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I very often don't wear my hearing aids for that very reason. I have most of my hearing in one side, so I can get by. The world is a loud place, and hearing not

by ksaj 4y ago

I very often don't wear my hearing aids for that very reason. I have most of my hearing in one side, so I can get by. The world is a loud place, and hearing not-nice things more clearly isn't much fun. So I only use my hearing aids when I know I'll be where I need to hear conversations in a crowd or whatever. Most people have no idea my hearing is so bad, unless they are walking on the wrong side while trying to carry a conversation. Mine were a bit over $1500 each, so your pricing is pretty much correct. Also, to address something said earlier in the thread, modern hearing aids control more than 8 frequency bands, and the improvement is quite noticeable. Some people have fairly "wide" hearing loss, but for most people it is very specific frequencies, and variable frequency width (q) is the difference between good audio and great audio hearing.

amichail 4y ago
Why doesn't the computer inside the hearing aid make sure not to make the world a loud place? Maybe it should focus on speech (and even then there would be a limit to how loud speech can get)?
- jleyank 4y ago
  They do, at least the higher end digital ones. But the dsp’s aren’t all knowing and some sounds get jacked when I would have thought not. Restaurants w/o sound dampening are brutal and when a child lets go, on man…
  - ksaj 4y ago
    Pretty much this. Modern hearing aids have settings for different environments. But none of them are perfect, and nobody likes to be constantly switching programs. Speech in Noise is the setting that probably fits for the most part. But it isn't pleasant in other environments, and horrendous around road noise. Mine really glom onto the sound of tires on the road if I forget to change the settings on the way out the door. It is funny sometimes that you'll catch snippets of female voices across the road or in passing cars so clearly they might as well be right behind you. The settings for music are the best when it comes to full frequency representation, at the expense of everything else in the environment sounding too extreme. It does sound amazing when on a nature walk, except things like rippling water take on a movie audio quality where it sounds like it was overdubbed. All shrill and hissy sounds (babies crying, sirens, etc) are overwhelming at any configuration. Although I shut mine off in transit if a baby is crying and sometimes joke "Baby, what baby?" (even though I can actually still hear it without my hearing aids) Also, environments with heavy echo/reverb are seriously annoying. There are settings to cancel that out, too, but again, it's a setting you never want on all the time, because it affects far too many other sounds, too.

by ksaj 4y ago

amichail 4y ago

Why doesn't the computer inside the hearing aid make sure not to make the world a loud place? Maybe it should focus on speech (and even then there would be a limit to how loud speech can get)?

jleyank 4y ago
They do, at least the higher end digital ones. But the dsp’s aren’t all knowing and some sounds get jacked when I would have thought not. Restaurants w/o sound dampening are brutal and when a child lets go, on man…
- ksaj 4y ago
  Pretty much this. Modern hearing aids have settings for different environments. But none of them are perfect, and nobody likes to be constantly switching programs. Speech in Noise is the setting that probably fits for the most part. But it isn't pleasant in other environments, and horrendous around road noise. Mine really glom onto the sound of tires on the road if I forget to change the settings on the way out the door. It is funny sometimes that you'll catch snippets of female voices across the road or in passing cars so clearly they might as well be right behind you. The settings for music are the best when it comes to full frequency representation, at the expense of everything else in the environment sounding too extreme. It does sound amazing when on a nature walk, except things like rippling water take on a movie audio quality where it sounds like it was overdubbed. All shrill and hissy sounds (babies crying, sirens, etc) are overwhelming at any configuration. Although I shut mine off in transit if a baby is crying and sometimes joke "Baby, what baby?" (even though I can actually still hear it without my hearing aids) Also, environments with heavy echo/reverb are seriously annoying. There are settings to cancel that out, too, but again, it's a setting you never want on all the time, because it affects far too many other sounds, too.