Are you a musician that’s looking for the best music sound quality while wearing hearing
aids? Well today, I’ll discuss 4 critical hearing aid adjustments plus a bonus tip for
optimal music sound quality. Coming up!
Hi, I’m Dr Derek audiologist, audio engineer and musician with Pro Fit Hearing.com bring
you the best insight into today’s latest hearing aids, headphones, and audio technology
to improve your life. If you have concerns about your hearing, always consult with your
local physician or audiologist.
Musicians rely on their hearing every day. Whether you’re writing, performing, or listening
to music, the ability to hear accurately is critical for musicians. Minimizing exposure
to loud sound with the use of hearing protection and a lower listening volume can help reduce
your chances of experiencing hearing loss as well as tinnitus or ringing in the ears.
Unfortunately, exposure to loud sound as a musician is common which can result in noise
induced hearing loss and tinnitus.
Now, if you’re a musician that uses hearing aids or you’re thinking about getting hearing
aids, it’s important to know that hearing aids are optimized to improve a person’s
ability to hear and understand speech. The main goal of a hearing aid is to improve communication,
so music sound quality can be overlooked. Some hearing aids have the option of a music
program that integrates the concepts that I’ll talk about today. Your audiologist
can give you access to these settings that you can use whenever you’re playing or listening
to music. Now, here are 4 critical hearing aid adjustments plus a bonus tip to optimize
your hearing aids for music.
#1 - Physical Fit
First, consider the physical fit of the hearing aid. If your voice is too loud or booming
when you sing or speak while you’re wearing hearing aids, you may need an adjustment to
minimize the occlusion effect. The occlusion effect results in an unnatural quality of
your own voice when the ear canal is partially or complete occluded by a hearing aid. This
effect can be minimized by switching to a smaller, less occluding ear piece or with
an adjustment to the hearing aid’s frequency response.
#2 - Dynamics (A/D conversion)
Listen to music at a softer listening level. This will help reduce distortion of loud sounds
by the hearing aid’s A/D (or analog to digital) converter. Hearing aids that use a higher
bit rate like 20 or 24 bit allow for a greater dynamic (or volume) range so that louder music
can be accurately captured by the hearing aid without distorting the sound quality.
The music entering the hearing aid is then transformed to accommodate the user’s hearing
thresholds while keeping the music at a comfortable listening level. Your audiologist can also
reduce the hearing aid volume settings for loud sounds.
Now, if you’re receiving value from this video so far, please hit the like button so
that more people can benefit from it. Make sure to watch until the end for the bonus
tip for optimal music sound quality.
#3 - Frequency
Music sounds best with not only a wider dynamic range but also with a wide frequency response.
This means that the hearing aid will reproduce a wide range of low to high pitched musical
tones for better music sound quality. You can check the hearing aid’s frequency response
in the manufacturer’s documentation. Some hearing aids may amplify up to 10 kHz.
Disable frequency transposition or frequency shifting. This setting is often used to optimize
speech understanding for people with high frequency hearing loss. It works by moving the
high frequency sounds into a lower frequency range so that it’s easier for a hearing
impaired person to understand speech, however this setting will distort music sound quality.
You can also disable noise reduction. Noise reduction can impact the low frequencies or
the bass response in music.
One last frequency setting you can disable is feedback management. Feedback is that high
pitched whistling that a hearing aid sometimes produces. Feedback occurs when the hearing
aid volume is loud enough that the amplified sound leaks out of the ear canal and is picked
up by the hearing aid microphone. Feedback management is used to detect feedback and
eliminate it automatically. Whenever you're listening to music, feedback management might
accidentally eliminate certain sounds that are more pure tone and high pitched in nature,
like a flute or a stringed instrument.
#4 - Compression
Compression is used to turn down louder sounds that exceed a certain volume level. This reduces
a sound’s dynamic range, and it’s used to provide a hearing impaired person with
more sounds that are audible. Less compression is recommended for more natural sounding music.
Bonus tip
Ok, so let’s talk about the bonus tip for optimal music sound quality for hearing aid
users - Use Audio Streaming.
Hearing aids today often connect directly to smartphones and have wireless accessories
so that you can connect your hearing aids directly to a music playback device. This
technology allows you to listen to music without using separate headphones or earbuds. Another
benefit of using audio streaming for hearing aids is that the music sound quality is customized
to your degree of hearing loss. This way you can have the best listening experience.
Remember that all the hearing aid adjustments discussed today are specifically for music
and can be enabled by your audiologist within a special music program on the hearing aid.
Settings for optimized speech understanding and communication will be different that those
for music.
Please like this video if you received value from it. Comment below: what questions do
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