Hearing aids with the best frequency response

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@pequeajim said:

I am about at the end of my Oticon HAs, and will be looking to replace them in the near future.

I am a bass player and struggle with hearing the low freqs, (below 250 hz) when I am playing.

I am wondering which HAs have the best freq reponse?

Below 250Hz: not many - hearing aids aren’t typically designed to work well in this area. Oticon, Widex or Unitron on a Music program with a closed canal type of design - which will probably be the opposite of what you want for general comfort and speech clarity.

@pequeajim said:

I am about at the end of my Oticon HAs, and will be looking to replace them in the near future.

I am a bass player and struggle with hearing the low freqs, (below 250 hz) when I am playing.

I am wondering which HAs have the best freq reponse?

I am also a bass player with a loss. Here’s what I can tell you, after a lot of experience:

1 - most aids only have 250, 500 and 750 Hz adjustments. Some, like Rexton, also have a 125hz. Pitiful, but the truth…

2- For bass, though, your issue is not EQ bands, but compression bands and how well the aids can handle bass, especially bass at on stage levels. It is very important to get aids that can handle more than 105db input without distorting. A lot of aids do not have front end stages that can handle this much sound pressure, so what you get is digital bass distortion. f you want an exercise in frustration, start asking “what is the maximum SPL handling of the front end of the aids, both the microphone and the input convertors.” Getting this information, which is critical for live music, is like pulling hen’s teeth. And never take the word of the person who tells, you until you can verify it.

3- There is a common problem with bass set with either too much compression or too high of a knee point. OTOH, some aid simple run the bass linear, and hope the aids’ maximum output limiter will do the job. Uh, nope.

4 - Bernafon has an aid line (Chronos), that is designed for live music, a feature called “Live Music Plus”. Research it and the man, Marshall Chasen, who designed it. It basically rolls off the top and bottom at input and restores it at output, and has compressors set for live music. Also learn about Mead Killion, too.

It is still incredibly stupid that the hearing aid business thinks that using two EQ bands to handle half of the music spectrum is acceptable, especially when so much happens in the 200 to 600 area in everyday life. Most aids will cheap out and use maybe two compressors under 750 Hz, so sound gets muddy and just plain bad when the aids are subject to loud noise levels, like night clubs, restaurants, street traffic, etc.

You are going to run straightway into another big problem: most hearing aid dispensers do not know, neither do they have the equipment, to set aids for live music. A real time analyzer is a must to see what the aid are actually doing while they are in your ears, and I have yet to find a dispenser that has one, much less a sound system that can produce real world SPL’s. . Why, I don’t know. They will have the factory on the phone for help the minute you start asking to have them set properly for live music. BTW, almost all aids, when they claim to have a “music” channel, they usually mean a channel for sitting and listening to prerecorded music. That is, music with a limited dynamic range.

If you are by a Costco, I suggest a chat with the hearing aid dept. They sell the Bernafon line with LMP+. You need to spend as much time making sure that whoever sells and fits your aids, is trained and competent enough to address the specialized needs of a performing musician. Or else, you may, as I have always wound up doing, learning how to DIY…