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Any Audiophiles Here Have Experience with Hearing Aids?

About 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease, a pretty unpleasant inner ear problem that is characterized by horrible, but luckily sporadic extreme vertigo, tinnitus, and low frequency hearing loss.  Dormant for about 6 years, it has come back in the last couple of years with a vengeance, with a lot of low frequency loss and overall difficulty hearing in the affected ear.  It generally affects only one ear, in this case my left ear.  It does not always lead to deafness, but definite hearing impairment.  I used to be able to really discern the difference between various cables and components, even if subtle.  Now, with my low frequency hearing loss and age-related high frequency hearing loss, I'm not sure that I can discern crap.  Music still sounds good, but one of my friends was over listening to various music and could instantly say that "this sounded flat" or the "soundstage had no depth," etc.  I could hear no difference at all.   My doctor is recommending a hearing aid.  Which brings me to the question:  does anyone here have experience with using a hearing aid, and how does a hearing aid affect your listening to music?  Does it restore some of your ability to recognize subtleties in the music?  Does it distort the music? What is a good hearing aid that will not distort the music?
moto_man
moto_man OP
373 posts
 
@skywachr, really? I thought that the vertigo was the defining symptom of Meniere's, along with telltale low frequency hearing loss and tinnitus.  I wonder if you may have something else (hopefully).  Without the vertigo attacks, I would just forget about the low frequency loss and the tinnitus, although I understand that some folks have tinnitus so bad that they have trouble falling asleep, which would really suck!
livinon2wheels
136 posts
 

I feel for your hearing loss as I am right there with you...not with exactly the same problem, but a loss none the less. I decided about 3 years ago to explore the relief that I might get from hearing aids. The ones I chose were the Phillips model sold by Costco at the time. Their technician spent a good bit of time tweaking the response curve of the aids to address the areas where my ears were having issues. At the time I was singing regularly with our church choir. The implications of this may be relevent to your situation or not, only you can decide. When we were singing I was standing right next to a vocally capable Soprano who could carry a lot of volume to go with her good voice. So if I had the hearing aids set for a noisy environment I found the input on the hearing aids was fine for normal conversation and was a huge help hearing dialogue on TV or in conversation with someone in a noisy environment, but for music, singing, it was just awful. The dynamic range of the internal amplifier could not handle the resonance of my own voice or the amplitude of the soprano singing in my ear with obvious signs of overloading. It was a disappointing outcome and consequently high frequency loss and tinnitus that I currently experience is just one of those things I live with all the time. Is it pleasant? Of course not, but its better than the aggravation and limited usefulness of the hearing aids. Just my $.02 worth. Which I guess today is worth about a $1 in todays money. :)

secretguy
1,740 posts
 

I wonder how the OP is doing,A well known jazz singer that I've recorded with has Meniere's also. It's pretty much ended her career.

I guess I'm lucky to just have tinnitus.

vinylvalet
910 posts
 

I'm happy with my Widex Moment hearing aids. Better than the Siemens Signia hearing aids I had previously. In other similar audiophile threads, others have praised both the Widex and Opticon. The Widex has a tinnitus treatment that has worked for some but I haven't tried it yet.

larsman's avatar
larsman
2,012 posts
 

I've got hissy tinnitus and loss of high frequencies, and I've worn hearing aids for over 20 years; they've made such an improvement in everything, including listening to music. They won't bring back lost hearing, but they can manage to adjust the EQ so you get the impression of a wider range at any particular volume. It's also good that they have multiple programs for different purposes. Doesn't help my tinnitus any, but I'm used to that anyway. 

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