Hearing aid a help?

[rostasi]

I'm well into my 7th decade on this planet and thinking that if I ever feel the need to get a hearing aid, is there some disadvantage from just going to Costco and signing up for their plan for regular maintenance, etc? I'm not at that point yet (according to a couple of audiologists, my high frequency hearing is, apparently, extremely good for my age at a bit over 15Kh), but I figure I should start getting ready for that time.

[Dan Gould]

I think everyone promises "regular" maintenance? I do my own cleaning of mine but I know I could stop in at Sam's and have them cleaned up and you continue to get free testing and adjustments.  The one thing I make sure to get is extended warranty on purchase. I basically have two sets now with the same settings so if the newest ones that I use regularly break down I have backups and don't have to suffer in unenhanced silence.

[rostasi]

OK, that's good to know. I thought that I read that some of these stores will provide some services that are more personal - like the EQ adjustments that Kevin was talking about - than some audiologists who have a set method that's not as personally directed.

[JSngry]

I would call or visit Costco directly to see what they do.

Just remember - most "hearing centers" are aligned with certain brands, not totally unlike a fast food franchise. So if you want an objectivity you can trust, get your initial testing done at a medical unit and then go from there to find both people and product that you feel good about working with.

The audiologist I use will indeed do periodic testing and make EQ adjust ents, but I bought a product that allows for that.

[rostasi]

I'll keep all of that in mind for when the time comes.
It was only piecemeal bits of info that I came across,
so I haven't done any real research, so I don't really
know what I'm talking about, so there's that. 😄

[Peter Friedman]

After reading this thread for a while I decided to add my 2 cents.

Just over a year ago I went to Costco and got Jabra Enhance pro Hearing Aids. They seem to be working fine, but there is one problem. They get cloggled with earwax frequently. 

The positive part is that I can take them in to Costco and get them cleaned while I wait, and there is no charge. Nonetheless, it is frustrating that it seems as if they become clogged every couple of months which requires me to have to drive to Costco and have them cleaned out.

[JSngry]

Earwax is real!

[Gheorghe]

15 hours ago, mikeweil said:

You should seriously consider trying a hearing aid. Mine mostly just boost up the high frequencies because that is where my hearing is impaired. I have a gig coming up (my first in many years) accompanying a pianist/singer/songwriter, just playing a snare drum with brushes in half of the pieces, which I simply would not hear properly without hearing aids. Your remarks about how you perceive the drum sounds tells of a serious bias in that respect.

Then....your hearing must be much worse than mine, because if I play a gig I hear everything the drummer plays. Dusan Novakov is a great and powerful drummer, as is Mario Gonzi with whom I also had played some concerts two years ago....(you find  ´em both on wikipedia). 
If I listen to a record, okay if it´s a live record I feel better, because those always have better drum sound. 
If it´s a studio record, I´d listen to it with headphones. 
 

Until now I didn´t have the impression that my weak hearing impaired my active makin´ music. 
I have difficulties if someone talks and there is noise from "Pressluftbohrer" or something like that, or if there is many voices, but I am not in the situation where I HAVE to hear anything that´s spoken...

Last time we wrote each other you told me you got no time to listen to my album since you doin 18th century stuff, but now, would you please listen to it, it has a dream team of drums - percussion, and your opinion of the music would count for me.

[mikeweil]

8 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Then....your hearing must be much worse than mine, because if I play a gig I hear everything the drummer plays.

I have only 15 % hearing loss in the high frequency range. How much is yours? Did you ever have an examination?

You are hearing what you beleive to be everything. Well, he is a powerful drummer as you say. Does he have any loss or why is he playing loud? Can you play softly and still hear "everything"? The changes come slowly, so you don't notice. Simple tests: Do you understand someone whispering`Do you hear it when you rub your fingers besides your ear? Watcch out and have an ear ewxamination. Playing louder may be not good for your fellow musicians or the audience. 

Records have a drumsound different from live situations, not necessarily a better one. But I agree that drums are almost always too low in the mix in studio recordings.

Edited October 23 by mikeweil

[Peter Friedman]

I wear my hearing aids when hearing live music, and when out of the home visiting friends or in a restaurant.

At home I only wear my hearing aids when watching TV with my wife in the larger room . In the other smaller room, I often am watching TV alone and wear good quality headphones to watch TV.

When listening to recorded music at home with my very good sound system I prefer to not wear hearing aids as I can set the volume just right for my listening preference. Sometimes early in the morning or late at night when my wife is sleeping I wear headphones listening to music so as to not disturb her. 

[Gheorghe]

15 hours ago, mikeweil said:

I have only 15 % hearing loss in the high frequency range. How much is yours? Did you ever have an examination?

You are hearing what you beleive to be everything. Well, he is a powerful drummer as you say. Does he have any loss or why is he playing loud? Can you play softly and still hear "everything"? The changes come slowly, so you don't notice. Simple tests: Do you understand someone whispering`Do you hear it when you rub your fingers besides your ear? Watcch out and have an ear ewxamination. Playing louder may be not good for your fellow musicians or the audience. 

Records have a drumsound different from live situations, not necessarily a better one. But I agree that drums are almost always too low in the mix in studio recordings.

My hearing was a mess since I was born it seems. When I was about 8 or so, some young doctor (orelist, or how you say for ear doctor ? ) because he wanted to exame highly talented kids (me ! ) who have perfect pitch, and by examinating me he discovered that I have 20% hear loss. 
Then at high school there was an asshole doftor who made that test if I hear whispering which I plainly told him I wouldnt even try it because I never had understood if someone is whisperin. Then he made a lot of "tam tam" din asta and of course I didn´t pay no heed. 

Well at the Army, when I tried to get inapt for military service because I pretended I don´t hear well and had a certificat medical with me I was told I don´t have to worry, the trainers in the Army are yellin´ as hard that even if I´d be completly deaf I might hear it. 

Well, 47 years ago. Sure my hearing didn´t get better and sure I made them tests. 
 

But I never heard that playing louder is not good for fellow musicians or audience. Man, that´s jazz, and it is not "chamber jazz" like ECM music. People who want to hear some hot music, they know it is not a Mozard string quintet or what it is, it is jazz .....

Maybe, independent from Art Blakey whom I admire, but don´t have nothin common with him and he was a genius and I am a little Scheißer...., it seems that I always had thought like him, a bit stubborn, a bit "Wildfang", even before I got to know who he is...... He also didn´t wear hearin aids.

As for people, I like women, but anyway the kind of women I have liked always had some deeper, smokey voices that I can hear well.....you know "femeia fatală” (fatal woman) 😄

[Brad]

The Oticons have what is called a speaker; it’s right before the tip that goes in your ear. You need to change them every ten days or so as they get filled with wax but this doesn’t entail a visit to your audiologist or Costco or wherever and they are quite inexpensive. 

[JSngry]

Blakey wore hearing aids at the end, and was damn near deaf without them 

[Gheorghe]

17 hours ago, JSngry said:

Blakey wore hearing aids at the end, and was damn near deaf without them 

I saw him with a hearing aid in 1980, but not while playing, it was before the gig. 

I have heard, that he didn´t use hearing aids on stage even when he was near deaf, because when you play you perspire a lot and that causes damage to expensive hearing aids. 

Well I understand what Blakey was saying he "heard" from the vibrations on stage. 

If I go to listen to someones concert I always make sure to sit as near to the drummer as possible, and it gives me just a sensation of extreme well-feeling, if I not only hear the drum solos, but feel them in my body.  Thats such a pleasant feeling. 

As @mikeweil said, that bad hearing may impair also certain musical abilities: Sure ! But it depends on the music you play. If I´d have a fiddle player and he goes up into hi notes, well maybe I won´t hear them. If it is more kinda chamber jazz of the more western intellectual manner (maybe ECM stuff) and things maybe without drums done in pianissimo, you won´t be able to do it with bad hearing. But the usual jazz that most people want to hear to groove, like the Jazz-Messengers was, does not need extreme good hearing......

[rostasi]

Quote from a newsletter I get: "This Week in Sound"

Quote

The Ears Have IT

Everyday consumer devices are the new hearing aids

Restaurants are getting noisier, and the noise gets harder for people to deal with as they age. Both those things are true, and they combine to make the situation even worse. Fortunately, in the wake of revised FDA regulations back in 2022, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids are becoming available, dropping the price significantly (from the thousands of dollars to the hundreds), and increasing innovation in the marketplace. 

The new hearing health tools in Apple’s AirPods became the FDA’s first authorized OTC hearing aid software device, as announced last month. Without that regulation change, the situation would not have improved as quickly as it has. 

As Chris Welch reports in the Verge, the initial trio of Apple featues includes “clinical-grade hearing aid functionality, a hearing test, and more robust hearing protection.”

Rebecca Hamilton at Slate reports on the scale of need: “[J]ust 16 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 69 years who would benefit from hearing aids ever use them. Some 20 million go without.”

Pete Wells in the New York Times notes a particular use case that predates the hearing health additions: “What you may not know is that the AirPods Pro 2 already come with a setting that can turn up the volume on the voices of people you’re talking to and another one that tamps down background noise. Other earbud makers, including Sony, Samsung, Beyerdynamic and Soundcore, also offer functions meant to make conversation easier in noisy places.” Wells was a long time restaurant critic, so if anyone knows something about noisy rooms, it’s him.

Technology will help, but a major next step is going to require changes to cultural norms. Right now, AirPods and earbuds in general send a visual signal of isolation, that someone is paying attention to something other than the world around them. We’ll need to get comfortable sitting across from someone and not take the presence of their earbuds as a physical indication that they aren’t paying attention to us. No one sees a traditional hearing aid in someone’s ear and thinks they’ve checked out of the conversation, quite the contrary.

Related stories on the topic of things we put in our ears:

▰ Up to 11: For some with extreme hearing loss, the answer in the future may be an SCBI, or “spinal computer–brain interface,” which can “effectively convert sound into interpretable spinal cord stimulation patterns, offering a novel approach to sensory substitution for individuals with hearing loss.”

▰ Fungus Among Us: Mycelium is a fungus with manufacturing utility and reported antibiotic properties. Also, the fungus is the sole ingredient in a brand of earplugs made by Gob (gob.earth), a company based in San Francisco. “The result is a hypoallergenic earplug with a secure fit that moulds to the ear with a similar action as memory foam,” writes Ellen Eberhardt in Dezeen. The makers claim certain unique qualities: “Unlike traditional foam earplugs, which can muffle certain frequencies, our mycelium-based earplugs provide superior sound absorption while maintaining clarity and comfort.” 

▰ Ear Ache: A conservative political commentator was involved in a recent humorous kerfuffle. He reportedly attended a sports event wearing earplugs, and later was accused of editing the plug out of a selfie. Reminder: the year is 2024, and everything is political, including the perceived manliness of hearing protection.

▰ Say What?: “[Researchers] have found those who experience hearing loss are more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease later on. … But if hearing aids are prescribed right off the bat, the risk of diagnosis appears significantly dampened.” The chart below is from the latest issue of JAMA Neurology, published by the American Medical Association.