Any Audiophiles Here Have Experience with Hearing Aids?

As long as what you hear makes you happy!

This is a great topic. Hearing loss or impairment and hearing aids are often a very overlooked and misunderstood topic as it relates to high fidelity and the audiophile experience. I have heard people say that hearing aids don’t help the hearing impaired enjoy listening to music on a stereo for various reasons. This has never made sense to me since I feel that much like room treatments.... addressing the most important piece of audio equipment, one’s ears , is of first order importance. How can anyone with hearing loss or hearing impairment evaluate any piece of audio equipment in the hifi chain without first fixing the problem of hearing well?

I have hearing loss and tinnitus and wear hearing aids. I don’t know how I could ever go back to listening to my stereo system without them. It’s like not wearing your glasses and trying to see clearly.... it can’t be done. Once I saw a professional audiologist and got tested, it was identified which segment or band of the frequency spectrum I was NOT hearing well and I was able to get hearing aids adjusted to my needs. It’s a game changer.

@2psyop, thanks for the response.  I have to admit that it seems counterintuitive that hearing aids would make a system actually sound better, given that there is no way that that little miniaturized amplifier could have anywhere near the fidelity of a high end system.  I would think that the little amplifier in the hearing aids would actually introduce a lot of distortion in what one would hear as far as music goes.  in addition, it seems light one is introducing a little amplifier that will introduce distortion throughout the frequency range, and cut down on intangibles like soundstage, etc.  On the other hand, I can imagine that if the hearing aid just boosts the missing or reduced frequencies in order to correct the frequency response of one's ear, I suppose that it is enhancing frequencies that one would otherwise not hear and therefore, perhaps the distortion effect may not be as significant.  How has it affected your tinnitus?

moto-man

I can speak of my experiences.. understanding others might have a different one and some may be much more skeptical about the therapeutic value of hearing aids.

When I got my first pair of ReSound hearing aids from the VA some 7 years ago they were calibrated and tailored to my hearing loss. After leaving the fitting area and going to my car I had reached for a bag of potato chips on the passenger seat and heard clearly the crinkle of the plastic bag the chips were in. Recently I updated my hearing aids to Resound Nexia and upon putting on my Goretex jacket I heard the crinkle of the jacket (which sounds like a paper bag being smashed down) When I got home I decided to listen to the TV in my living room and I had heard the faint beep of my refrigerator alarm in the kitchen which tells me I didn’t fully close the door. These are sounds I was not hearing. The sounds that fall within the frequency range I happen to have a deficiency in. Later when I listened to music on my stereo, I was hearing sounds I had not been hearing (for who knows how long). I don’t really think about hearing aid amplifier distortion, I think about re-listening to music and hearing all that is there... that I have been missing.

@2psyop, I just had my audiogram yesterday and although my hearing has stabilized since last year, I am down 70 dB below 125 hz, which my ENT categorized as moderate to severe hearing loss and although I have no problem with recognizing speech, he said that a hearing aid, properly calibrated, will boost the low end and the high end.  I will try one out and see what happens.  I'll probably go for the Widex, which seems to be a popular choice for us aging audiophiles!