Hearing Aids

YammyFan · December 07, 2021, 04:01:34 AM

I have never had hearing aids until last week. They are working very well, but I thought that I would have to give up using some of the lovely styles that I have been given from generous members of this forum. They sound strident and pitched unpleasantly high. I am now faced with the question ie. who to believe--- my naked ears or my brand new hearing aids. I tried playing without ACMP and quickly realized that any songs I tried to play sounded very very boring.

DerekA · December 07, 2021, 04:25:13 AM

Have you tried adjusting the master EQ settings? You could reduce the gain at the higher frequencies. It's worth a shot as a fix that might work on everything. Otherwise, try adjusting the volume balance / high EQ of the individual style parts, but that's quite a lot more effort if you have lots of styles.

Graham UK · December 07, 2021, 06:02:54 AM

My advice is use good quality Headphones on your naked ears.
Regarding headphones higher price does not necessary mean better sound quality.

stephenm52 · December 07, 2021, 09:12:57 AM

I just joined the hearing aid club about 3 weeks ago and did not like the sound I heard coming out of my Bose system with the Genos while using the hearing aids. Another musician friend of mine who also wears hearing aids suggested I adjust the EQs of the hearing aids. I can do that on my hearing aid phone app. Better yet I also can mute the sound coming thru my hearing aids. With the said I now mute my hearing aids thru my phone app when I'm playing my keyboard, it solved the problem. When I practice I use a set of headphones, with the hearing aids muted the sound is good.

travlin-easy · December 07, 2021, 11:11:07 AM

One of the main problems with the majority of hearing aids is they only amplify the frequencies you are deficient in, which in males is higher frequencies. I recently purchased a pair of Bose Hearing Aids, which only cost $849 a pair, everything is adjustable on my smart phone app, and they allow me to still hear the low frequency sounds I never lost, while improving on the high frequency sounds I lost at a very young age while in the navy manning a 3-inch 50mm anti-aircraft gun without hearing protectors. You may wish to reconsider the brand of hearing aids you purchased.

Good luck,

Gary

jwyvern · December 07, 2021, 03:16:59 PM

I started using aids this year and the normally "smooth" sounds heard from Genos became too loud/ shrill/metallic and over-washed in hi freq reverb. I did not want to keep taking HA's on and off depending on whether I was playing or not. Also I considered that with HA corrections at some frequencies of as high as 25db, I should benefit from hearing a significantly fuller range of musical frequencies so why not keep the aids in place.
It seemed to me to remove "excess" corrections by modifying Genos master EQ rather than interfering with the HA's on a phone app., would be a more controllable method. I was originally using a roughly flat master EQ and initially changed 3.6hz by minus 4db and 1.8 hz by minus 1. After a week or so the hearing strangely seems to acclimatise somewhat and I was able to drop db's to minus 2 at 3.6 and zero on the 1.8. (For info I use HS8 speakers).
Others with different hearing characteristics may need to optimise around different settings. I haven't finished making (small) changes either, but the above basically worked for me and I now know if I alter the 5.6 or even 8hz range on some voices I should hear the effects rather than being (previously) deaf to them

John

travlin-easy · December 07, 2021, 03:33:07 PM

John, the problem with correcting the EQs on your arranger keyboard is that you are correcting for your hearing deficiencies instead of the adjusting the hearing aids to compensate for your hearing problems. It will work just fine for you ONLY, but if you are a performer, your audiences that do not have a hearing problem will suffer.

Good luck,

Gary

stephenm52 · December 07, 2021, 04:52:57 PM

John, Gary brings up some good points. At least for me being able to mute the hearing aids when playing is the best solution.

YammyFan · December 07, 2021, 05:15:32 PM

Quote from: stephenm52 on December 07, 2021, 04:52:57 PM
John, Gary brings up some good points. At least for me being able to mute the hearing aids when playing is the best solution.

I love playing my PSR 970 and think that most of the sounds coming out of my PSR970 are very pleasant to my ears. [I always use styles]
Now that I have hearing aids I am beginning to wonder if the things I have been playing over the last few years are discordant . To paraphrase --- the great poet Robert Burns said "Oh that the gods could give us the gift to hear ourselves as others hear us

jwyvern · December 07, 2021, 05:46:07 PM

Gary, I am a home player, so am mainly concerned about how to get my registrations to sound best to me in the home.
Beyond that things get complicated because an audience is a group of individuals who will have their own hearing variabilities (some wearing aids, others not) superimposed on top, some of them worse than the typical performer who in most cases is unlikely to have perfect hearing I would have thought. It seems fortunate it is not so critical since we could have many more as you say "suffering" in the audience.

John

stephenm52 · December 07, 2021, 06:02:14 PM

Quote from: YammyFan on December 07, 2021, 05:15:32 PM
I love playing my PSR 970 and think that most of the sounds coming out of my PSR970 are very pleasant to my ears. [I always use styles]
Now that I have hearing aids I am beginning to wonder if the things I have been playing over the last few years are discordant . To paraphrase --- the great poet Robert Burns said "Oh that the gods could give us the gift to hear ourselves as others hear us

John, I'm sure you sound good when you play and for some reason I don't think they sound discordant. In recent years with my hearing deteriorating no one has said that I don't sound good or discordant. Keep playin and enjoy!

YammyFan · December 15, 2021, 05:09:28 AM

Quote from: Graham UK on December 07, 2021, 06:02:54 AM
My advice is use good quality Headphones on your naked ears.
Regarding headphones higher price does not necessary mean better sound quality.

Thanks, Graham. I took out my hearing aids and put on my good quality headphones and recorded myself playing a song using one of my favourite styles [one of yours---"You raise me up"] and when I played it back on my PSR 970 and listened to it with naked ears and it sounded great.
I think my next step will be to convert it to MP3 and put it up on the Forum and ask for what other people think. I am a new user to hearing aids, having never had them before, and whilst they have made all the difference in the world for me in being able to participate in conversation with my family they leave a lot to be desired when I listen to music. I have a fine collection of choral and orchestral CD's which I have collected over the years and I have been listening to some of them over the last few weeks, and with naked ears they sound to me as great as they did 20 years ago, so I guess I'm lucky.

dr4sight · December 15, 2021, 09:06:23 AM

I have used hearing aids since I was 40 (I'm 73 now). Originally started with in-the-ear type but the last 15 years have been behind-the-ear type for what my fitter describes as a "profound hearing loss". His preferred brand is Widex and I'm on my third pair of those.

The pair I have has five programs that I can switch between. I use the music program for playing and listening to my DGX-650. That program makes a big difference in how music sounds.

My type of hearing loss so affects high frequencies that any key I hit in the top two octaves sounds way out of tune. I bet there are keys up there I've never even played in the 2+ years I've had the keyboard.

Also I shudder to think how loudly I'm playing given the difference between what my wife finds comfortable for TV sound and what i do.

But I love my hearing aids. Can't imagine life without them.

best of luck with yours,

Larry