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Listening to music with Hearing Aids

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My hearing loss is similar to your wife’s though a slight bit better at 4KHz and above. Like your wife, music is key to me. After trying several units and two audiologists prescribed units, I have found the Insio AX7 the best for music. RIC units were a disaster for music as their mics(receivers) were on the top of the ear not in the ear. Because of this the pinna effect was lost and music was flat and lost all depth and sound stage…stereo or surround became monophonic. My first pair of Insio’s came in with a poor fit and venting that was too closed. My audiologist returned them for a redo. Signia is apparently not as familiar with fitting as other manufacturers…if fit properly they should be well within your wife’s ears. My audiologist has been very patient as we are on this journey and has been working to optimize my Insio’s for music as well as speech.

In reply to @tenkan

The patient is referring to a Signia branded product, not the Specsavers Advance. In answer to your question though, no they do not lock their hearing aids - if another clinic requires the software to adjust them, Specsavers will send it out to that clinic. And no I cannot share this software for

Edited
@MFAUD said:

The patient is referring to a Signia branded product, not the Specsavers Advance

Yes I was aware of that,the Connexx software and most others are freely available, this is why my question was directed at you, as you mentioned your with Specsavers, but anyways, thanks for letting us know about the software.

At the last visit with the audiologist, I asked her to check and modify the Recorded Music program.
Most of the settings that have to be switched off were switched off.
Feedback was set to minimum, and she switched it off.
MOP was not at maximum, she said she set it higher.
Result - my wife so far watched a few Youtube classical videos, and she thinks there is an improvement.
I also asked for the other two music programs to be enabled.
The Live music only differs in the microphone direction - front instead of 360deg. The other is for musicians - don’t know what is the difference.
So we will see how it goes. There is probably nothing more that can be done in the Signia platform for music.

I’m an orchestral musician, so have had a steep learning curve on this since starting to wear hearing devices a few months ago.

I’ll link to the UK paper mentioned above:

My audiologist found that helpful, and has shared it in her local team—it’s not much talked about in their training, apparently, which focusses heavily on speech comprehension. With that, she was able to make a fairly useful custom progrmame on the trial Signia 5AXs quickly.

Last week, I started a second trial, of Widex Moments. Word-of-mouth among musician colleagues suggested these were worth trying. And it’s chalk and cheese. For me, they are a huge improvement. Whatever the Signia was working to do was not helping music at all. Widex seem to have a very different aesthetic and goals. The default ‘let the computer choose’ programme was fine, but I was quickly able to set up my own profiles for listening to recordings at home, and performing in different venues. They have been excellent from get-go.

I hope your wife is able to find some way to rediscover her pleasure in music. Your support will be much appreciated by her, I’m sure.

In reply to @acoracle

I trialed the signia AX 5 and the 7. I’m a musician. The 7 is better, enough so that I went ahead and got them for extra money that I don’t have. They had to be tweaked like yours, mainly turning off the feedback management completely.

We got our Moderna boosters earlier this week. Next week we are going to meet a few friends for lunch in a restaurant, so it will be an opportunity to try the Signia AX5 in that environment. Also, the wife is going to her walking club again, that involves a train ride 40 min , and conversation in a group of ladies, possible wind etc.

With that info in our pockets, my wife will Phonak Virto Marvel. The audiologist is happy to order them for trial.
It is not the Paradise, but some people say the difference between M and P is mainly in the connectivity area, not in the sound processing department. And it is not rechargeable. Those 312 batteries are tiny, aren’t they (for old people, I mean).

A few people in this thread recommended listening to music on high-quality headphones WITH their hearing aids in. When I do that, though, I get terrible feedback. Is there some way to listen to music on headphones with hearing aids without getting feedback? (I have ReSounds with a custom earmold that includes a small vent. Maybe the only way to use headphones would be with an unvented earmold?)

Yeah it can sometimes be difficult to get this sorted, overear headphones I presume your taking about, on ear models could be a solution, post your audogram would be helpful, usually feedback is because the sound is leaking out (among other reasons as well) so incorrectly fitting molds with or without vent is gonna give feedback, occluded fit depending on how bad your loss is could be also be a solution, but are you ok with the occlusion effect otherwise?

In reply to @jmkuhn18

I had the same problem with my over the ear headphones using the Jabra Enhance Select 200s, then the Pro 30s, but I could completely eliminate the feedback by turning the hearing aid volume down and/or reducing the midrange volume in the Music program’s EQ settings. I would then turn up the volume on the source to comfortable level. I now listen to music thru headphones almost daily and enjoy every minute.

In reply to @tenkan

Thanks, tenkan. I just added my to my profile. As you can see, my loss is severe except for in the low frequencies. I’m guessing that those who are saying they just turn the hearing aid volume down have much milder losses than mine. I think the issue is sound leaking out through the vents (possibly also around the edges of the custom earmolds - I think they fit pretty well but I’m sure it could be improved a bit). When I cover up the vent holes with my fingers while streaming music to my hearing aids, I notice I suddenly hear bass, whereas usually I get virtually no bass sound when streaming. So, my guess is that the only solution would be an occluded fit (but I don’t know if that’s worth the drawbacks).

@jmkuhn18 said:

When I cover up the vent holes with my fingers while streaming music to my hearing aids, I notice I suddenly hear bass, whereas usually I get virtually no bass sound when streaming. So, my guess is that the only solution would be an occluded fit (but I don’t know if that’s worth the drawbacks).

You can block the vent while streaming by inserting a toothpick into the vents, or a better way is to roll up some cotton, or foam ear plugs, and push them in against your earmolds. You will get some bass, for sure.

If getting feedback with headphones over your aids, you should have a Music program, and be sure your headphones have large enough ear pads to completely cover your ears and the .

Take your cans to your audi, and ask to have them run the feedback analyser in the fitting software, to be sure your gains aren’t set to high.

I’ve never had feedback with my Sennheiser HD 6XX cans, using my Oticon HAs.

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