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Ask Slashdot: Hearing Aids That Directly Connect To Smart Phones?

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-the-better-to-hear-you dept.

mtcups writes "I am a musician/IT guy whose hearing has suffered from VERY LOUD guitar players, (yes I do use earplugs now, but too late), and am faced with the outrageously priced hearing aids $4.5K+/pair and was appalled at their lack of integration with smart phones. It seems obvious to me that I should be able to control the hearing aids via a smart phone interface so I can shape the profile for different environments, and also control features like 'hearing loops' and Bluetooth connections. I have done some research, but my guess is that the hearing aid companies want proprietary systems and don't want a smartphone interface since they would loose control and it would allow for competition for cheaper & better programs. I am not convinced that a combination of good ear-buds, good microphone(s), and a smartphone interface couldn't totally replace these overpriced solutions."

33 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Fully agree.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I use Siemens headsets which utilize a propriarety low energy radio signal to communicate with each other and a separate bluetooth gateway. I was told that Bluetooth drains too much energy from the small batteries so thay had to choose the gateway approach.

    I also agree with you: te lack of being able to configure the audio characteristics yourself with a Smartphone is disturbing. Probably the market for tech enthusiasts that wear hearing aids is too small :-(

    1. Re:Fully agree.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess the vast majority of people in need of a hearing aid is old enough to have spent the most time of their life without mobile phones at all, let alone smartphones, and are thus not very interested in smartphones in general, or in smartphone-controlled hearing aids specifically. Add to that the security implications of such an interface (imagine someone hacking your smartphone and then disabling your hearing aid in a critical moment so you can't hear something specific — more importantly for the hearing aid producer, you might sue them afterwards), and probably complex procedures of getting them approved (I'm pretty sure hearing aids count as medical devices), there's likely not much motivation for the producers to offer it.

    2. Re:Fully agree.. by AchilleTalon · · Score: 5, Informative

      I use Phonak hearing aids, they have an external Bluetooth gateway called iCom which is an small box with an induction loop you have to wear as a necklace. The sound quality is very good when using the phone and both hearing aids are in usage when using the Bluetooth link. This is a big plus in my case since my capability to decipher the spoken language increase significantly when using both ears vs any single ear.

      As mentioned, the reason the external box is required (in fact it is almost a battery only) is the required power would drain your hearing aids batteries very quickly if you have to power the Bluetooth chip.

      However, with the new BT v4 low-power for medical devices, it is likely this will change in the few next years as the manufacturer will incorporate the new BT chip and convert to the new standard.

      The necklace type gateways are better than nothing, however the design could have been much better. In the case the Phonak device, the material the wire was covered with harden with the time and eventually the wire simply break by lack of flexibility at the junction with the plug. I had to replace it at least once a year and the replacement cannot be done by the customer, that means you have to send the box to the company and be deprived of it for about a week. This should have been made field replaceable. At least the audioprothesist could have done the replacement without delay.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
  2. Hearing aids have been discussed before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are reasons why hearing aids are expensive, yada yada. Yet it does look like they're overinflated. Sounds like a great opportunity for a kickstarter project to me. If you can get to a point where you can develop a hearing at that does as well as existing ones at 1/8 of the price, I'm sure you can find more than 8 people that are willing to pay that 1/8 of the price for them.

    When you enjoy your newfound wealth remember me!

    Best,
    Not a karma whore.

    1. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by soundguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They're expensive because the cartel that makes them got them classified as medical devices decades ago. There are all kinds of legal and regulatory hoops you have to jump thru before you can call something a "hearing aid".

      You can buy a bluetooth earpiece for $20-$80 that has the exact same parts - condenser mic, speaker element, battery, and opamp/EQ circuit - and has vastly more functionality, including the bluetooth radio system and spiffy LED indicator lights.

      Hearing aids are configured with an equalization curve tailored the the wearer's specific hearing loss, but it's not like there are a million different kinds of loss. It's mostly "top down" according to age and environment. Only newborns can hear 20khz. We lose a few thousand before we hit puberty and pretty much everyone loses everything above 12k by their 30's. (by "lose" I mean response is down a considerable number of decibels from our factory abilities). Impact-type noise from construction, artillery, or rock bands can punch holes in what's left, especially in the voice frequencies, but it's not like it's DNA-complicated or something. A simple hearing test can identify your remaining response curve in a few minutes and it isn't going to be that much different from the guy on the next bulldozer on the left or the guitar player on the other side of the stage.

      There's no reason an ear doctor or audiologist couldn't give you a "prescription" response curve when you go in for a hearing test that you could load into a device that costs two figures (three if you want it to be super tiny) yourself with an app of some kind. The 4-5-figure price tags are simple price gouging by a "medical" cartel.

      --
      Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
    2. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hearing aids do a lot more than just amplify sound. Although your thresholds for different frequencies do go up such that you can no longer hear softer sounds, the limit at which the level is uncomfortable may not change (or it could actually go down). That means your dynamic range is substantially reduced. Hearing aids have to automatic gain controllers that respond to different frequencies. They can do a lot more besides that such as frequency transposition for high-frequency speech sounds.

      And then there's the ergonomics. They're designed to stay in your ear canal for long periods of time each day.

      And they are medical devices. You don't want just anyone making an ear mold for a device that goes deep in your ear canal.

      While the price may not be justified, your characterisation of them leaves something to be desired.

    3. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      They're expensive because the cartel that makes them got them classified as medical devices decades ago. There are all kinds of legal and regulatory hoops you have to jump thru before you can call something a "hearing aid".

      Being an acoustic engineer with knowledge of these matters it sounds to me (no pun intended) that you do not quite appreciate the engineering work that goes into developing these aids, apart from the extensive testing a medical device goes through to make sure it does no further damage to the user.

      You can buy a bluetooth earpiece for $20-$80 that has the exact same parts - condenser mic, speaker element, battery, and opamp/EQ circuit - and has vastly more functionality, including the bluetooth radio system and spiffy LED indicator lights.

      My fiancée has a hearing aid because of some extraordinal mechanical damage in the middle ear and that kind of damage can not be remedied with a "normal" aid, into which catagory your bluetooth headset would fall. Granted, she wears a "normal" hearing aid now, but that's just because she didn't feel like a permanent titanium screw in her scull was what she wanted (see. www.cochlear.com for examples), she gets by using what she has but the quality of sound it delivers into her inner ear is not very good, putting it mildly. I have tested them myself and it's like having a bucket over your head listening through them (and these are quality ones). It is precisely this quality of sound that is one of the most expensive parts. It does not suffice just to amp up and amplify whatever frequencies you have lost, it is, in the end, a question of the quality of the soundsource (i.e. the speaker unit) in the aid that will be the determining factor. Quite frankly, these tiny speakers are just so good because of their mechanical function that depending on your specific damage they just might not be what delivers a natural soundscape into your ear.

      Hearing aids are configured with an equalization curve tailored the the wearer's specific hearing loss, but it's not like there are a million different kinds of loss. It's mostly "top down" according to age and environment. Only newborns can hear 20khz. We lose a few thousand before we hit puberty and pretty much everyone loses everything above 12k by their 30's. (by "lose" I mean response is down a considerable number of decibels from our factory abilities). Impact-type noise from construction, artillery, or rock bands can punch holes in what's left, especially in the voice frequencies, but it's not like it's DNA-complicated or something. A simple hearing test can identify your remaining response curve in a few minutes and it isn't going to be that much different from the guy on the next bulldozer on the left or the guitar player on the other side of the stage.

      There are exactly three types of hearing loss you can suffer from. Damage to your middle ear, inner ear or to your nerve that goes into your brain. How these present themselves from person to person is, as you might guess, highly individual. And this is where the audiologist comes in.

      There's no reason an ear doctor or audiologist couldn't give you a "prescription" response curve when you go in for a hearing test that you could load into a device that costs two figures (three if you want it to be super tiny) yourself with an app of some kind. The 4-5-figure price tags are simple price gouging by a "medical" cartel.

      Your doc could also give you a scalpel and offer you the option of removing that cancer yourself, for just 2 figures instead of 4-5. Taking the expertice out of the hands of common laymen by medical staff is, in my opinion, a nice gesture to keep them from messing things up even more. If the user could change settings of EQ or volume, there is no guarantee that he would not induce further damage to himself due to lack of knowledge or even just lust for experiments.

      To summarize: Loss of hearing is not a

    4. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by jsebrech · · Score: 2

      I'm wondering if the gradual loss of hearing fidelity with age is one part of the reason why most people at a certain age stop listening to new music. The music they already listen to is adjusted by their minds to sound like it used to, but new music sounds bad because their ears lack the ability to hear it properly.

    5. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      I'm the same. I was never into loud music, and at 40 still hear fine. My problem has been the same as long as I can remember. I can't pick out voices. If a person is talking to me in a loud environment, I can't hear it. My brain filter for sounds is broken. Others tell me they can hear the same thing I can't, so it's not just the sound, it's the processing, as I pass every hearing test with "no loss found".

      And I'm not just ignoring them.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    6. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by AchilleTalon · · Score: 4, Informative

      These are toys, not real hearing aids. They just amplify the sound, it's like what I got 30 years ago. Even some of these are what my mother got 60 years ago and never really used because of the bad quality of the sound. I'm sorry, be this isn't serious stuff. Also, none of these are having BT except one model which is just a regular headset/earpiece, nothing to do with hearing aids again.

      Here, in my country, the government is dealing directly with manufacturers to get the best price they can for hearing aids since they are provided for free to people with an audiologist/ORL prescription. They ensure to have medium quality devices that will last at least 6 years. The manufacturers are required to guarantee and do the repairs for the whole duration of the contract. There is two styles of hearing aids available: the analog hearing aids and the digital sound processor hearing aids. They are not the top of line products, but they are good products. The pricing is around 700-1000$/pair of hearing aids. Considering they will last six years and they quality is much more better than these toys, I think the pricing is competitive.

      For the Bluetooth gateway, I had to pay 400$ for it. This is exagerated given the price of the BT chips. The hearing aids themselves are coupled with the gateway via an induction loop and a radioMF signal, so the hearing aids themselves have nothing special, the coupling with BT is all handled by the gateway.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    7. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by gmack · · Score: 2

      I think what it really is the fact that most music is crap and always has been. When we are young we find a list of bands that we like and ignore most of everything else but as we grow older we have less time for doing that and since we already have music we like, we never get past the horribly bad crap that is on the radio this week.

    8. Re:Hearing aids have been discussed before by takshaka · · Score: 2

      The tech specs of real hearing aids are so much better than the consumer bluetooth stuff that it's like comparing a Hasselblad camera with a iPhone camera.

      In other words, the average consumer can't tell the difference in quality?

  3. You're right, it's a racket by subreality · · Score: 2

    They like making you dependent on audiologists to set the things up. In turn, their products get sold at MSRP instead of deeply discounted online with DIY setup. That said, I understand the tuning process isn't trivial, and you wouldn't necessarily do a good job unless you're very dedicated to learning about it.

    A lot of the hardware cost is due to making them tiny, power efficient enough to run a long time off of rather small batteries and still having enough DSP performance to really process the audio into something you can understand. That's a tough mix, but you're right - if you're willing to carry an outboard processor in your pocket and put up with poor battery life, you can probably cobble together something that works much cheaper. You would need earbuds with outward facing mics - almost like a bluetooth headset, except you want high sample rate bidirectional audio, which is a combination curiously lacking in the bluetooth spec.

    Just some thoughts from someone who doesn't actually have hearing aids, but who's heard a little about 'em.

    1. Re:You're right, it's a racket by hawguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is no reason to run hearing aids solely on batteries. At the price tag current hearing aids have, you could power them with the energy your body emits anyway, via a thermoelectric element or a generator that turns body movements into electricity. Said that I know there are probably no hearing aids out there actually featuring those, that are more than proof of concepts. But as a former poster already said: It looks like a worthwhile kickstarter project.

      A thermo electric element needs a decent temperature differential to operate. Unless you're willing to tolerate a large heatsink hanging outside your ears (and are willing to accept that the hearing aid will be less and less effective as the ambient temperature approaches body temperature), then you're probably not going to have a thermocouple powered hearing aid. You'd probably be better off with a solar cell outside your ear to recharge the batteries.

      Similarly, a generator that is powered by body movement requires body movement and unless you like to wiggle your ears all day long, you're not going to find much movement in your ears for powering the device. If you're willing to accept wires that connect the device to an area of your body that has more movement, then maybe you'd be better off with a bigger battery pack somewhere outside your ear.

      If you're willing to accept an implanted power device, there are probably some biochemical reactions that can provide enough power to run the device.

      Of all the complaints I hear from dad about his hearing aids, battery life is not one of them. He gets a little under a week of battery life, and given that he takes them out every night, replacing the batteries once a week is not a big deal.

    2. Re:You're right, it's a racket by fm6 · · Score: 5, Informative

      If it's just a racket, why not buy the cheap hearing aids you see advertised all over the place? Less than $200 each.

      I'll tell you why: because they're crap. They uniformly amplify the entire sound spectrum, which means that sounds in the range of your hearing that are not impaired, driving you crazy with feedback and overamplification. Real hearing aids selectively amplify the frequencies you need. Mine (which I only paid $2k for) don't actually make sound like they're amplifying sound, more like restoring missing texture.

      Mine not only contain sophisticated DSP hardware, they have small radios so they can talk to each other and work together. If you think you can build something like that for less than $1K a unit (which also has to cover the cost of fitting and programming) then go for it.

  4. Re:They exist.... by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

    Searching the web produces some alternatives, and not all are that expensive.

    So it may be a good idea to shop around - and also look at sites that aren't specific for the English-speaking, like some sites in Scandinavia where the hearing aids can be priced more reasonably.

    The catch is that you should always tune the aid to suit your specific hearing condition.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  5. Features wanted, but what about safety+security by mathew7 · · Score: 2

    You want a standard for controlling, so that everyone can control their aid, but that also opens the door to those that want to control OTHERS aid, without their permission. Sometimes the standards have holes in design, other times the implementation can have bugs. Either way, it's a risk no medical company will take. They prefer a closed protocol, that can not go through external scrutiny (security by obscurity).
    Another such example (in my line of work) is usage of ethernet in cars. While ethernet by itself would be ok, they also want internet in cars, which means there will be at least 1 device with both connections (internet and in-car ethernet) which will be vulnerable to external attacks (think about someone locking your brakes at 100mph, after disabling ABS+ESP). I even think they will try controller updating over internet which will be even worse.

  6. iPhone by mr100percent · · Score: 4, Informative

    Apple has already made iPhones compatible with hearing aids and appears to be looking to refine it with "made for iPhone" aids.

    1. Re:iPhone by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      Well, you know - given Apple's obsession with groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, it makes perfect sense they'd want to get their hardware working with other devices predominantly used by old people.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  7. Not quite a hearing aid, but... by gnatman64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm deaf in one ear, but I get by in life without a hearing aid. I recently started using AfterShokz headphones for my running, and was pleasantly surprised that I could hear stereo sound again through these headphones. I also started using an Android app at work called AroundSound which stops your music when someone starts talking to you and replays the last thing that was said through your headphones. So by combining these two, it's allowed me to hear the beginning of conversations better, when normally I would have to ask someone to repeat what they said before I could turn around and actively listen. It's not an all day solution, but I find it's helped me a bit in my day-to-day work life.

  8. You are right and wrong by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Informative

    So you are right that some good mics, earbuds, and a DSP could mostly replace hearing aids, with the right programming and calibration. The issue would be size. Those expensive hearing aids fit all that in or around your ear, and get pretty good battery life to boot.

    So sure, I could design you something using off the shelf components, but it would be large. It takes some pretty advanced manufacturing to pack it all in to that tiny a package.

    You are right that tunability would be a good feature. I'm not sure why they don't have it, may be a mixture of regulations (medical devices have pretty tight restrictions on them), anti-competitiveness, and just lack of adaptation.

    So if you want to geek out and roll your own, go for it. Just realize it will end up being a bit bulky. In terms of software implementation it depends on what you want. Good hearing aids work like multi-band dynamics compressors/limiters. They bring up the frequencies you have problems hearing, but make sure to compress things so that loud frequencies don't cause more damage. If you are doing it on a device with a lot of power you might go multi-stage, do noise reduction, EQ, multi-band compression, and brick-wall limiting in that order. That would give you sound superior to any hearing aid out there, and require a fairly beefy processor (by mobile standards).

  9. Why are you surprised? by hawguy · · Score: 2

    Why are you surprised that there's no Smartphone interface to your hearing aid? There are few people that know enough about audiology to make effective and safe adjustments to their hearing aid, and there's little incentive for the hearing aid companies to provide such an interface, or to collaborate on an industry wide standard. Besides, adding something like Bluetooth would really eat into the power budget of the hearing aid, greatly limiting battery life, while the Bluetooth chipset would take up room that could be better used for more DSP hardware or better microphones/speakers in the unit.

    That said, here's a link with resources for finding PC programming software for your hearing aid. You may need to choose your hearing aid based on which manufacturers are willing to provide the software to end users:

    http://www.amperordirect.com/pc/help-hearing-aid/z-hearing-aid-program-tools.html

  10. Link tip: Helga Velroyen by Rastloser · · Score: 4, Informative

    At the last Chaos Communication Congress, Helga Velroyen discussed this and other topics around hearing aid evolution. You can find her talk at ftp://ftp.ccc.de/congress/2011/mp4-h264-HQ/28c3-4669-en-bionic_ears_h264.mp4 and a corresponding blog project at http://blog.hackandhear.com/ . While I do not have to rely on hearing aids and thus have not looked very deeply into her activities, I get the impression that she is one of the most knowledgeable persons regarding this topic in the European hacker scene.

  11. You get what you pay for. by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 2

    I've had to turn my "good ear" to quiet people since my early 20s thanks to countless hours in bands so I can sympathize but there are a number of reasons why you don't see the kind of control your asking for. The most obvious is that most people who need these devices are not technically savvy and would either be turned off by the complicated process of adjusting their hearing aid(s) or would just ignore the feature. You're talking about something that is on the wish list of a very small percentage of a very small market. In 30 or 40 years, that will change as today's tech addicts age and expand the market so that there is enough demand to create the product. But, right now, the market is mostly people who are in their 70s and up. Try to imagine your grandma tweaking her hearing aid with her iphone.

    Also, there is a lot that goes into setting up one of those high end hearing aids. I'm blind as a bat and, while I know a lot about vision correction, I know that there's no way I'd be able to grind lenses as well as a pro. It takes a lot of training and experience to do that kind of thing. Something that drives me nuts is those racks of "reading glasses" at the drug store. Sure they're cheap but spending the money for an eye exam and lenses that actually match the individual correction requirements for each eye is soooo much better. $5 vs. $200 is a no brainer for me. I want to see and I want to see well. (Actually, my glasses are closer to a grand because of my insane prescription but I'm pricing it at what a "drug store" buyer would be paying.) Your "earbuds and a microphone" concept is like drug store reading glasses. It's cheap and better than nothing but a far cry from what's possible.

    FWIW, most cell phones do support hearing aids in that they'll provide audio to the hearing aid using various methods. Look at the specs of the phones to see which phones support what methods. They'll say "M4" "T3" "T4" etc. to indicate which hearing aid(s) they're compatible with.

  12. DIY...? Latency :( by bemymonkey · · Score: 2

    "I am not convinced that a combination of good ear-buds, good microphone(s), and a smartphone interface couldn't totally replace these overpriced solutions."

    Your only choice for this is probably iOS, since Android's latencies are still much much higher than is required for real time audio.

    There's also the issue of actually getting a decent mic into the system without a custom preamp... and where would mount, say, an off-the-shelf lavalier? On your lapel? Permanently?

  13. Autism / sensory overload by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The same principle could be applied to autism or other conditions that cause sensory overload. Hyperacusis and sensory integration disorder cause irritation, physical pain and difficulty comprehending spoken words. An amplifier containing some form of equalisation and some form of compression and limiting can hugely improve the listening experience - I have experimented with a guitar amplifier, which is not very portable.

    Combining isolating, noise-cancelling headphones with a filter / limiter would allow people with hyperacusis to experience sound without discomfort. A smart phone would make an infinitely adaptable device that is socially acceptable and useable in places like cinema theatres.

  14. IHearYou by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    https://www.blameysaunders.com.au/hearing-aid-prices

    You can program/tweak these yourself.

  15. Re:They exist.... by Another,+completely · · Score: 2

    Gennum corporation made hearing aids for a long time, and decided five or six years ago that their technology could be transferred to making Bluetooth headsets. They had a product called nxZEN (great headsets for noisy environments), but searching for references shows that the company was bought by Samtech in March of this year, and I don't see any references to either nxZEN or hearing aids on the Samtech site.

    Anyhow, the idea must have occurred to them at some point, but I can't find a reference. Especially now with the Bluetooth Low Energy, it shouldn't have any real impact on the hearing aid battery (for control, that is, using your hearing aid as a telephone headset would need a regular Bluetooth connection, which would start affecting battery life).

  16. Re:Mod parent up by davide+marney · · Score: 3, Informative

    An interesting and informative blog. She points to America Hears as one of the very few vendors who sell a software interface to their hearing aids so users can self-tune.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  17. Re:They exist.... by gmack · · Score: 2

    Just found one on
    Aliexpress

  18. not quite yet by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    I am not convinced that a combination of good ear-buds, good microphone(s), and a smartphone interface couldn't totally replace these overpriced solutions.

    The expensive part of the hearing aid, is not the earbud part, but the microphone part. A cell phone mic is not nearly good enough. Remember, the "good microphones(s)" you would use have to be small enough to fit on what is basically an earbud and sensitive enough to pick up environmental sounds but not too sensitive. Then you need dumb filters (a DSP would be better) to be able to make adjustments), a place to hold the battery and an amplifier.

    Now fit it in something that will fit in your ear. There's a reason good hearing aids are so expensive. The best of the current crop are pretty impressive tech.

    I don't know much about blue tooth, but can you make a bluetooth receiver small as an RFID that will fit inside an earbud?

    I have no doubt that a committed hacker could put together a proper hearing aid out of a set of really high-end earphones, some stuff from Newark Electronics, a couple of microphones out of an iPhone and four dry-cell batteries and a football helmet and a wagon to pull it in.

    Making something small enough to wear inside your ear unobtrusively is another story. It might cost you some money.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  19. remotes by doginthewoods · · Score: 2

    Siemens / Rexton (same company,more or less, use a remote bluetooth the FM translator. Like wise, bernafon. I think Resound uses a direct Bluetooth, but I'm not certain. I have Rextons. You major issue is accumulated lag time - I wanted to use the remote to take off the board for a direct feed into the aids, but, while it worked, the delay made it useless. If you are not syncing with real time audio, then you'll be fine. You should go to Costco to buy your aids- you'll get a pair plus remote for around $3k, and unlimited support. I hate to break it to you, but hearing aid companies, with the exception of Bernafon (Chronos 9) and Resound, do not know how to set aids for live music. The people that sell the aids don't either, and they do not have the gear to be able to test the aids in real world sound levels, especially with music. You will laugh when they play a clip of a symphony on a pair of tiny computer speakers and try to convince you that that is a test for "music". You will, as I have been doing for over 8 years now through 6 sets of aids, wind up programming the aids yourself. And here is a critical issue: Inout stage headroom. It is incredibly stupid, but hearing aid makers do not tell you how much sound the can take without overloading the input stage. Most of them seem to think that 95db input A/D is fine, but on stage can go past 100db quick. The trouble is, most makers do not use an input stage limiter, so what happens is the aids go into digital distortion, very ugly sounding. I am going to capitalize here: DO NOT BUY A PAIR OF AIDS UNTIL YOU GET VERBAL CONFIRMATION OF THE INPUT STAGE HEADROOM DIRECT FROM THE MAKER. Do not trust anyone until you know for sure, and I can tell you right now the info is not on any of the aid data sheets. I know - I have been through three pairs of aids with this problem, and have had the hearing aid makers' audiologists tell me the wrong thing - twice. They do not know, and they will say "Oh, no one ever asks this." If they say that, then you should not buy that aid. Resound has an Alera that will take 108 without distorting, and Bernafon may be your best bet - they have a music channel with Live music plus, designed by Marshall Chasen, that is a mimic of the old LP RIAA curve - rolls off top and bottom at input, then restores it at output. Neat. Google that name, and Google Mead Killien / K - amp. If you can hold off until mid Oct. there may be new models coming out. Aids are nothing more than a CPU and some programming, a microphone and a speaker, all put together by companies that focus on speech, but not fidelity. They tend to put in all these craptastic features that do nothing but inhibit fidelity. For instance, for music, you must turn off anti feedback, speech enhancers, multi microphone,s auto gain, etc. basically strip it down to an EQ, a bank of compressors and a multi band limiter, to get it to work. FInally make sure you get to see the adjustment software- this is the other weak link - as a musician, you will need as many EQ and compression bands as you can get, and you will need the fastest comp release times around. You will be amazed to find that most aids only give you two EQ band for half of the music spectrum - 500hz and 250hz - half of a piano. You will need at least one more at 125Hz and at least 8 compression bands. And you will need at least four bands of limiter called MPO in hearing aid parlance. If you want more info, email me direct.

    --
    Republican leadership = Idiocracy
  20. Oticon by fhic · · Score: 2

    I wear an Oticon Chili SP9, which is a high power digital aid, programmable by the audiologist. There's a DAI (direct audio input) boot available, which I use with my low-end MP3 player. There's also a much more sophisticated set of devices called "Connectline" http://oticonusa.com/Oticon/Professionals/professional_products/ConnectLine.html based on a gadget that hangs around your neck or in your pocket. It adds Bluetooth connectivity (and limited control of the aid) from the gadget. It only works with certain Oticon aids using a protocol I haven't been able to decode.

    The Connectline gadget seemed like a good idea at the time, and I willingly spent the (lot) of extra money, but I find I mostly use the wired DAI boot. The Bluetooth gadget is more of a pain than a help. The battery doesn't last very long (less than a workday) and has to be shut off to recharge, which it does via a mini-USB connector. And it only links to one or two Bluetooth devices at a time. Also, it interferes with the Bluetooth system in my car.