Hearing Aids

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Stelling Owners Club

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For those who own or want to own the ultimate banjo. www.stellingbanjo.com

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From dpskala on 2/20/2014 5:35:00 PM

I posted this in general topics; will repeat here.

Has anyone else out there recently gotten hearing aids?

Just got a good set on Monday (meaning brand name and expensive); just had a chance to pick up the banjo for the first time and play it with the aids in place. I absolutely hate the sound!!! I have several different programs (different boost at different frequencies), and it sounds crappy to very crappy using all of them. I have a 1988 Stelling Masterpiece. It makes me more than a little sick to think that this is how people with average hearing have been experiencing the tonal qualities of this instrument which I love as much as one can an inanimate object, and which I have spent hours fiddling with (no pun intended) to sound the way I like (with unaided ears).

Hearing aids do take a while to acclimate to, and maybe the tone I perceive will change over time – but it would have to change a lot to be even acceptable, much less good!

7 Comments
	kmwaters says: 2/20/2014 5:39:38 PM Wow - that stinks!! Maybe there is a solution somewhere out there. Gotta be a few product choices, huh? Bring the banjo when you shop for one. Best of luck.
	kmwaters says: 2/20/2014 5:40:55 PM I bet you can return them since you got them so recently if you find an alternative too. I wish you well. If I couldn't listen to my Stelling singing to me it would be a gloomy day.
	dpskala says: 2/20/2014 6:28:34 PM Yes, I can return them for a small fee, and in fact I did just that 3 years ago, when I decided that the cost/benefit ratio was out of whack. But I'm now sick of not understanding women, movie dialogue, and other assorted audio. It makes no sense for me to leave $5K behind (pretty expensive - no?) if I can make the rest of my life more pleasant. Summary - I need them for the balance of my non-musical activities for as long as I'm sucking air. I am unlikely to get any different results with different aids - most of the existilng brand names are pretty much equivalent and at the edge of technology. I can of course take the aids out for my own enjoyment, but I am assuming that the hearing aids are adjusting audio for me so that I hear it like most other folk. I can also probably get a program installed on the aids that make them sound like my bare ears used to - but then how will they sound to everyone else? (and then I probably could just take them off anyway),
Ed King says: 2/20/2014 8:45:01 PM I just did a Google search: "Hearing aids for musicians". Turns out there are such devices! And lots of other good information on music and hearing aids turned up in the search results. Maybe there are some solutions out there... Good luck! (From what little I read, it seems that many hearing aids will greatly distort the sound of music. So I'm guessing that your Masterpiece sounds fine to everyone without hearing aids.)
	Gary Griffin says: 2/21/2014 5:23:06 AM Hi, I did get a set of Unitron Hearing aids last year. They work real well with my Golden Cross. From the wide open setting I click them down 5 clicks and it works out real well.
	dpskala says: 2/24/2014 8:54:10 PM OK, I went to the audiologist today, and problem solved. Thanks to excellent information/suggestions, I now have a program in the aids which works great for banjo playing. In it, feedback suppression is disabled, and gain is set at a low level. Once I knew about the 20 Hz shifting to stop feedback, I could actually hear both notes. That was the main culprit. If I really try, I can create feedback squeal, but no problem with volume set at comfortable levels. The sound is almost the same as without the aids. Dennis
	DrG says: 12/22/2014 4:17:11 AM I think it makes a difference in the type of hearing aids you wear.I wear Phonaks with digital sound that can be programed to my liking. They cost about 2500.00 per hearing aid. You need to go to a good audiologist to begin with to determine precisely where your hearing loss is and how to match it with a hearing aid.Many hearing aids have been major disappointments for me in the past. I have50-70% hearing loss. I need to hear my patients(I am a Chiropractor and Naturopathic Physician) .Quality computerized prorgrammable hearing aids really make a difference when I practice on my banjo. The trebles sound so nice and the base helps to balance the sound. A good hearing aid will bring out the trebles and base to what will be a normal sound for others. You will still have to get used to a new sound though. Hunter
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