Hearing aid a help?

[Gheorghe]

Hi!

I´m starting to have serious problems since my hearing, which never was the best, starts slowly disappearing.

I never cared about that, since I never needed to hear the high frequences. Jazz usually does not touch that ultra high notes I can´t hear, like a violin high up or a piccolo flute. I don´t care for a violin or a piccolo flute, but now I got about 50% in the rite ear and about 40 % in the left ear. What really sets me up is that I start to have problems to hear everything the drummers do. On some records I got to get very near to the speakers to hear the ride cymbal. And the sound of the drums, I mean the whole sound of the drums is the most important thing for me to enjoy music. I manage to hear quite well drummers who really play loud and hit the cymbals the way Blakey would have done it. Tony Williams, I can hear everything he does, but if somebody also got the same problem, does a hearing aid help to catch all that sounds I start to miss?

I never thought about it, but a few days ago my ear doctor told me I should think seriosly about gettin a hearing aid. I fluffed it off, but after some sleepless nites and turning up the volume higher and higher I start to think about it.

Reminds me about Art Blakey, he had the same problems and I wonder how he managed to play at the end. Did he "feel" the music from the stage vibrations?

[Larry Kart]

Couple of years ago I discovered that I had a significant hearing problem -- loss of high frequencies to the point where I wondered whether I'd be able to enjoy listening to music down the road -- and got two Siemens hearing aids through the Northwestern University Audiology Clinic after several hours of elaborate tests (there's a mini-computer in each hearing aid because the hearing loss was different in each ear, and the hearing aids are programmed to work together). The hearing aids were pricey, but the benefits were spectacular. And they're almost invisible. I probably hear better now than I did for some years before I got the hearing aids because I'm sure the problem crept up on me before it got so bad that I finally noticed it. Loss of high frequencies is a problem that good hearing aids can correct. Other problems -- e.g. difficulty in sorting out foreground from background sounds -- are I believe much more difficult for hearing aids to correct.

[Dan Gould]

I can't speak to the issue of hearing broad ranges of sounds simply because I do not try to tune in to things like ride cymbals. But I was found to have a hearing loss when I was quite young. I didn't exactly "keep up" with visits to the audiologist so who knows the exact rate of further decline but when I started my current job 18 months ago and was back in an office environment, on the phone and with a boss 20 feet away wanting to tell me something, just how non-functional I was became pretty apparent.

Fortunately my bosses valued my work enough that they offered to pay a substantial amount of money toward hearing aids, which I have now had for just over one year. Seimens brand also and very pricy especially when you factor in $400 a year to keep the warranty active beyond the first year. But I know I couldn't do without them.

Larry I am a bit surprised at your comment about foreground vs background sound. My Seimens model are also programmed to work together and for the specific hearing loss of each ear. I have a "noisy restaurant" setting on mine. It shuts out the directional microphone that hears behind me and keeps on only the one "aimed" at the front. Works wonders to hear my dining companions.

I also have a setting for "music" listening that basically boosts the high and middle ranges but I never use it for music. Its my "they think I can't hear them if they talk softly" spy setting.

[.:.impossible]

This is actually fascinating to me. Glad to hear Gheorge has a solution.

I never considered this before, but y'all are basically wearing binaural mics? I read about these years ago when researching engineer Tchad Blake.

[Gheorghe]

This is actually fascinating to me. Glad to hear Gheorge has a solution.

I never considered this before, but y'all are basically wearing binaural mics? I read about these years ago when researching engineer Tchad Blake.

Thank you so much, Larry Kart, Dan Gould, and impossible!

Yes, I will have to do it.

Well, I didn´t have problems with my job, since I´m lucky to be in the position to tell people to talk louder, rather than hide behind my problem or worry about my job. But I think I got it settled, will make another visit to my audiologist and then to a good dealer and try out the best stuff, which is almost invisible and I´m confident things will be better. Now it´s still in the planning phase since I´ll have my vacation after two weeks and until then I´m too busy, but looking at it rite now I´m lookin forward to get an improvement. And yeah, I dont care for backgrounds that much, but I´m a drum addict. Whatever kind of jazz I listen, I have to hear what the drummer does and how he sounds, how Bu sounds, how Max sounds, Elvin, Tony, Joe Chambers, all of them, give the drummer some.....

[Chuck Nessa]

Reminds me about Art Blakey, he had the same problems and I wonder how he managed to play at the end. Did he "feel" the music from the stage vibrations?

This is exactly what he did. I remember him being very upset at a stage crew for moving his drums between sound check and showtime. He had to feel the floor.

[.:.impossible]

Didn't know that about Blakey!

[Larry Kart]

I can't speak to the issue of hearing broad ranges of sounds simply because I do not try to tune in to things like ride cymbals. But I was found to have a hearing loss when I was quite young. I didn't exactly "keep up" with visits to the audiologist so who knows the exact rate of further decline but when I started my current job 18 months ago and was back in an office environment, on the phone and with a boss 20 feet away wanting to tell me something, just how non-functional I was became pretty apparent.

Fortunately my bosses valued my work enough that they offered to pay a substantial amount of money toward hearing aids, which I have now had for just over one year. Seimens brand also and very pricy especially when you factor in $400 a year to keep the warranty active beyond the first year. But I know I couldn't do without them.

Larry I am a bit surprised at your comment about foreground vs background sound. My Seimens model are also programmed to work together and for the specific hearing loss of each ear. I have a "noisy restaurant" setting on mine. It shuts out the directional microphone that hears behind me and keeps on only the one "aimed" at the front. Works wonders to hear my dining companions.

I also have a setting for "music" listening that basically boosts the high and middle ranges but I never use it for music. Its my "they think I can't hear them if they talk softly" spy setting.

Dan -- I think we have the same or similar hearing aids with the same three settings. The "noisy places" setting helps with that problem by, as you say, narrowing the cone of sonic information to the front, but if there's a good deal of foreground vs. background information within that narrower cone (which is often the case in a restaurant or bar), it can't do anything about that. If I'm talking to someone in such places, I often have to ask them to repeat things while I lean forward.

BTW, pricey as those hearing aids are, if you're in a position tax-wise to itemized medical deductions, you can deduct the cost.

Also, I always use the "music" setting when listening to music. My sense is that it pretty much fits the way I used to hear things when I was younger. But then even I would think that a good many patterns of hearing loss are individual. Fascinating part of it is that when you have high frequency loss, the part of the brain that processes this information tries to compensate for what it's not getting by boosting lower frequencies, which makes things much worse. Then, once you get good hearing aids, that part of the brain reprograms itself over time to accept the more accurate information and stop boosting the lower frequencies, as it had been doing. Who knew that one's brain was an independent contractor?

Finally, my hearing loss was not because of any event or pattern of sonic abuse but simply the result of aging.

[Dan Gould]

This is actually fascinating to me. Glad to hear Gheorge has a solution.

I never considered this before, but y'all are basically wearing binaural mics? I read about these years ago when researching engineer Tchad Blake.

I'm not sure if they are binaural or just have two settings - directional and surround. But the "noisy environment" setting works really well most of the time.

[BeBop]

I've had significant hearing loss across the full spectrum. I really can't listen to louspeakers any more, and so found myself gravitating to headphones a decade ago. Loudspeakers simply sound "hollow" to me - no lows, no highs, and midrange like it's in a cardboard box. Car speakers - commonly "hyped up" actually sound better. But headphones - while they don't sound great - I can handle with relatively "flat" (frequency) performance. I can't scientifically explain any of this, and I really haven't approached disagnosis, from a music appreciation standpoint, scientifically.

[Larry Kart]

This is actually fascinating to me. Glad to hear Gheorge has a solution.

I never considered this before, but y'all are basically wearing binaural mics? I read about these years ago when researching engineer Tchad Blake.

I'm not sure if they are binaural or just have two settings - directional and surround. But the "noisy environment" setting works really well most of the time.

If I understand correctly what my hearing aids do, each one has a differently programmed mini-computer in it (differently programmed to compensate for that ear's pattern of hearing loss -- in my case the patterns of loss were quite different), and then that information is blended by them into one coherent, seemingly natural sonic "image." Thus, if you put only one aid in, or the battery in one aid fails, you get nothing

-- they work in tandem or not at all.

[johnlitweiler]

The price of hearing aids is the problem. I need 'em but have been putting off a return visit to the audiologist. Starkey Hearing Foundation helps low-income people buy hearing aids but I found my income is borderline.

Does anybody know of any other foundations, etc. that help low-income folks?

[Dan Gould]

Larry, my understanding is that the brain does that, not the aids themselves. Yours sound very different but also similar. Mine are individually programmed to offset the hearing loss shown by the hearing test. The way they interact is that when I press the rocker button from the regular setting to the "noisy environment" setting, both hearing aids switch programming. But each works in the absence of the other.

I actually have five possible settings, four of which are used:

1. Normal use

2. "Telephone" setting, which was very disappointing. It shuts the other hearing aid off and is supposed to boost the high range of the hearing aid in the ear I use. What I get is a high-pitch hum that obliterates the person on the other end of the phone line. I don't know if its a function of my hearing loss or what but in the original consultation I was led to expect that this would really solve one of the big problems at work. In the end we solved the problem by getting a phone amplifier which the state of Florida provides free to hearing-deficient residents.

3. Noisy environment - I know what Larry is referring to but maybe I use it in less noisy environments than he does - it works quite well for me.

4. "Music/TV setting"

I have no idea what a fifth setting would be for, but iirc, there was a more expensive model with the capacity for seven settings.

One place I never use them is in the car, where they only work to boost both road noise and the car stereo. Much better to just keep on cranking up what I want to hear - the music.

Regarding the brain processing of sounds - my audiologist told me that after a long period of time with significant hearing loss, the brain loses some of the ability to process sounds. That seems true as, even with my much improved hearing, occasionally I still have to ask people to repeat themselves. I hear them but don't understand them immediately. After a year that still happens so my brain is slow or isn't really adjusting to more "normal" hearing capacity.

[Dan Gould]

The price of hearing aids is the problem. I need 'em but have been putting off a return visit to the audiologist. Starkey Hearing Foundation helps low-income people buy hearing aids but I found my income is borderline.

Does anybody know of any other foundations, etc. that help low-income folks?

John, check out this resource.

[Gheorghe]

I've had significant hearing loss across the full spectrum. I really can't listen to louspeakers any more, and so found myself gravitating to headphones a decade ago. Loudspeakers simply sound "hollow" to me - no lows, no highs, and midrange like it's in a cardboard box. Car speakers - commonly "hyped up" actually sound better. But headphones - while they don't sound great - I can handle with relatively "flat" (frequency) performance. I can't scientifically explain any of this, and I really haven't approached disagnosis, from a music appreciation standpoint, scientifically.

Well I wouldn't say loudspeakers sound hollow to me, but I also noticed, that yesterday I heard the sounds better from the car speakers than at home with my big speakers.

But it also depends on the sound, how the album was recorded: For example: In the morning hours I drove my car and heard Wayne Shorter's "All Seeing Eye". Now you know that's RVG sound, and Joe Chambers on drums, really nice I heard all the stuff he did, almost could feel how the sticks touch the cymbal, and all the drum gimmicks how he reacts differently to Freddie, to Wayne, to Herbie, how he "creates sound and rhythm".

Later in the evening I tried to listen to music at home and chose the "Red Clay" Freddie Hubbard stuff. It was much harder for me to hear Lennie White, and I mean HEAR what he does. But maybe that's also the producer's touch. In this case, allthough it's also done at the RVG Studio, it's a Creed Taylor production, and above all reissued on the japanese "King" label. I think, it was somehow "darker" recorded. Only when I went up with the treble, it got better for my tastes.

HeadPhones might be a solution, but as they say about Blakey. I have to feel it from the bottom also.

Well yeah, a good hearing aid costs a fortune, yesterday I talked to a friend (not musiclover but quite deaf and 15 years older than me) and he also said take the best one. You pay 2400 bucks and the health ensurance plays the other 1600 (800 for each ear they say). He told me it's worth it and I'd not be happy with a cheaper model, if I want to hear music also.

[Brad]

I haven't had to go to hearing aids but do suffer from tinnitus, which I've learned to do deal with over the years. The loss came due to an accumulation of colds over the years. Trying to listen to dinner talk in a noisy restaurant is not easy and I try to avoid noisy places.

[johnlitweiler]

The price of hearing aids is the problem. I need 'em but have been putting off a return visit to the audiologist. Starkey Hearing Foundation helps low-income people buy hearing aids but I found my income is borderline.

Does anybody know of any other foundations, etc. that help low-income folks?

John, check out this resource.

Thanks, Dan, there are good web sites listed there.

[Gheorghe]

Update: 

Still not thinkin about a hearing aid. 

My hearing never was really good, at least 20% were missing since I was born, and sure it is worse now, but no problems with hearing music. 

But I must admit I prefer live recordings to studio recordings, if it is older records, since then they didn´t know how to record a drum set. 

Modern studio recordings are better and one of my best musical friends made a studio record and it sounds great. 

But thinking about Blakey´s hearing problems some of it I can understand, most of all that you have to "feel" the music in your body. Maybe that´s why I always sit as near to the drums as possible, when I go out to listen to fellow musicians. If I don´t only hear it but feel it too, it´s pure happyness. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I've started to think about hearing aids. I went to a lot of extremely loud rock concerts in my teens & twenties and, sad to say, I sometimes left those shows with ringing ears. I stupidly didn't even think about hearing protection. My right ear is much worse than my left, so headphones aren't a great option for me. I also have tinnitus, which has begun to make sleep difficult. We use an air filter/fan as a white noise generator, which helps mask the ringing in my ears, but as my hearing continues to fade, hearing that fan has become a bit difficult.

[mikeweil]

You all should consult a doctor and get an accurate survey of your hearing deficiencies. It 's not just the volume that's reduced. With my ears, e.g. there is a loss of 20-30%  in the perception of high frequencies that makes it difficult to understand spoken language as I do not hear certain consonants any more, like "s" or "f", and no longer hear the overtones or the rings of cymbals etc. I know the music and what I do not hear anymore! At least without a hearing aid.

Gheorge - try a hearing aid - you might hear things you never heard before, like the ring of cymbals that you miss on recordings (although I agree with you that drums are too low in volume on most recordings). You simply cannot feel high frequencies in your body!

Hearing deficiencies develop slowly and you get used to them without noticing what you do not hear when you first hear a new recording. I thought my speakers were getting old until I got my hearing aid and all the treble was still there - I just couldn't hear it as well as before.

Edited January 16 by mikeweil

[Dan Gould]

I agree with Mike that consulting an audiologist is the best course, but in the States now, decent quality hearing aids are available "over the counter" (or seemingly mostly "over the internet").  A smart deregulation move IMO though they are not recommended for anything past "moderate" hearing loss.

An audiologist can also advise you on wax buildup that may need clearing before you get your ears checked.  My ears generate copious amounts of wax requiring (at the time) the application of OTC drops and flushing to help remove.

 

[sidewinder]

Wax removal by a specialist with one of those ultrasonic gizmos would be worth trying, IMO.

[Dan Gould]

51 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Wax removal by a specialist with one of those ultrasonic gizmos would be worth trying, IMO.

I don't know from ultrasonic gizmos.

My first hearing aid was with a chain-employed audiologist who was an insurance client. He used thin tweezers and it was quite an interesting sensation as clumps were puuulllllled away from the ear canal.  Second set was at a Sam's Club, same knowledgeable qualifications but they don't allow their audiologists to remove wax due to liability concerns. I used an over the counter droplet/flushing for a while and then discovered Walgreens walk-in clinics offer that service. It turned out to be some sort of nurse practitioner who used a water pic and a bowl I held under my ears to blast off the remainder. 

[mikeweil]

1 hour ago, sidewinder said:

Wax removal by a specialist with one of those ultrasonic gizmos would be worth trying, IMO.

That may or will result in improved hearing but will not show you any deficiencies compared to your hearing capacities at age twenty without suffering from rock concert PAs.

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

I agree with Mike that consulting an audiologist is the best course, but in the States now, decent quality hearing aids are available "over the counter" (or seemingly mostly "over the internet").  A smart deregulation move IMO though they are not recommended for anything past "moderate" hearing loss.

I tried one of those without satisfying  results. Modern hearing aids prescribed by a doctor and adjusted by an audiologist will be customized to improve your hearing in the frequency ranges affected - those intenet gadgets cannot do that.

Edited January 16 by mikeweil

[Dan Gould]

13 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

 

I tried one of those without satisfying  results. Modern hearing aids prescribed by a doctor and adjusted by an audiologist will be customized to improve your hearing in the frequency ranges affected - those intenet gadgets cannot do that.

Actually those internet gadgets with bluetooth connectivity do have the ability to customize by frequency at least by the commercials I see.  Whether to the extent of hearing aids that are marketed for retail sale give wider control, I do not know.  It's possible Mike that your hearing loss is past the ability of the OTC gadgets to help.

 

I am actually very curious if Bresna goes forward as our uncle on my wife's side has terrible tinnitus and says that his awful hearing will not be helped by amplifying that sound.  His wife, Sue's aunt, bought $150 online aids and is very happy with the effect.  They are of limited means and spending for high-level aids is pretty much out of the question.