Hearing aid question


Decades ago I at least thought of myself as a bit of a "Golden Ear"; my Quad ELS/Pyramid supertweeter combo and associated electronics were a source of pride and joy. (All gone over the years, alas.) In recent years I have learned that I have essentially lost the top three octaves of my auditory frequency response, whether through natural aging or some other process I'm not sure; I also have a fair bit of tinnitus at this stage, but that has proved less of an issue in being able to enjoy music. So now I've gone from enjoying the transparent reproduction of great music to struggling to resolve the sibilants in my wife's speech. (In the overall scheme of things, the latter is arguably more important, at least in maintaining peace at home.) I still very much enjoy listening to music, but the high-end losses have somewhat diminished the joy of it.

I am of course starting to think about taking the leap into hearing aids as a genuine quality-of-life enhancement. I was wondering if anyone out there has dealt with similar issues, and perhaps formed opinions about which of the many available solutions has worked best as both a general lifestyle aid and a boost to their enjoyment of live and recorded music. Many thanks in advance.

ericrhenry5488

Showing 1 response by mahler123

The Costco Hearing Aids are refundable for months and cost around $1300.  They aren’t perfect for music even with the HiFi setting .  Upper frequencies get screechy.  I can’t practice the piano wearing them and I choose not to use them while listening to my good system, although I leave them on for the third system which is mainly for video and background Internet Radio .  Where they really help is for speech recognition and ambient clues.  I have used them more for streaming lately-they aren’t as good as even Apple AirPods-but they did get noticeably better after an update last summer.

  You can’t lose financially with Costco, given the much lower price and the return policy.  My recommendation is try them.  Would 6K buds be better for music?  My audiologist at the University of Chicago says no, but then most people don’t think that an expensive audio component is worth purchasing when cheaper alternatives exist.  I haven’t sampled the higher priced buds and I don’t know how to go about doing that.