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Speakers for high-frequency hearing loss

crouse said:
Do you find listening with the hearing aids to be natural sounding?
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Reasonably so...but, then, I've suffered with hearing loss for so long now(along with 2K Tinnitus), that I no longer can relate to "natural sound".

Barrac lives a few miles from me, and we get together to listen to music and system upgrades.
After I recapped my AMT-4's, he heard a much greater change in their HF response then I did.

My Phonaks have a music setting that compresses the HF so I can hear higher frequencies. The new ones have the "speaker" in the ear, instead of sending the sound down a plastic tube into an ear mold. This gives me a slight improvement in sound quality.

Both sets have open ear pieces...a small tunnel is molded into the earpiece to connect to the outside. this eliminates the stuffed ear syndrome and makes for more natural sound.
 
crouse said:
It may be a poor band-aid, but if what I read about hearing aids is an indication, changing your system may well be a better band-aid than hearing aids for listening to music. Perhaps someone will jump in with suggestions for hearing aids that actually perform well in the upper frequencies of music and not just in the conversational range. I would love to know that they are out there. If they are, I'll start saving up. I should also point out that I don't yet have any problems hearing and understanding spoken speech, thus my interest in audio solutions for higher frequency loss.
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Alas...just about all hearing aids are "lo-fi"..even those in the $6-8K range, top out at about 8KHz.:tears:
 
crouse said:
Do you find listening with the hearing aids to be natural sounding?
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What is natural sounding? For the rest of your life it will just be whatever is hitting your eardrum, with a hearing aid between you and the outside world. It becomes a cruel awakening to have a device with a 100Hz-5KHz response at say 0.5%-1% THD between your head and a $20K audio system. I know, my hearing is very bad but it has drifted down over a long period of time so it isn't a shock to know I cannot hear the tweeter of any three-way speaker. I just enjoy what I hear.
 
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Harvey/ Ga said:
Reasonably so...but, then, I've suffered with hearing loss for so long now(along with 2K Tinnitus), that I no longer can relate to "natural sound".

Barrac lives a few miles from me, and we get together to listen to music and system upgrades.
After I recapped my AMT-4's, he heard a much greater change in their HF response then I did.

My Phonaks have a music setting that compresses the HF so I can hear higher frequencies. The new ones have the "speaker" in the ear, instead of sending the sound down a plastic tube into an ear mold. This gives me a slight improvement in sound quality.

Both sets have open ear pieces...a small tunnel is molded into the earpiece to connect to the outside. this eliminates the stuffed ear syndrome and makes for more natural sound.
Click to expand...
I have very poor hearing. I am not an audiologist but if you have an inner ear loss there is no "plateau," the ear's sensitivity to high frequencies just keeps going down forever (frequency wise). Adding a hearing aid brings up some of the "lower" high frequencies, enough to handle speech. The big problem is recruitment. If your aid is supplying 40 dB of gain at, say, 5KHz, your three middle ear bones are receiving a 40 dB louder signal than the next guy and the signal is 40dB closer to the threshold of pain. When the volume is turned up for the sound to get clearer, you hit the threshold of pain, about 120dB, and your ears will hurt after 5-10 minutes. You don't notice it at first.
 
crouse said:
It may be a poor band-aid, but if what I read about hearing aids is an indication, changing your system may well be a better band-aid than hearing aids for listening to music. Perhaps someone will jump in with suggestions for hearing aids that actually perform well in the upper frequencies of music and not just in the conversational range. I would love to know that they are out there. If they are, I'll start saving up. I should also point out that I don't yet have any problems hearing and understanding spoken speech, thus my interest in audio solutions for higher frequency loss.
Click to expand...

From what I've been led to believe, there is considerable variation in the quality and efficacy of hearing aids. I been told (by my ENT MD) the good ones (digital, custom made and configured) work quite well. Unfortunately, good means high priced.

Hearing aids are just another item where the good stuff isn't cheap.
 
Maybe what's needed is something to cut thru anything. I recently read a thread about Klipsch La Scalas and from what many members in that thread posted those things have the capability to wake up a dead mans ears.
 
shacky said:
Mine were $6K :yikes:

Fortunately my insurance coverage was extremely good covering most of it :thmbsp:
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Dayum! I know I also have some hi frequency hearing loss like most of us. Maybe caused by listening to head phones way too loud, dance clubs,k house parties and concerts in my yout! I also had a lot of ear aches when I was a kid. I remember taking hearing tests but have no idea what the results were.

In a bar that's fairly loud, I have a difficult time hearing the person next to me speaking. Sucks for sure.

I'm not at the point of having to wear hearing aids, but I bet in the next 10 years or so I will. Hopefully by then, the technology will be so much better and an aid will be more like restoring your hearing like when you were young.
 
Noisy bar/restaurant the toughest for me too. hearing aides try to adjust but they still end up amplifying everything. I was on the edge of benefit from aides but with my coverage I figured I better get them before it changes.

My wife likes it when I wear them.
 
shacky said:
Noisy bar/restaurant the toughest for me too. hearing aides try to adjust but they still end up amplifying everything. I was on the edge of benefit from aides but with my coverage I figured I better get them before it changes.

My wife likes it when I wear them.
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She can't accuse you of selective hearing huh? I thought that was a male genetic deficiency!
 
I have tinnitus and a HF cutoff at 8KHz. My tinnitus is always there (constant ringing) but it gets better and worse. I can sometimes hear discrete tones start and stop in one of my ears. Believe it or not, my favorite kind of black Chinese tea (Dian Hong) definitely makes my ears ring more. So does turbulence so I wear ear plugs riding a bicycle or motorcycle.

That said, I do hear differences in speakers and source quality. I find that my hearing is pretty variable. Sometimes louder music definitely overdrives my ears and I hear distortion, particularly in vocals. If I turn it down a bit the distortion drops a lot or goes away. Audiodon has a theory that we need to "warm up" our ears by listening for 15 minutes at low volume first before turning it up. I think he's right.

I mostly use Marantz 22xx receivers and ADS speakers. Those sound good to me. Adding my Grant Fidelity TubeDAC-11 into the chain or using my Fisher KX-100 tube amp make the music sound nicer to my ears. I think I'm getting a pair of mid-50s Altecs soon and will be interested in how they sound to me. Smooth is good as far as I'm concerned but I agree with an earlier poster that you do need a system that's good to at least 12K to make the music sound good even if you can't hear all of that.
 
If you need hearing aids, consider looking at Costco...hey actually have audiologists there and you can get pretty impressive hearing aids for 600 - 1k per ear. I'll bet they are comparable to the 7k phonacs a quack tried to sell me. I need hearing aids, but have too much gear to buy first!
 
jlovda said:
I have very poor hearing. I am not an audiologist but if you have an inner ear loss there is no "plateau," the ear's sensitivity to high frequencies just keeps going down forever (frequency wise). Adding a hearing aid brings up some of the "lower" high frequencies, enough to handle speech******

This I understand from 30 years of hearing loss

*****. The big problem is recruitment. If your aid is supplying 40 dB of gain at, say, 5KHz, your three middle ear bones are receiving a 40 dB louder signal than the next guy and the signal is 40dB closer to the threshold of pain. When the volume is turned up for the sound to get clearer, you hit the threshold of pain, about 120dB, and your ears will hurt after 5-10 minutes. You don't notice it at first.
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******

Not sure if I follow here. My hearing aids have a volume control. If I'm listening with a "normal" person, I adjust the system's sound for him and the hearing aid's volume for me. Unless we're listening to low volume background music, the system volume is good enough for me to enjoy as well. I may not hear the high's over 10K, but the brain has a way of filling in.:yes:
 
Harvey/ Ga said:
******

Not sure if I follow here. My hearing aids have a volume control. If I'm listening with a "normal" person, I adjust the system's sound for him and the hearing aid's volume for me. Unless we're listening to low volume background music, the system volume is good enough for me to enjoy as well. I may not hear the high's over 10K, but the brain has a way of filling in.:yes:
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I was just saying that at any frequency you pick, your hearing aid is providing xdB of gain so your middle ear is xdB closer to the threshold of pain than if there was no hearing aid. Usually, the higher you crank up the volume, the better the music sounds because the high end is boosted. There is a chance you will have reached the threshold of pain and not realized it for a few minutes. You risk the possibility of damaging your middle ear.
 
jlovda said:
I was just saying that at any frequency you pick, your hearing aid is providing xdB of gain so your middle ear is xdB closer to the threshold of pain than if there was no hearing aid. Usually, the higher you crank up the volume, the better the music sounds because the high end is boosted. There is a chance you will have reached the threshold of pain and not realized it for a few minutes. You risk the possibility of damaging your middle ear.
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Gotcha:thmbsp:
 
GD70 said:
Dayum! I know I also have some hi frequency hearing loss like most of us. Maybe caused by listening to head phones way too loud, dance clubs,k house parties and concerts in my yout! I also had a lot of ear aches when I was a kid. I remember taking hearing tests but have no idea what the results were.

In a bar that's fairly loud, I have a difficult time hearing the person next to me speaking. Sucks for sure.

I'm not at the point of having to wear hearing aids, but I bet in the next 10 years or so I will. Hopefully by then, the technology will be so much better and an aid will be more like restoring your hearing like when you were young.
Click to expand...

Maybe by then they'll just be doing ear transplants and that sort of thing. Remember that movie where the guy gets a double eye-transplant and then starts seeing all kinds of crazy s**t, like murders that are about to happen, or something like that? Imagine the same thing, except with ears...
 
Ken Boyd said:
Maybe what's needed is something to cut thru anything. I recently read a thread about Klipsch La Scalas and from what many members in that thread posted those things have the capability to wake up a dead mans ears.
Click to expand...

Like a bandsaw... :smoke:
 
Hearing aids don't fix everything but they will make music sound better in most cases that I am aware of. Note: I said "better" not perfect!! Mine have a small remote control that I can use to change the volume level and program ( "everyday", "noisy", "music" etc.) or I can just click the buttons on the aids so they are pretty versatile.

The problem is the cost !!! VA and good insurance plans are the key. Mine were $4K and they are middle of the road units. Insurance paid for most of mine.
The hearing loss was so gradual that I would never have gotten them if my wife had not forced the issue when she got tired of me saying "What ??" all the time.

I have a nice set of CV D-9's in the garage. I can run them pretty loud and enjoy the music but I don't think the aids would like it if I really cranked the volume up; but pretty loud is better than nothing I think.

If you think you have hearing loss at least get tested to see how bad it is. One added bonus from my aids was that my tinnitus was cut by 2/3 !!!
 
Regarding efficient speakers, the problem is that you only want (usually) high frequencies amplified. If mid-frequencies are amplified as well, it is painful and irritating to have the mid-frequencies piercing your ear like an acoustic spike.
 
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