Hearing Aids and Music: Solutions for Better Listening

How We Hear Music with Hearing Loss

There’s no denying that music is an important part of our lives. Music has the power to lift us when we’re blue, console us after a heartbreak, and remind us of an amazing evening when we saw our favorite band live. 

For musicians, hearing loss is a sensitive topic. Perhaps the most famous musician with a hearing loss is Beethoven – but even in contemporary music, many favorite rock stars such as Pete Townshend of the Who and Brian Johnson of AC/DC have spoken about their experiences with hearing loss. 

If you have a hearing loss, then you’ll know how hearing aids reconnect us to the world around us. While the majority of hearing aids are designed to address speech, there are many hearing aids built with the features to address music listening.

Hearing Aids with Music Listening Features

Oticon Opn

The Opn is Oticon’s latest hearing solution. Opn takes an open sound approach, which provides wearers with a full spectrum of sound in their environment. This open sound approach enables people with hearing loss to experience less listening effort. Opn is a wireless hearing aid which allows wearers to stream music directly to their ears from their devices. As the first Internet-enabled hearing aid, Opn opens up accessibility for wearers by connecting to a library of media. Opn is available in a mini receiver-in-the-ear style. Click here to learn more about Oticon Opn.

Phonak

Phonak’s Venture hearing aid portfolio offers designs to improve sound quality in music. With more processing power and reduced battery consumption, Venture hearing aids have been rated among competing hearing aids as providing the most accurate quality of sound for music. Venture hearing aids are receiver-in-canal hearing aids with four performance levels to cover hearing loss levels from mild to severe. Phonak ensured that Venture hearing aids would provide high fidelity sound and a full dynamic range for music. Venture’s AutoSense OS detects music and switches to a dedicated program to enhance music listening experience. Click here to learn more about Phonak hearing aids.

Starkey 

Starkey’s Muse Made for Life hearing aid addresses the issue of music listening head on. From the company: “In the past, hearing aids processed music and speech sounds similarly often distorting the clarity and quality of the music for the listener in an effort to make speech more clear. Patients would complain music sounded ‘muted, distant, fuzzy, dull, muddy, thin, steely or compressed.’” The Muse Made for Life family of hearing aids recognizes that music signals have different acoustic features and thus require a different processing. Starkey Muse hearing aids provides wearers with music the way it was meant to be heard – with data from tests with musicians.  Click here to learn more about Starkey Muse.

Signia 

Signia, the new sister brand of Siemens, offers the Primax, an ideal hearing aids for music. Primax acknowledges that the limited dynamic range and frequency range of traditional hearing aids does not begin to capture the fullness of music. Primax has been designed as an improvement on Siemens binax music programs. Primax offers three HD music programs, dedicated to capture the full range, frequency and intensity of music. The three music programs offered are: Recorded Music, Live Music, and Musicians. HD Music is featured in all Primax hearing aids. Click here to learn more about Signia Primax hearing aids.

Are you a music lover? Ready to experience music the way it was meant to be heard? Contact us at Orange County Physicians’ Hearing Services to test drive a music-friendly hearing aid today. 

OC Physicians’ Hearing Services

Locations in Mission Viejo, Irvine, San Clemente, Laguna Beach and Laguna Hills

Call us to schedule: 949- 364-4361