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Melodies hard to follow/distinguish

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I used to listen to music at home a lot with a fairly sophisticated home hi-fi (for the audiophiles: Naim 82/2Xhi-cap/250, LP12/ARO/Karma), not streaming, until I got in 2010. I had 2 problems with the Kirkland Siemens (KS3?), Phonak Brios, and Philips 9010s: 1) music sounded tinny and seemed to have a hole between C and high C, and 2) I couldn’t hear or follow many melodies.

I just started out with Jabra Enhance Pro 10s. These seem to provide a very natural sound. For the first time since 2010, I can (or think I can) hear frequencies correctly from, say, 60 Hz - 9 KHz. I can hear/follow some melodies in classics ( Beethoven Violin Concerto & 6th Symphony, Symphonie Fantastique), but I know what the music should sound like, and it sounds different. Much of the melody comes through, but a good bit is missing.

The music program has no noise suppression, compression about 1:1.4, feedback suppression turned off. I keep hi-fi volume low-ish and HA volume high. Live symphonic music is OK, live bluegrass is fine, percussion and voice in small halls are good.

I have no convenient way to listen via headphones - my preamp has no headphone output, and I can’t afford a headphone amp as good as the Naims.

Has anyone here experienced something like I’m trying to describe? Did you find a good solution? What was it?

Thanks.

What you’re describing doesn’t sound to me like standard sensori-neural hearing loss, although I’m certainly not an expert. My experience might be a little like yours.

I had an acoustic neuroma diagnosed in 2016 and treated with Gamma Knife radiotactic surgery in 2017. Since then I have noticed that when I am in a restaurant or other business playing recorded music in the background I often can’t make out what song is playing although others in my group have no trouble. Sometimes someone will tell me the name of the song and only then can I hear what song is playing.

Hopefully you don’t have an acoustic neuroma or any other serious condition, but I think what you are describing warrants a visit to an physician. Good luck.

I have found that the music I used to listen to back on the 60s and 70s, when my loss wasn’t too bad, I can still understand today… Mostly. But anything fairly new. Forget it. It’s just noise. But then again I also remember sliding a phonograph needle across a vinyl record was bad.

Try to find another audiologist to adjust your hearing aids to achieve what you want. If Dr. Cliff Aud is near you, maybe you should ask for an appointment with him because I can see that he pays a lot of attention to ensure that his patients get the maximum benefit.

And on the other hand, my hearing aids are not perfect either and it’s hard for me to make out the words of the songs and I often have to ask others what the song is called and I often need Lyrics to know what he is singing in the song. That’s how I learn to listen and later it’s not a problem to recognize the song.

We have the most common damage in the cochlea, it contains a million microscopic hairs that receive sound and send it to the brain, and the brain combines it all into one sound. If some hairs are missing, it depends on how many, if they are missing on one part of the frequency, the song will not be the same. It means that the hearing aids will need to be adjusted a little to make it sound nicer, but it still won’t be the same sound. It’s like missing some keys on the piano, we have to make do by using other keys.

Thanks. I’ll spend more time with the music and project’s docs. Listening to more music may help. I listened to some Mozart yesterday, and I got much more of the melody than I got from Beethoven and Bizet, though that may be because of the music itself. :slightly_smiling_face:

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