I had several different ideas how to word the subject of this post but the questions are the same. I know ive talked about max gains several times and the only answers ive gotten was "distortion" or something silly like "I choose not to hear my best"
It seems that some of the less "deaf" people choose not to max the gains as "saving" the extra gain for later. Why not hear your best now and when your hearing gets worse, either live with hearing less or upgrade to better HAs or even get a CI?(another discussion entirely) Why hear at 40db aided at all times when you can hear at 20db aided and if your hearing gets worse, youd still hear at say 30db aided and when it gets worse again, youll be at 40db aided. In the mean time, you would have enjoyed 20db for years then 30db for years!
Ive always wore the best HAs with the gains maxed out, save for a few db at 250Hz shy of max(which I didn't know back then and missed out on that) but I always had 1000Hz and above maxed out. It has already been tried, I hear worse in every aspect with less gain.
If a HA was not meant to operate at max gain, well then the company should not be claiming a gain of 80db if the HA is not capable of that without feedback or horrible distortion or even breaking down prematurely. They should have a spec sheet showing the HA performance at different amounts of gain and make a note saying something like "performance may be adversely affected if gains exceed 70db"
But another question begs the point, even if you got 2% distortion(which is what the specs claim) how bad can a little distortion be when you hear so much better? Even if you don't experience a big improvement in speech, youll still hear so much more environmental sounds(which are alot less sensitive to distortion) also you can always use the volume control, you don't have to leave it on max at all times. Say you are a passenger in a car and you get tired of hearing the noisy traffic, simply turn the volume down. Then you can turn it back up when the ride is over.
I am trying to learn more, I am honestly surprised for many reasons and even made a poll which alot of people voted that they did indeed have their gains maxed. Some voted that their HL was so profound HAs were nearly useless. Id like to know exactly how much HL at 250Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz, etc they have. They might be surprised to know that today's HAs could at least let them hear alot of environmental sounds. Ill think of more questions to ask depending on the answers I get.
It seems that some of the less "deaf" people choose not to max the gains as "saving" the extra gain for later. Why not hear your best now and when your hearing gets worse, either live with hearing less or upgrade to better HAs or even get a CI?(another discussion entirely) Why hear at 40db aided at all times when you can hear at 20db aided and if your hearing gets worse, youd still hear at say 30db aided and when it gets worse again, youll be at 40db aided. In the mean time, you would have enjoyed 20db for years then 30db for years!
Ive always wore the best HAs with the gains maxed out, save for a few db at 250Hz shy of max(which I didn't know back then and missed out on that) but I always had 1000Hz and above maxed out. It has already been tried, I hear worse in every aspect with less gain.
If a HA was not meant to operate at max gain, well then the company should not be claiming a gain of 80db if the HA is not capable of that without feedback or horrible distortion or even breaking down prematurely. They should have a spec sheet showing the HA performance at different amounts of gain and make a note saying something like "performance may be adversely affected if gains exceed 70db"
But another question begs the point, even if you got 2% distortion(which is what the specs claim) how bad can a little distortion be when you hear so much better? Even if you don't experience a big improvement in speech, youll still hear so much more environmental sounds(which are alot less sensitive to distortion) also you can always use the volume control, you don't have to leave it on max at all times. Say you are a passenger in a car and you get tired of hearing the noisy traffic, simply turn the volume down. Then you can turn it back up when the ride is over.
I am trying to learn more, I am honestly surprised for many reasons and even made a poll which alot of people voted that they did indeed have their gains maxed. Some voted that their HL was so profound HAs were nearly useless. Id like to know exactly how much HL at 250Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz, etc they have. They might be surprised to know that today's HAs could at least let them hear alot of environmental sounds. Ill think of more questions to ask depending on the answers I get.
