Any Audiophiles Here Have Experience with Hearing Aids?

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.

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.

@moto_man I think you made an intelligent and informed decision. Give the hearing aids a try. I have found mine have not only enhanced my experience with audiophile listening but additionally they have given me much more enjoyment with aid in hearing better…everything else in life.