Hearing aids question(s)

[Larry Kart]

About six years ago I discovered I had significant upper register hearing loss and was led to buy top of the line Siemens hearing aids, which had three different built-in programs/settings -- so-called universal (i.e. normal speech), noisy places, and music. Noisy places works by narrowing the sonic information from 360 degrees to what's right in front of you, music works by boosting bass and treble -- each program being fitted, via a computer chip, to compensate as much as possible to the pattern of your individual hearing loss. My old hearing aids aren't working so well any more, especially when it comes to normal speech (I'd been told when I bought the aids that six years or so was their normal life span) so I went to an audiologist who tested my hearing anew and gave me a demo model of the new top of the line Siemens aids to try out, these having been programmed to the current pattern of my hearing loss. Pleased to find that I could hear normal speech much better with these new aids, I was dismayed and also bewildered to discover that the music setting was just awful -- much less frequency response than before, soundstage had shrunk significantly, no "air" around the sound, etc. By comparison, the music setting on my old Siemens aids continues to be excellent.

How, I wonder, could the personalized programs on these new aids be so good for speech and so bad for music, especially when the speech program on my old Siemens aids no longer fills the bill at all, while its music program remains excellent? Could Siemens, for some damn reason, have changed the nature or style of their music program to suit some generic idea of how most people listen to music -- from, say, a relatively "audiophile" approach to one that's like a mediocre car radio? Sounds that way to me.

Anyone have any thoughts or advice? 

[JSngry]

I think everything's mixed for phone-quality audio these days.

LOL, sorta.

[Dan Gould]

Larry,

I was fortunate to have employers who valued my work enough to offer to pay 1/2 for hearing aids 4.5 years ago. I'd never considered them before although I had hearing loss from the age of 6 due to a childhood disease. Made such a difference in quality of life as I am sure you realized yourself. Now I live in fear that they will break down/fail and as of a year ago they stopped offering an extended warranty on them.  I don't know how I'd come up with the money to replace them - these were about $5K list price

I also have a Siemens model with the multiple programmable settings but the one I used to use for "music" wasn't even presented to me as being designed that way. It was basically programmed as the same pattern as for speech, just *louder*. I really only used it if I wanted hear someone whispering across the room, make sure they weren't talking about me.

Anyway - I am very confused as to why, if your units are reaching the end of their useful life, the speech setting would sound poor but the music setting would still sound good.  Did they first program the current aids to your current pattern of hearing loss?  I strongly suspect that they are trying to sell you on a new set that you don't need yet, it sounds to me like you only need a corrected program setting for speech on the current aids.

When the current aids fail completely you may be stuck with getting new ones that aren't so hot on the music setting.  Or you may want to look into repair of the current ones, check out this NYT article:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-hunt-for-an-affordable-hearing-aid/

[Larry Kart]

Thanks, Dan -- I'n very confused too. Yes, the audiologist did  first program the old aids, as well as the new demo aids, to my current pattern of hearing loss. Spoke to the audiologist just now, and she said that she had spoken to the Seimens rep and that he said that the algorithms for the music program in the old model and and the new aids are not significantly different, but that there are ways to alter or tweak the settings for the new aids' music program that should (one hopes) bring it into line with the settings for (and quality of -- as I perceive it) the old aids' music program.

What I hear  on the new aids' music program sounds like some form of clipping or limiting is at work there -- again, squished sound stage and frequency response, almost no "air" around  the sound. Not what I want at all, and not what I had/have in my old Siemen aids' music program. If clipping or limiting is afoot, maybe that was introduced to the new aids' music program in attempt to protect geezers from feedback and  other potential forms of sonic overload. If so, one can understand why, from a corporate perspective, geezers would rule, because the majority of their customers probably are geezers. I qualify as one by age, but not otherwise.

[Dan Gould]

Were you using the music setting for listening at home or only live gigs? Maybe you should plan to keep the old ones as long as they still sound good.

[Larry Kart]

At home and at live gigs, though sometimes the amplification at the latter is such that the normal setting sounds better.

I'm going back to the audiologist this afternoon for some adjustments/tweaks. I'll bring my old aids along and see if we can get the old and new music programs to match. Can't bring my sound system and some CDs along, but I can call up some music on YouTube on her office computer and probably A/B the old and new aids to a reasonable degree. At least the audiologist seems very simpatico so far -- eager to get things right, willing to spend time on the problem, fairly certain that the problem can be solved. Most important, perhaps, she seems to understand what I'm saying about the subjective realities of listening to music.

[medjuck]

I suspect that this is a thread I should archive and will need to consult in a couple of years. 

[JSngry]

Along the "gonna need it later" line, growing up, I always heard (no pun intended) that Beltone was the shit. Is that no longer the case, is it Siemanes now?

[Dan Gould]

I suspect that this is a thread I should archive and will need to consult in a couple of years. 

I think I'd just bookmark the NYT link I added but I'm sure Larry and I would be happy to answer questions when you have them.

Along the "gonna need it later" line, growing up, I always heard (no pun intended) that Beltone was the shit. Is that no longer the case, is it Siemanes now?

No idea, I ended up at a Hear USA office because the head audiologist was a client of the agency and agreed to offer me a 'deal' and they happen to deal in Siemens aids.

[Matthew]

Along the "gonna need it later" line, growing up, I always heard (no pun intended) that Beltone was the shit. Is that no longer the case, is it Siemanes now?

Yeah, Siemanes are good, that's what I use also, though, when I want to listen to music, I do take them out -- music doesn't "sound" right with hearing aids.

[Larry Kart]

Pretty sure the adjustment/tweak worked. The audiologist noticed that on my old aids the db level of the music program was set several dbs higher than the level of the normal speech program. She adjusted the new aids' music program accordingly, and I then A/B'ed the results with my old aids' music program, listening in her office to some stuff on You Tube. At first the new aids' program was too "hot" compared to the old aids' program (though there was plenty of "bloom" on the sound now), but eventually, adjusting the new programs' db level downwards one db at a time, we got them to pretty much match. At home listening has confirmed that judgment so far, though I might eventually want her to take the db level one further notch downwards. In any case, I'm in the ballpark now, thanks be. Now I just have to pay for the suckers.

[Dan Gould]

I hesitate to ask what "top of the line" Siemens now run and of course if you don't want to post it you could always PM me.  My real problem is that the audiologist/client who gave me a deal is now out of the biz entirely after like, 30 years, so I got no one to help out on the other side of the desk when mine start to go.