Easily the best and most significant sonic tweak one could ever make!


Well hearing aids of course (if you need them and many don’t realize they do). I was diagnosed with asymmetrical hearing loss in my right ear over a year ago at only age 52. Entirely in the upper frequency. (As hearing loss per my ENT is almost always symmetrical, the protocol for this unusual diagnosis is a MRI brain scan to rule out a tumor; thank God everything was normal there).

Anyway, while expensive (partially covered by Insurance in most plans in the States), the different listening to music is in absolute terms startling. The proverbial veil is wayyyyy lifted particularly on lyrics but really the whole presentation is improved from the midrange thru to the top registers.

Keep this in mind before upgrading your electronics or speakers and perhaps instead upgrade the most critical precision instrument....your ears! I share this and if it helps one member on here, well that would be really great.
aj523
Due to injury suffered in the military, nerve damage, I have used HA (Both ears - diminished hearing @ 3k hz dropping drastically above that) since 2004. Compliments of the VA, who get an undeserved bad rap, the benefit has been like removing a hand from in front of your mouth to reveal an openness that I really didn't realize was missing. What I found myself doing prior to the HA was getting brighter speakers/components to compensate.

Now, working closely with my audiologist who equalizes the sound according to my wishes and not applying an exact reverse compensation that my testing reveals combined with getting open HA so low frequencies are not amplified, I can again enjoy my music played through my not-insubstantial audio investment. When I first got HA they adjusted to a reverse curve, but this was always way too bright. 

The key to my current satisfaction is admitting that...I WILL NEVER regain the acuity/sensitivity of my natural hearing, a thought that depressed me because of my love of music. My hearing continues to deteriorate and I get new HA every few years (due to covid the VA is not seeing patients with partial hearing loss), so I'll enjoy as much and as long I can. 

On a more positive note, I seem to suffer less when listening through headphones...my last move until giving up completely and giving the rig to one of my kids!
Another extremely satisfied Oticon user. I put off getting a hearing aid to correct high freq loss in one ear, because I thought it would distort music. Boy was I wrong. Now I don’t seriously listen to music without them.
The Oticons are a tiny computer that dymanically ajusts frequency response in response to sounds in the environment. It won’t boost background noise, but just fills in your hearing gaps when directed voice or music sounds occur.
Very, very sofisticated software. Expensive, but cheaper than high end electronics.
Avoid cheap sound booster types. Nowhere near as effective as a state of the art hearing aid - about $7k three years ago.
@sokogear. Agree not a tweak, that was a creative way in doing my part to get a majority of the members to click on the post!
The sound quality of hearing aids are hindered mostly by the poor performance of the little microphones. I find that if I insert the earpieces gently, the domes allow more sound to enter with proper phasing from my speakers for a more natural presentation



An earlier response suggested blowing the nose before listening.   As you've probably experienced when changing altitudes, such as when flying, changes in the inner ear pressure can dramatically affect hearing.  If you are prone to nasal congestion due to allergies or whatever, as I am, making an effort to pop the ears (equalize the inner ear pressure with the pressure outside the ear) can spare you from assuming your system has gotten out of sync.  More than once I've tweaked when I didn't need to, but now know better.
If you live in a state where it's legal, consider trying a small dose of edible THC and see what it does for your hearing.  I retired from the service after 28 years and stayed away from that stuff.  Not worth loss of a pension!  A little careful experimentation since retiring determined that a tiny dose (2.5 mg) of THC made my hearing feel like I remember it from my childhood.  It was like a $100K upgrade to my system.  My neurologist had no plausible medical explanation.  I'm in my mid 70s and I suspect that over time, my brain has made some maladaptions that prevent me from hearing as clearly as my ears are physically capable of performing.  My audiograms are quite good for age with equal roll off at the highest test frequencies, but no low or mid losses.  The golden lining for me was that in finding that my hearing was more intact than I thought, I was apparently able to "retrain" my brain to hear the missing sound qualities without the need for being stoned.  Perhaps some support for my amateur theory is that friends with true degenerative hearing loss find no audio benefit from the THC.  I'm in the medical profession and on the conservative end of the scale when it comes to drug use.  I'm somewhat hesitant to put this out there but thought it was worth any flak I get for it if any of you are fortunate enough to have the same experience I did. Great listening sure helps with pandemic isolation.  One further suggestion - DO NOT try to tune your system when you are under the influence.