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Confused Musical Presentation

Disclaimer!.... I have neurological auditory damage from exposure to military ordinance without hearing protection and therefore wear hearing aids. I have suffered a considerable amount of hearing loss above 3000Hz. The effect is similar to a treble tone control turned all the way down! However, I've been a music lover and audiophile since the early 80s and have enjoyed a lot of different systems over those years. My present system consists of Wilson Sophia 1, Quicksilver V4 (KT150), BAT 32SE, Cary DMC 600SE, and analog front end is driven by AVID Pulsus and ZYX 4D. Cables are Analysis Plus all around. I have minimal room treatment in 17 x 28 dedicated listening room. 

My  Problem: Listening to small group jazz (90%), typical audiophile fare, and solo instrumental and vocal music is simply breathtaking even at higher volume levels.  (My max on the volume is 80 out of 140 on BAT) No issues at all. However, when the music gets complicated/complex everything goes to crap! Soundstage collapses, music is jumbled together. There is the same effect even at moderate listening levels. Any suggestions to remedy this would be greatly appreciated.

Mike
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lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,396 posts
 
I doubt this is a case of hyperacusis. As a longtime sufferer, the symptoms are sensitivity to sound pressure levels resulting in pain. The OP, and myself, would not be able to continue listening to music once this condition kicks in.
With hyperacusis, the pain occurs when presented with loudness or high frequency spikes or transients. Due to the OP’s upper frequency hearing loss, now corrected by the use of hearing aids, this condition would be immediately apparent.

I suspect the room needs to be further treated to increase the focus in the midrange and improve the imaging. This is assuming the OP can hear this frequency range clearly.
And communique1...
Thank you for your service.


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communique1 OP
64 posts
 
One thing is absolutely true is that I CANNOT discern audible ques in a crowded environment! Which leads me to believe that I'm still in denial of the fact that no matter the quality of the hearing aids they WILL NEVER replace or be equal to natural hearing. I work very closely with my audiologist to tune my hearing aids to reproduce voices as naturally as possible. I also believe that I use some aural memory of how I remember reproduced music sounding prior to my hearing loss situation. In either case, its most likely a combination of the two. Considering that my hearing aids, if purchased by me at retail would be @ 10K for the pair, so they do a pretty good job taking everything into consideration.

By the way, I'm listening to some Anne Bissom and it's like she's in the room.  I'll keep trying to solve the problem. I'm due to get the next generation of hearing aids in December. I will say that with each generation, heaing does get better. 

And I was proud to serve...20 years...Go Airforce!
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,865 posts
 
You need an equalizer or comparable modern digital sound processor to compensate for the hearing issues.

All the old guys with old ears like me could probably benefit from one as well to be brutally honest. 🙄
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newbee
4,751 posts
 
Elizabeth, FYI higher end ear aids usually can have multiple programs to match your hearing. So they say. You can have a program for speach and for, say, live music.  But IMHO under the best of circumstances they are not going to give you audio nearly as good as you get from your home system. If I had the need I would use an equalizer to create a curve to match my hearing loss, but contrary to what you might think, I think it would be better to reduce  the bass/mid/upper mid's to match the natural loss of high(er) frequencies. I hate the thought of amplifying your system's sound using any equalizer (except some of those mega expensive ones). 
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