Aging ears and Nuances

@limomangus 

Certainly a good warning. Excellent thought. 

However, the volume on headphones and earbuds is adjustable. Blasting not required. I literally spent thousands of hours listening to headphones as a geologist in the '70s driving for eight or more hours a day, then traveling as an executive for decades and have not had my hearing damaged by them. Concerts were probably the worst. 

One nice feature of today's Apple products like ear buds and watch is they monitor noise and music levels and alert you to potentially damaging levels. A real positive. 

Good for you ghd....it's like walking...everyone has ear plugs or head phones on...I like just walk take in the sites and sounds....enjoy your walk don't make it a job or a chore.....that's my feeling....but yes loud concerts,then riding on the nyc subways....your friends would talk to you and your thinking....What,your ears are like dead....lol.take care my man....

This is a good question. I have hearing loss from being too close to a bank of JBLs at a rave 30+ years ago, and tinnitus. I’m 61.

Standard hearing tests go to 8kHz - so how are you and @billstevenson getting tested to 13.5K? (tagging jourdoktorn on this question too)

I’ve just trialed "the best" hearing aids from hear.com, the Horizon IX at $6K. 100% online/remote service. I found they worked surprisingly good listening to music using "open domes" which pass through the maximum amount of natural external sound.

They promised the world in both technology and customer service which is how they justified the premium price, and failed miserably in the first 21 days of my 45 day trial.

Unhappy with the cost and service, I found out the major player is WSA and they own Horizon, Signia (formerly Siemens) and others, as well as online businesses INCLUDING hear.com.

Next I ended up at Hear USA, had another test but this time in a booth, and got a quote for $4800 for the Signia BCT IX, which supersedes the Horizon IX.

Still unhappy with the price for what I know costs about $300 or less to make, I ended up with directhearing.com and have the Signia BCT arriving on Monday programmed with my free audiogram from Hear USA for $2700 with 12 months no interest financing and 3 years of free adjustments and supplies. 

But no, I’m not missing details or nuances in music, maybe just a bit of the higher frequency info, but my hearing loss isn’t the usual age-related high frequency loss, I have more midrange loss from the trauma - so for speech I struggle with soft voices and soft words (vowels) but I designed my system to be very good in the mid range.

@larsman 

The ones they sell at Costco are the top-of-the-range models from the previous year, and are about $1500/pair.

Maybe, but they sell a limited selection of Rx brands, none of which are considered state of the art. Not saying they wont do the job though. 

I did consider Costco, but I gave them a pass when I spoke to someone in the hearing aid department of my local store though.

We are willing to spend multiple $K on a single component within our 10’s or 100’s $K systems. That entire expenditure funnels through your ears with or without hearing aids. If buying hearing aids, buy the best, it only makes sense.