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Hearing Aids

I wouldn't dream of listening to live music or hifi with one in. They are tasked to enhance speech, some like the Resound Linx2 which I paid silly money for, have a music programme but it's rubbish. Everything depends though on the pattern of hearing loss you have- mine was sudden sensorineural in one ear and it was very destructive. At first I couldn't understand speech through that ear alone- I heard it but it sounded like Klingon, not a English. Even throwing £2700 (for one!) at it only made a modest improvement on speech. You can stream your iTunes to it, take phone calls on it but youre better with high quality IEMs for that.
 
Five days into my trial and I find the Unitron so much better than than my Siemens NHS pair. They are comfortable all day long and stay in my my ear canal. I can listen to my HiFi on the one general programme that the audiologist set. I still struggle in noisy environments. Maybe I should start looking up the price range.

Boots sell this pair for just under 1k with 3 years service. My high street independent retailer is double this. Their top of the range is near on 5k whereas a web based seller offering the same level of service is 3k. I'm all for supporting my local seller as long as they can be within 10 to 20% of the online sellers.
 
This may be a silly question, but tomorrow I'm seeing my doctor to refer me to NHS hearing aids. Are they free or is there a (nominal?) payment?
 
They are free. You will be sent for a hearing test. My local authority uses Specsavers. If the hearing test confirms you have hearing loss, Specsavers will offer you a range of hearing aids, one model will be NHS, the others will be private. In my case the NHS model was a pair of Siemens Teneo S+.

What Specsavers don't tell you is that they are contracted to you under the NHS for 3 years, which encompasses all fine tuning, retests, spare parts, batteries .....

I would love to know what Specsavers charge the NHS. It must be 2 to 3K for each patient.

You may be lucky with your local Specsavers or similar. I wasn't. The branch manager was great but the audiologists were not.
 
Thanks, Keith. I've already attended NHS hearing tests (plus subsequent Hidden Hearing ones). These were followed up two plus years ago by a ghastly CT scan. All this following sudden loss of hearing in right ear immediately following my first and only flu jab in November2014.

Yes, I was told by Specsavers when I visited 2 years back that they were the NHS appointed people. I've nothing but praise for 15 years of Specsavers' optician service, so am happy that this is so. Especially that it's free !:) Only want the aid for sporting/TV listening and general, so only concerned that it works and stays put and can easily be taken off for listening to music.
 
Update

I have been trying out several pairs of hearing aids, mostly top of the range gear which are available from on-line audiologists for about 3k or from the High Street at about 5k. Nothing beats the High Street for convenience or service but it does come at a price. I've tried Unitron North 500 for 2 weeks, Unitron North 700 for 1 week, Oticon top model for 1 week, ReSound top model for 4 weeks. All have been returned for a pair of Widex 330. These sound natural. My HiFi sounds fantastic with no noticeable frequency limitations, unlike the time when the audiologist was trying to get some bass from the ReSound which resulted in huge distortion.

Widex are known for being particularly musical, which I can now fully endorse. If anyone is interested in more in depth info on my trials they are welcome to PM me.
 
KeithL said:
Update

I have been trying out several pairs of hearing aids, mostly top of the range gear which are available from on-line audiologists for about 3k or from the High Street at about 5k. Nothing beats the High Street for convenience or service but it does come at a price. I've tried Unitron North 500 for 2 weeks, Unitron North 700 for 1 week, Oticon top model for 1 week, ReSound top model for 4 weeks. All have been returned for a pair of Widex 330. These sound natural. My HiFi sounds fantastic with no noticeable frequency limitations, unlike the time when the audiologist was trying to get some bass from the ReSound which resulted in huge distortion.

Widex are known for being particularly musical, which I can now fully endorse. If anyone is interested in more in depth info on my trials they are welcome to PM me.
Click to expand...

May I ask which specific model of Widex 330 you purchased, as there appear to be several that contain the number 330 in the name (see www.hearingaid.org.uk/hearing-aids/widex).

My mother's new hearing aids are being fitted tomorrow. She chose the ReSound Linx 3D 7 but hasn't actually heard them (she was given an older Linx2 model to try out during her latest audiology test and liked the sound of that better than the more expensive Phonak B90 she tested two weeks before (but it was different audiologists she visited though so they might not have calibrated the hearing aids as equally well). I like the fact that the ReSound comes with an iPhone app that lets you adjust the EQ yourself, though it remains to be seen how useful and effective this will be in practice.

It's tricky as she's never been an 'audiophile' so it's difficult for me to explain to her the sonic qualities she should be listening out for when auditioning different hearing aids. Her main priority is improved speech and TV intelligibility, though she also looks forward to hearing music sounding "clearer and less muffled".

I was briefly shown the frequency response of my mother's ears by the audiologist immediately after the test and it looked something like this:
----------------------
---x-x-x--------------
---------x------------
-----------x----------
-------------x--------
--------------x---x---
----------------x-----
----------------------
 
Widex Unique 330 Passion.

The ReSound model I had for 4 weeks were the ones your mother is buying. They did sound crystal clear but I don't want everything to sound like crystal breaking. The Widex I have don't have the fancy iPhone controls nor iPhone streaming. I found the latter particularly disappointing. You get better sound quality from Poundland ear buds.

It seems to me most manufacturers do concentrate mainly on speech and TV at the expense of natural sounds. For me only Widex sound good, followed some distance behind by Unitron. Bear in mind I have limited experience of Starkey Muse 2400 and none of Phonak or top of range Siemens.
 
Mike Reed said:
I'll pop the question again. Don't you remove or disengage a hearing aid when listening to hifi? I intend to do this and nor do I have a balance control on my pre.
Click to expand...

I'm not quite at the stage of needing a hearing aid, but getting there.
My main problems are higher frequency loss (fairly normal for an oldie), difficulty in hearing speech (sometimes, especially on the phone), but most of all the fact that my right ear is significantly poorer than my left.
That being the case I need the balance control and normally have it at '3-o-clock' so to speak. That's not foolproof as the stereo image moves about a bit according to which is the dominant frequency for any particular track. My enjoyment of the music has not diminished though.

When the time comes to get a hearing aid I expect that to be primarily to enhance speech frequencies, and I'm sure I'll be taking it out for music listening.
 
zippy said:
When the time comes to get a hearing aid I expect that to be primarily to enhance speech frequencies, and I'm sure I'll be taking it out for music listening.
Click to expand...

These Widex aids enhance my music listening. In my particular circumstance they're better than any hardware upgrade I've made in the last ten years. They have a specific music setting which is excellent, that's not to say the general setting is bad when listening to music. The 3 brands (Oticon, ReSound and Unitron) I had exrended listening with also had music settings which seemed to just spike up the high frequencies making their tinny sound even more crashy.
 
The frequency responses are finely tailorable with clever algorithms on top with the premium models from each manufacturer. I still think the overriding determinant of outcome is the nature of the subject's hearing deficit. If only it was as simple as correcting the defective frequency response with the inverse plot on the device.
 
An experienced audiologist spent 2 hours in my living room trying to get premium ReSound aids to sound half decent with my tunes. He failed miserably. Yet Widex sound fab out of the box. Not quite true; they all need to be set up to the individual's hearing loss. What I mean is that once set to my results from the pure tone test they haven't required any further tweaking.
 
zippy said:
I'm not quite at the stage of needing a hearing aid, but getting there.
My main problems are higher frequency loss (fairly normal for an oldie), difficulty in hearing speech (sometimes, especially on the phone), but most of all the fact that my right ear is significantly poorer than my left.
That being the case I need the balance control and normally have it at '3-o-clock' so to speak. That's not foolproof as the stereo image moves about a bit according to which is the dominant frequency for any particular track. My enjoyment of the music has not diminished though.

When the time comes to get a hearing aid I expect that to be primarily to enhance speech frequencies, and I'm sure I'll be taking it out for music listening.
Click to expand...

Maybe it's different with ESLs, as I've never had imbalances between speakers since my hearing loss. Just as well, as there's no bal. control on my pre. !

The thought of listening to my hifi through further (limited?) amplification is anathema to me, so I won't. I'm not at all sure if NHS hearing aids, for which I've been referred, will be wearable for tennis, table tennis and short tennis. Now that I tend to listen to the TV through Senn. 650s and a superb but cheap amp. I've recently bought (with hardly moving from the sofa), I'm beginning to re-think the whole thing.

Anyway, I was told by Specsavers last week that there's no deadline for registering; once referred, you stay referred.
 
Be mindful which Specsavers you visit. They comprise of small franchises of 2 or 3 branches which carry different products. Some have small limited audiology sections, like my local branch which doesn't sell Widex, even though Specsavers advertise Widex on its internet site.
 
KeithL said:
Be mindful which Specsavers you visit. They comprise small franchises of 2 or 3 branches which carry different products. Some have small limited audiology sections, like my local branch which doesn't sell Widex, even though Specsavers advertise Widex on its internet site.
Click to expand...

My Norwich branch carries Siemens; that's their offering on the NHS. Another company, Scrivens, which is more local to me, carries another make (which I forget). You only get a choice of audiologists, not hearing aids, I'm led to believe
 
It depends on your local NHS authority; some offer basic Oticon, most offer basic Siemens. Specsavers will sell other brands available privately, including premium Oticon and premium Siemens.
 
Me too. Unexlained numbness. Got it checked. Explained. Type 2 diabetes. Now very well controlled. Hope it's not the case but better safe. Cheers.
 
Still said:
Thanks very much for posting a heart warming tale.
I find the thought of sensory loss genuinely frightening.

I've some unexplained numbness in my toes currently, so on my mind.



Cheers - John
Click to expand...


Me too. Unexlained numbness. Got it checked. Explained. Type 2 diabetes. Now very well controlled. Hope it's not the case but better safe. Cheers.
 
KeithL said:
Widex Unique 330 Passion.

The ReSound model I had for 4 weeks were the ones your mother is buying. They did sound crystal clear but I don't want everything to sound like crystal breaking. The Widex I have don't have the fancy iPhone controls nor iPhone streaming. I found the latter particularly disappointing. You get better sound quality from Poundland ear buds.

It seems to me most manufacturers do concentrate mainly on speech and TV at the expense of natural sounds. For me only Widex sound good, followed some distance behind by Unitron. Bear in mind I have limited experience of Starkey Muse 2400 and none of Phonak or top of range Siemens.
Click to expand...

My mum's had her ReSound Linx 3D 5 for a couple of days and seems quite happy with them when as used as conventional hearing aids (i.e. conversations, listening to the TV, listening to the hifi, etc. She's less impressed when using them as earphones (i.e. streaming music directly from her iPhone) and describes them as "tinny". I'm trying to think of an explanation for the marked difference between using the aids as pickups vs earphones. I can only think of two possible explanations here:

1) The perceived "tinniness" is being caused by a bottleneck in the streaming interface between the iPhone and the hearing aids, like a poor compression codec.

2) Hearing aids are most often designed and calibrated to correct a "ski-slope" hearing loss curve. When listening to audio from environmental sources (e.g. loudspeakers), bass frequencies are still heard at a normal level by the ears and through the body naturally and do not require amplification by the hearing aids. Whereas in streaming mode, the hearing aids are required to produce the full audio frequency spectrum themselves, which they are seemingly unable to do, hence the more "tinny" sound.

Is (2) the more plausible explanation? If so then it leads me to suspect that purely due to laws of physics, all RIC-style hearing aids will struggle to reproduce full-spectrum sound.
 
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