I got mine at Costco. Make sure you have a HIFi satting you can turn on when listening to your music. No it's not the same as good hearing, but is certainly an improvement.
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.
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I got my hearing aids through an HMO. They paid $3600 for the pair. There was an option for an improvement from Denmark for $1,800. I paid it. The hearing aids are the most important piece of my system. There was a discussion on the PS Audio chat with Paul McGowan. The hearing aids users felt pretty the same. The aids I have include four different levels of boost. I am using the weakest one. I have bought a Pass Labs XA 25 and a Denafrips DAC since being fitted. I would have no qualms about upgrading any part of my system. I know I cannot hear what younger audiophiles do, but when the alternative is silence, the decision to buy the best hearing aids available to me, was easy to make. |
+1 on Costco. I have high end Signia hearing aids. They are pretty good & MUCH better than the dull lifeless sound I hear without them. However their frequency range of any hearing aid is about 40-8khz I was looking for better alternatives for someone with hearing loss and stumbled on the ASI 3DME in-ear monitors on a a website called Grand Piano Passion AN OASIS FOR ADULT PIANO STUDENTS AND MUSICIANS WITH HEARING LOSS. They are designed for musicians, but maybe a good solution for audiophiles with hearing loss. They are analog, have 20-20KHz (although +/- not published) capability and a 7 band equalizer per channel, and are highly recommended by Grand Piano Passion as an alternative to hearing aids for music. |
The Costco Hearing Aids are refundable for months and cost around $1300. They aren’t perfect for music even with the HiFi setting . Upper frequencies get screechy. I can’t practice the piano wearing them and I choose not to use them while listening to my good system, although I leave them on for the third system which is mainly for video and background Internet Radio . Where they really help is for speech recognition and ambient clues. I have used them more for streaming lately-they aren’t as good as even Apple AirPods-but they did get noticeably better after an update last summer. You can’t lose financially with Costco, given the much lower price and the return policy. My recommendation is try them. Would 6K buds be better for music? My audiologist at the University of Chicago says no, but then most people don’t think that an expensive audio component is worth purchasing when cheaper alternatives exist. I haven’t sampled the higher priced buds and I don’t know how to go about doing that.
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I have been wearing hearing aids for a little over 4 years. My hearing changed and I updated my aids a couple of months ago. I got Phonak's top of the line hearing aids both times. The music setting gives me a more open sound than the other settings. I recommend going to an audiologist who will work with you until everything is tuned perfectly using real ear measurements. |
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