Hi Brian,
Well, if you think about it, if I am out and about in the park
without my hearing aids (this would only happen if I forgot to put them in, as I do wear them all the time) I don't hear the birds (well, maybe seagulls, as they
screeeech!!). This is because my hearing loss is of the higher frequencies (isn't that the same with everybody as we get older?). So my hearing aids 'up' the volume of the higher frequencies so I then
can hear the birds.
So when I am playing my organ and listening through the speakers .. with my hearing aids in, of course .. I would set the volumes of eg. 4' strings to the level I want to hear them. Now, if I didn't have my hearing aids in I would have 'upped' those volumes to a level
I could hear. But then for anyone with
normal hearing those strings would be screeeching like those seagulls!
So, when I am playing with my headphones on, I need my hearing aids in to get that same balance. But then the hearing aids I have are 'behind the ear' (so my 'over the ear' headphones sit over them .. more or less), and I have grommets (domes) with holes in actually in the ear.
This means that sounds can get straight in to my ear through those holes .. and the higher frequencies are just amplified proportionally to suit my hearing loss. My hearing aids don't amplify any of the bass as I hear that as a normal person would, via those holes. Maybe the situation would be different if I had
moulded pieces in the ear. This is what my wife has:
... as she is
very deaf, and if she had domes like mine then sound would come
out of those holes and feed back into the microphone (with her having to have the volume up so high) and cause 'howling'. So
all her sound reaches her ear via the microphone. When she answers the telephone there is no point in her putting the handset 'to' her ear. She has to put it over the top of her ear, where the microphone is.
If anyone has a comment to make about (a) types of headphone to use, (b) using headphones when playing, or (c) using hearing aids .. please post a Reply to this Topic.Hugh