Bad Hearing? Watch This Before you get Hearing Aids

I thought it might be informative to run through my hearing aids experiences for anyone that's thinking about getting them to improve their music listening.
First I'll say up front that yes, definitely, the hearing aids make a massive improvement. They fill in the frequencies that are missing and do that remarkably well. But, and this is the big one, they MUST be set up properly to do that.
The audiologist you go to will test your hearing, tune the devices and then measure what they are putting out, but that can't measure how your ear / brain is receiving that new input. And unfortunately some tend to not listen when you say the hearing aids don't sound right and dismiss it as something you just need to get used to.
I believe that when I got my first pair back in 2014, the audiologist (who was older and very experienced) knew that you can't just go by the numbers, and may have dialed back the high frequencies enough to avoid all of the problems I ran into years later. So when they were set up, they sounded perfect to me. Everything was clear and undistorted.
Fast forward to 2021 and I want to be retested and see if any improvements can be made. I was building my new listening room at the time and thought I should try to get my hearing as good as it can be. As outlined in this video, that started me down a path of frustration while I went to 15 different appointments over the next two years.
After the first round in 2022, I gave up, and settled for the "close enough" settings he had made. The only issues were that the limiter was set too low and the right ear was quieter than the left. They still sounded very good - he was able to get them close to the way they were set up originally in 2014.
So, 7 appointments over 3 months to ultimately degrade the quality.
Ahead to the winter of this year (2023) I decided to try again. I made an appointment at a different place and basically went through the same thing over again.
The new audiologist tested my hearing and then I told him the problems I had before, including the limiter and balance issue with my old hearing aids, and made a point (several times) of saying that the old ones sound great, other than the balance and limiter.
Of course he quickly ignored that and just went about doing it the way he was trained to do it.
I would have thought, even just for the sake of curiosity, to start he would look at the settings on my old hearing aids to get an idea of what they are doing and go from there.
But no, it would be 4 more appointments and two new models of hearing aids before I basically forced him to do that. And even then he couldn't resist "tweaking" those settings, by adding too much high frequency boost, and meaning yet another trip back for yet another adjustment.
In the end I'm still using my old hearing aids, but he successfully got them back to what they used to be when they were first set up back in 2014. Full circle with no improvement, in other words.
New hearing aids have a bunch of bells and whistles such as active noise management that seems to mess with the sound too much, ruining the pure quality you get from just straight amplification. Or at least that's my impression from using various newer models over the last 3 months.
None of the ones I tested sounded as good as the ones I already had. In fairness that might be the fault of whoever set them up, but good luck finding someone that can get it right.
Most of the older audiologist that have years of experience have retired, leaving it to younger people with a solid understanding of the process, but very little practical experience.
They can run the measurements and set up the hearing aids according to those measurements, but don't seem to realize that that's only half of the equation. The other half is how the ear / brain is receiving and interpreting the new input, and the only way to "measure" that is to listen to what the customer is saying.
"It sounds like nails on a chalkboard!"
"Oh, you'll get used to that."

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[IBuildIt]

I thought it might be informative to run through my hearing aids experiences for anyone that's thinking about getting them to improve their music listening.
First I'll say up front that yes, definitely, the hearing aids make a massive improvement. They fill in the frequencies that are missing and do that remarkably well. But, and this is the big one, they MUST be set up properly to do that.
The audiologist you go to will test your hearing, tune the devices and then measure what they are putting out, but that can't measure how your ear / brain is receiving that new input. And unfortunately some tend to not listen when you say the hearing aids don't sound right and dismiss it as something you just need to get used to.
I believe that when I got my first pair back in 2014, the audiologist (who was older and very experienced) knew that you can't just go by the numbers, and may have dialed back the high frequencies enough to avoid all of the problems I ran into years later. So when they were set up, they sounded perfect to me. Everything was clear and undistorted.
Fast forward to 2021 and I want to be retested and see if any improvements can be made. I was building my new listening room at the time and thought I should try to get my hearing as good as it can be. As outlined in this video, that started me down a path of frustration while I went to 15 different appointments over the next two years.
After the first round in 2022, I gave up, and settled for the "close enough" settings he had made. The only issues were that the limiter was set too low and the right ear was quieter than the left. They still sounded very good - he was able to get them close to the way they were set up originally in 2014.
So, 7 appointments over 3 months to ultimately degrade the quality.
Ahead to the winter of this year (2023) I decided to try again. I made an appointment at a different place and basically went through the same thing over again.
The new audiologist tested my hearing and then I told him the problems I had before, including the limiter and balance issue with my old hearing aids, and made a point (several times) of saying that the old ones sound great, other than the balance and limiter.
Of course he quickly ignored that and just went about doing it the way he was trained to do it.
I would have thought, even just for the sake of curiosity, to start he would look at the settings on my old hearing aids to get an idea of what they are doing and go from there.
But no, it would be 4 more appointments and two new models of hearing aids before I basically forced him to do that. And even then he couldn't resist "tweaking" those settings, by adding too much high frequency boost, and meaning yet another trip back for yet another adjustment.
In the end I'm still using my old hearing aids, but he successfully got them back to what they used to be when they were first set up back in 2014. Full circle with no improvement, in other words.
New hearing aids have a bunch of bells and whistles such as active noise management that seems to mess with the sound too much, ruining the pure quality you get from just straight amplification. Or at least that's my impression from using various newer models over the last 3 months.
None of the ones I tested sounded as good as the ones I already had. In fairness that might be the fault of whoever set them up, but good luck finding someone that can get it right.
Most of the older audiologist that have years of experience have retired, leaving it to younger people with a solid understanding of the process, but very little practical experience.
They can run the measurements and set up the hearing aids according to those measurements, but don't seem to realize that that's only half of the equation. The other half is how the ear / brain is receiving and interpreting the new input, and the only way to "measure" that is to listen to what the customer is saying.
"It sounds like nails on a chalkboard!"
"Oh, you'll get used to that."

[ACFHeart]

You’re such an awesome, down to earth bloke. Most people would avoid talking about hear loss yet alone talk about it so openly

[tectoramia-szlu]

I've had bad hearing for a number of years and I'm now nearly 73yrs old. I wear hearing aids, they help a lot, but not when you are
with a group of people with a lot of background noise. It can be a very lonely experience if you have bad hearing.

[kentgreer]

Hi John. Thanks for sharing your story. I'm an audiologist in the US and tend to be a critic of my own profession and the hearing aid industry. I'm glad your persistence paid off. These instruments are highly adjustable but many are timid about diving deep into feature set based on complaints. Perhaps my knowledge in audio gives me an advantage. You're right in saying that primary goal is for audibility and intelligibility within the speech spectrum (a much smaller bandwidth than music). Speech and language require more compression and combination of features not ideal for music listening. For musicians and audiophiles, a create a manual mode for that purpose with much less compression, forced omnidirectional mics, more low frequency gain for fullness, and less aggressive noise reduction. At the end of the day, the biggest predicting factor for success and satisfaction with hearing aids is not the product and often not even the technology, but rather how they are tuned and configured (the part the end user has the least control over). If you have a Cadillac that is configured as a Ford Pinto, guess how it will perform?

[CheveeDodd]

My family has been encouraging me to see an audiologist and I've been hesitant exactly for everything you said in this video. 😒

[HearingClub]

There are 2 different "limiters" as you call them. One is the MPO (maximum power output) and the other is the "impulse noise reduction" Sounds like you need a higher MPO and they could have also turned off or turned down the impulse noise reduction. But you are right, a lot of fitters dont listen and you really need to find the right one.

[captbeardy]

As a former telecoms transmission tech I’ve found the issue with most audiologists is that they are not techies, but health care professionals. When I’ve tried to explain my issues with technical language the audiologists have mostly been disinterested or didn’t understand. I’ve also had the problems you describe where the audiologist will programme the hearing aids according to what they will work best and not what you want. I have the added problem that I have reverse slope deafness (I’m essentially deaf below 2.5khz) and the tech is mostly designed for higher frequency hearing loss which is much more typical.

[Lee-qpgf]

You hit a home run on this one, John. This is absolutely prevalent in the industry.

[regularguy]

In other words, setting up the hearing aids is both a science and an art. Sound aesthetics depends on the listener, and a professional audiologist should understand both factors in their work. My mother has experienced similar issues and gave up, going without the hearing aids for quite some time. Once I found this out, I insisted she go back (living in silence is a significant risk factor for dementia), and it is much better now. Thanks for this John.

[jrb_sland]

75 yo Canadian man here. I worked as a re-recording mixer in the pro audio side of the movie/TV post-production business in Vancouver for about 15 years in my early 20s ~ mid-30s. I'm fully familiar with frequency EQ, filtering, compression & limiting systems, noise-reduction and the concept of masking, as demonstrated so well by the late Dr. Ray Dolby with his multi-band noise-reduction systems beginning in the mid-1960s. Even in the mid-1970s I was well aware of hearing damage caused by sustained listening at high SPLs, and did what I could to minimize my exposure. At present my only hearing problem is a persistent high-frequency [~ 12 kHz] tinnitus mainly in my left ear, which doesn't mask speech at all, & music is still entirely audible to me.
But if/when I seek hearing aids I will absolutely insist on tweaking the EQ & 'features' of the aids MYSELF - no-one can second-guess the EQ I should have - I need to HEAR it in real time. If the audiologist is not open to this, I'll immediately leave her/his office & not return.
My optometrist gets this - he makes a tweak & asks only 'is this better or worse', zeroing in on the best possible correction, then proves this to both myself & himself by testing my corrected vision with a re-view of a standard vision chart. Works every time & my new glasses are always perfect [I can see better than 20:20] until my eyes drift again in two or three years.

[bdg]

I don't remember who said it. But I once read someone saying that I hearing loss is the only disability. People feel entitled to get mad at you for.

[misinformationwithrandy]

When the people working on your hearing don't hear you. Over and over again 😢

[paulhirst]

If you get hearing aids for the first time you will be told that sounds such as running water, or paper crumpling will be almost painfully loud but after a while your brain will filter these noises out. Okay then, what other frequencies are being filtered out? I do believe that it is really important to go back for a "tune up" after your brain has adjusted to the hearing aids as other frequencies may be affected as well. As good as hearing aids are now, they are aids, they are not a solution to hearing loss. You will not be able to hear as well as a person with good hearing and it is very frustrating trying to explain to people that even though you have hearing aid, you still cannot hear what they are saying. I tell people that it is like having prescription glasses that are all smudged. Better than not having glasses but not like having 20/20 vision.

[rexturner]

Got a similar problem. I am an electrical engineer & have a recording studio in my house. You described "clipping" perfectly. Think of a fuzz box on guitar. If you clip a sine wave into a square wave it adds odd order harmonics from here to eternity. That makes the sound bright & raspy. I am looking at a new pair of hearing aids in a couple of days & think I will take my tablet & some music to test on my headphones.

Your discussion was helpful. Thanks. Rex...AKA an old rocker with blown out ears.

[tomfortson]

Thanks for your "cautionary tale of woe" with audiologists who don't ... listen.

[jiml]

John, I've been following your woodworking videos for years. I've gotten something from each one. I thank you for this timely, for me, posting that steps away from the woodworking.
I'm going for my audiologist / hearing aid appointments in a month. I'm 73 and have struggled with "hearing" for several years. I correct myself when I regularly say, "I can't hear you". That's not the true problem. I change that to "I can't understand you... I can hear all that you say, but it gets blended in with the surrounding sounds". That muddies it all together. An example would be conversing with someone next to me and others are talking or making noise and I can't understand all the syllables being spoken to me.
What I've learned from your posting here is that I need to be consistently insistent on how I want the aids to improve my hearing / understanding. Without viewing this video I might have been reluctant to keep asking for adjustment until I'm pleased. And definitely I should not accept, "Oh, you'll get used to them". Thank you mentor from long distance. Jim

[AlaskanMissions]

In most states when you go for an eye exam they are required by law to give you your prescription. You can take that anywhere and have glasses made. Wish that were the way with hearing aids. Get your test results and buy over the counter hearing aids and have an app to program them. That would save the hearing impared thousands of dollars and give us controll over what we hear.

[uslanja]

Hi John. You hit the nail on the head! Unfortunately I am not as kind as you are. "Audiologist" are not professional anything but merely sales people pushing a product out the door and telling the customer that they have no idea what they are talking about. Audiologist don't know their back end from a hole in the ground! Wish I never wasted my time and money.

[dimitrioskalfakis]

the essence of your experience with audiologists and their patients (time ~ 9:40): "most people don't know anything about anything". i love it ! ;-)

[Wunderpus-photogenicus]

Hi: A week ago I was at the audiologist office and after a number of tests, she prescribed me a pair of hearing aids with a quote of $4800, which will be fitted on me a week later. Later at home, I Googled and found the online price of exactly the same hearing aids to be $3200. Is this normal, or am I getting scammed?

Is the $1600 difference quite customary and necessary to cover the service to be provided by the audiologist in the weeks/months afterwards?