Music listening

It’s probably individual & relative depending on loss but I found when updating 2-3yr ago from Oticon to Phonak - just had a huge wow factor for me. “For me” the recent Phonaks just have much richer music reproduction than the old & even a loaner set of Oticon Mores.

astrohip and StevenS / Audiogram

GREAT news, and I’ve also got a real unsolved quandary: HOW to MIRROR the settings in the new Phonak L90’s to match the great sound I get from my two year old M90’s, (with identical receivers and molds).

I’ve had great sound with my Phonak M90-R, RIC, Acrylic Molds for two years. Of course to get bass so low you can count each of the 4-8 / second bass notes, you must totally occlude the open ports. Once done, how can your hear others, IRL?? You must pull them partially out of your ear, simulating opening the ports.

To get great sound though, I’ve noticed there’s a huge difference in the SOURCE of Bluetooth. My Alienware Gaming PC is the best, listening to LOSSLESS and FREE RadioParadise.com1, so you can tell the differences. From my great tablet, it doesn’t sound as good for some reason. I suspect the sound, and bluetooth, and Android drivers are not as good with the same HA model.

Hearing Bass that’s full, should be totally impossible, (as per some of the engineers here in this forum). But, I think finally figured out what Phonak is doing, so we are both correct and I’m not crazy: I seems they are using a carrier frequency for each of the bass high parts of the sine wave! They’ve done a great job fooling my ears, but when I turned the freq generator down to 4 hz and below, the “bass” is still there, but now you can also start to differentiate and hear the carrier sound as well, instead of a pure 4 hz sine wave. Coolest sound trick I’ve seen, if true.

Nailing down each component of the sound, many of the drivers, and software in the Phonaks make it difficult to authoritatively report the state of each. Only by " “properly miking” the HA when sealed properly in a simulated (or real) ear canal, and then tuning that to be close to a flat response in the extremely low range, can you know for sure, who’s doing what. The REM mikes do NOT go low enough to hear the bass properly. Even if they did, you’d likely need more equipment, like a storage scope. (I don’t know what they are called now, even though I owned one, once.)

MY QUANDARY, of how GREAT my M90’s are and how the NOT so GREAT L90’s are.
----- I’ve also just got a new pair to L90’s, which replaces the M90’s. It supports many BT channels instead of two, and BT stays on, or reestablishes BT connection properly, vs only the two inconsistent BT channels on the M90’s.

BUT, the SOUND quality is not even close to being as good at my old M90’s! I can hear the song, but if I didn’t know that recording, now I can’t guess who’s singing with the L90’s. Why?? No clue. Audiologist and I spent a good hour poring over the settings for both M90’s and L90’s to match, and we “fixed it” somewhat, so music is OK, or at least better. But, it isn’t right. I’ve resigned myself to getting the Noah programming fitting software setup for Phonak’s, and playing around with the settings until I get lucky. Does anyone know or guess why??

This is such a fascinating discussion. I have no problem with streaming music. Hearing aids are wonderful for that.

The issue for me is listening to live unamplified classical music in a concert hall without distortion. I also find it hard to sing with my hearing aids. They are well vented so that helps to some degree.

–Steven

Most all the Bluetooth drivers on the SOURCE, from my PC, Phone, or Tablet, ALL pass on, and send pure, “FLAT” UN-compensated, modified or adjusted sound. They let the device they are sending to, change the sound if necessary. For that, I’m grateful that they CHOSE to allow my HA’s to determine how it sounds, and don’t use the equalizer’s. (If I use the earphone jack, the equalizer DOES work well. OTOH, setting it properly is not trivial withe fine tuning capability. After I got my HA with great sound, I had to use my audiologists report graph to set my equalizer to work with my wired earphones properly, to emulate the HA’s quality.)

These source drivers ARE capable of using the equalizer’s modified sound, but chose to hardwire the native sound, at least on my PC. There’s a free “soundboard mixer” that anyone can use to hook any one or more PC sources or mikes, up to any output[s]. (I’ve messed with changing sound and video drivers before, and these need to “rewire” permissions on each, and so it can permanently modify your PC.)

Generally the lousy sound quality comes for the streaming source, but not always. My first Amazon DOT, (Gen-2?), sounds OK through its small speaker. But plug into the earphone jack and THEN you can tell they are only processing 24-36k quality sound. As I said in my long post, I suspect my Alienware PC, being a gaming PC, insisted on the best sound quality driver specs possible, compared to my tablet.

Usually the source of the streaming is sub-par, or at best, average. The recordings though, vary considerably in quality. I’ve NEVER been able to tell the fine quality that can be done is a great recording studio, mainly because no one delivers that quality. (I’ve worked with, and done some recording studio work). As a former radio DJ, Bill Goldsmith’s RadioParadise.com2 claims they have the highest quality on the internet, which I believe. Much of the 1960’s rock was evidently done by part time high school kids to save $$, it’s so bad. Now I can hear the minute differences in listening to lossless NO compression, and still impressive, 128k or 256k.

I had a former DJ that worked for me, and learned that the FCC license required is not a trivial one, and they really know their electronics, tuning the transmitter as well as sound was their responsibility. DeadMou5, who produces some of the best quality (and bass) today, was also a former DJ. (Try his “Imaginary Friends” for booming bass ON your HA, and you’ll never doubt that HA CAN deliver great bass.)

This thread really belongs on, or cross-posted to a sound and video forum, where the real pro’s hang out, and “I’m not worthy”, to post what I think, compare to their expertise. Sound is super complicated, not just in the HA world.

Yes Steve, I enjoyed our talk.

I wonder if your experience is due to distortion caused by volume set too loud? That’s why I wondered if you could try that change.
I don’t know Widex at all. I had a single Widex way-back. It wasn’t a good experience. I could hear behind me very well. I couldn’t hear in front of me in a noisy environment.

My first hearing aid was in the ear.
My 3 sets of Phonaks have all been Receiver in Canal.
I have no experience with Widex or other BTE’s.

Finally my audiogram isn’t accurate. I hope to have a new hearing test with my new hearing aid practitioner. It’s not scheduled yet.

DaveL

That url is indeed a great tip, flashb. Good to know that the Music for Hearing Aids project here in UK (Leeds University and others) has already made guidance available to users and practitioners, following their big survey among music lovers and players. Their nicely dedicated project is continuing with an exploration of what kinds of music processing (if any!) best serve varied hearing profiles.
I am among a bunch of music lovers who have volunteered to listen to their samples!

We just published this article which has a lot of interesting information about hearing aid acoustics and music reproduction… It’s specifically focused on wirelessly streamed (via Bluetooth) music:

Best Hearing Aids for Music of 2024: OTC & Rx Options7

Looking for a hearing aid with decent music streaming quality? We lab tested over 40 devices and selected the top performers across three product categories.

Thanks for the feedback @RobHooft !

Hi Abram

In your review of the Sony cre-e10 in the article you linked to above, you state (twice) that the Sony has a multi band equaliser accessible via the app.

Unless there has been an update to the app recently that I am not aware of, I don’t think that’s correct.

I hope you’re right and I’m wrong as an equaliser would be great!

Oh what good sense! Thankyou very much. Yes, a lot changed for me when a new young audiologist took on board my love of music and actually invited me to bring a little keyboard into her NHS clinic. She said she had no training in music fitting, and that this is typical, at least in UK. Both of us were delighted by the outcome of EQ and compression adjustments - on a fairly old pair of Phonaks! - and it did not take a long time. Speech sounded better too, with more lower-register than would be traditional.