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Hearing aid question

Decades ago I at least thought of myself as a bit of a "Golden Ear"; my Quad ELS/Pyramid supertweeter combo and associated electronics were a source of pride and joy. (All gone over the years, alas.) In recent years I have learned that I have essentially lost the top three octaves of my auditory frequency response, whether through natural aging or some other process I'm not sure; I also have a fair bit of tinnitus at this stage, but that has proved less of an issue in being able to enjoy music. So now I've gone from enjoying the transparent reproduction of great music to struggling to resolve the sibilants in my wife's speech. (In the overall scheme of things, the latter is arguably more important, at least in maintaining peace at home.) I still very much enjoy listening to music, but the high-end losses have somewhat diminished the joy of it.

I am of course starting to think about taking the leap into hearing aids as a genuine quality-of-life enhancement. I was wondering if anyone out there has dealt with similar issues, and perhaps formed opinions about which of the many available solutions has worked best as both a general lifestyle aid and a boost to their enjoyment of live and recorded music. Many thanks in advance.

ericrhenry5488
signaforce's avatar
signaforce
169 posts
 

@rikkipuu 

@rcm1203 
I did buy the ASI IEM’s, and soon thereafter returned them. I found their overall sound and harmonics to be good to very good… except bass. My KEF R11’s, Rythmic F12SE’s and miniDSP are tuned beautifully. 
Most hearing aids (RIC) are ‘open air’ allowing our ears to hear without their assistance. My hearing loss (typical) is in the high end. I have no correction in the low end. 
With my open air hearing aids (top of line Signia’s), my systems bass sounds glorious & crisp with great harmonics. 
The IEM’s close off your ears, so you are relying solely on the internal IEM speakers. The bass is there, but much less crisp… almost dull. As an aside, I have small ear canals, and found the ASI’s to be uncomfortable. YMMV

My be worth a try as they are an easy return. 

signaforce's avatar
signaforce
169 posts
 

BTW, piano music sounded wonderful. I can see why the Grand Piano review loved them. 

larsman's avatar
larsman
1,906 posts
 

My hearing loss is in the top end, too, and I've always worn custom ear molds that are not 'open ear'; there may be 'open ear' custom molds available, but I've not seen them. Domes, on the other hand, usually have openings for air and room sound to get through.

If I could hear well without my hearing aids' assistance, I'd save myself a good bit of coin and not buy them. 

rikkipuu's avatar
rikkipuu
268 posts
 

@signaforce 

Thanks you saved me some time and money.  I did not like the feel or the sound of the IEM's vs open ear RIC's. 

I suspect there will never be a market for audiophile hearing aids and if a market ever develops it will take many years for the market to evolve and produce a decent product like it did with DAC's.

And, as I have a floor-standing ribbon tweeter speaker and a tube front end and a tube DAC it seems wrong to take that glorious sound and convert it to non-discrete solid state and run it thru I 1-2 mm speaker.

unreceivedogma's avatar
unreceivedogma
963 posts
 

I have pretty bad tinnitus, caused by cervical stenosis and arthritis in my jaw, but the severity comes and goes. At the same time, I have only very mild hearing loss, somewhat better hearing than normal level for my age. So for now, I just dial up the high end on the speaker crossovers, when needed.

I did audition a $6,000 pair of hearing aids. They sounded awful.

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