lyrics virtually incomprehensible) go away while still retaining the musicality. I won’t have an decision on that until I listen to the CD again. I also have an opportunity to visit that same chorus when I’m off touring grandchildren shortly, and will try again.

The “own voice” (hearing myself when singing) was also tweaked, and also won’t have any decision until Sunday.

But, I’m encouraged, in general. Good thing, too, as it’s a 2+ hour round trip to this audiologist, who didn’t sell me the current set of aids, leading to “The Beltone Advanced Care Plan” - which will cost me $250 a year if I decide to continue. As I’m moving in less than a year, and travel a fair amount (e.g., July 6 I leave for a 6-week swing among grandchildren), that’s not encouraging. Nor is the thought of returning to the place these Beltone Imagine 17s were purchased for further adjustment, as my weekly (other than travelus interruptus) trips were suggested as THAT audiologist had clearly (and recognized it as such) topped out his level of competence.

So, further news as I know it. In the meantime, browse over to Beltone practice(s) and see the detail if it’s of interest.

I’m only hopeful (early days, that last appointment having been mere hours ago).

Sigh…

And the hits keep coming…

My last adjustment started with my speech clarity at Good-Excellent on all settings; music needed some help.

In the process, my speech shit the bed.

And the vaunted Belcare can’t be used because "In order to use remote care, we would have had to set that up in-person. It is not something automatically defaulted to the hearing aids, especially since we are not your original office of purchase. We can activate remote fine-tuning services in our software, but it has to be done initially with the hearing aids physically paired to the computer. It’s due to privacy consent purposes, email set-up on your end, and you would also have to be assigned as a patient to our cloud office location. "

So, no data anywhere else other than local computer, again/still, and if I wanted to purchase something and was nowhere near another office, it’s sorry-charlie, gotta come to the office and set it up in advance.

And I leave tomorrow at oh-dark-30 for a 5-week grandkids sweep during which I’ll likely be effectively deaf to them, now. And so far adults are marginal; I’d rate it at fair-poor.

Sigh.

Update: Generally very positive.

I got new molds, and had been working nearly weekly with the fantastic audiologist referred to me by my seller, as seen in the very extensive thread above, since the last report. Along the way, as was the case last year in November, I had a receiver shit the bed a few days ago, on a weekend, meaning I couldn’t get another until now.

I’ll save you all the intermediate steps we’ve taken over the last few months to show you my note to my audiologist for my appointment later today:

I’m coming with one operational ear. Going forward, given that this is now twice in my 20 months of operation, I believe I need to have spares for the times I’m not in range of an office, or during closed days/hours. Can we accomplish that? I’d keep them in a ziploc until needed, and pray that I never opened it !

If that dings your budget (vs being a consumable provided by your owner or Beltone), but is otherwise within the service metrics, I’ll get them from the Vero office.

For today’s twiddles, given that we went straight ahead due to the major change with the new molds (which are awesome; they’re very tight, and only momentarily uncomfortable on insertion, but NO feedback), here’s my experiences that could use attention:

The deeper receiver channel means that the wax guards may never need changing. On the other hand, I wonder how I should, if they get wax in them, clean the channels. As well, I’ll pay attention to how the dead receiver comes out; I presume that would be how I’d change the wax guard, but might be involved in cleaning the channel; I note that there’s a closure over the wire/receiver interface which presumably would mean some force needed to remove it - and which might not be friendly to the wire.

My sound metrics are still on the racetrack, but gaining on the goonies. Thursday (28th) I had my meeting with our Music Director, where we tried some hymns I’d never seen before, so couldn’t rely on ‘muscle memory’ - I had to read, and hit the notes, based on the piano I was hearing. It was a very mixed bag. In the MU program it was fair; I could pick up the piano tonality almost purely (not much distortion). However, I couldn’t hear myself well. The analysis on that, and my general challenges during services, is that I might be sitting too close (we sit front and center, usually), and that the sound level there overwhelms my voice, so I should sit ~2/3 of the way back. Unfortunately, I had only one operational ear, and the entirety of the service was challenging Sunday; more on that below. But, back to the trial/error testing, the piano tone was purest in the MU program. My own-voice was best in the MPP.

So, next up is the MPP experience. I had the opportunity for several tests of the microphone in small groups, both before and after the current molds. Generally, in a restaurant, I’ve squelched the ‘surroundings’ to good effect. Also generally, restaurants are reliant on placement. In a booth, with the mic centered on the wall, it’s generally excellent, or at least good. In an open table against a wall, it’s marginally good, though orders of magnitude better than without, and on the first use, it was centered, which is approximate to an open table: On an open table, in the center, it’s at best good, but mostly fair. In a home setting, without any ambient noise, it’s good to excellent. I’ve not tried fiddling with the mic +/- volume; I can do that next. Do you know if the mic reverts to a ‘middle’ position when it’s turned off, or if it stays where it was last used?

Speech is generally better with the new molds, regardless of the settings, but I’m still finding the UF/SC setting the best. That said, I don’t have to resort to that all the time, and in general, it’s good enough that I rarely do daily dissections (notes of what happened during the day) as I go along as I did in the early days. That said, Lydia remains a challenge; I find myself bumping the volume frequently, even in close-proximity settings. That’s disconcerting, as she’s got a short fuse and doesn’t deal with my lack-of-acuity well. Any twiddles you can think of, short of mounting the MPP on her permanently are welcomed (note that doing that in our cockpit, with her being sotto voce for fear that some neighboring boat might hear her, worked well).

So, I’m very encouraged. For those who followed this from the beginning, I reiterate that it’s the audiologist, not the gear. If this is your first read, I apologize for the length, but it shows that some journeys have to be long to arrive where you want.

Generally, I expect that further gentle tweaks will have me working in all respects. But my experiences may be useful for those struggling with either voice or music clarity or accuracy.

L8R, y’all!

Skip, encouraged

I’m so pleased you’re on the right path.

I remember your first post. Congratulations! Cherish the person that set up your hearing aid well.

DaveL
Toronto