Thanks for your most excellent information about headphones with hearing aids. I'm looking for ones that will work for voice rather than music. I have a mild, age related hearing loss in both ears and am wearing the kind of aids that have a very small but in the ear canal and wrap around the outside of my ear. Part of my problem is physical comfort when I put headphones on. Either they press against the wire leading to the ear bud, or they press against the back of my aids where the microphone wraps around the back of my ear. So far, the most comfortable type are the small in the ear buds that have a soft cushion around the bud, but they aren't easy to hear through. You've all given me some things to think and ask about and I very much appreciate that. Again, thanks for your responses. God bless! Paula and Babe
-----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of AnonyMouse Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 6:50 PM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: earphones with hearing aids Hello Paula, That is a tough question to answer. What kind of experience do you want? This will tell us a lot in what you are seeking for in a set of headphones. Also, keep in mind that everyone has different types of aids that will react in different type of situation! So this will be tough to answer. For me, I have tried a lot of them. Some of the biggest problems I had are feedbacks from the aids to not being able to contain the music directly to my ear for a better experience. Obviously, we can just toss out the idea of the In the Ear headphones. :) So this leaves us with the following items Around the Ear, On the Ear, Bone Conducting, and Bluetooth headphones. So here are my problems. So let start with my Bose headphones. This is the Around the Ear style headphones. The problem I have with any Around the Ear headphones is that if you directly place them around your ear. You will have that lovely squealing feedback noise we get from our aids when they get to personal with an object that they are telling us that they need personal space. ;) Even though they had advertised how my aids were not supposed to squeal in tight positions. The pair I have decided that no matter how or what settings we have tried. I just can't seem to escape from this ordeal. So I had two choices for this. Either raise the headphones a bit higher so they set centered with the Aid themselves. This for me prevented the squealing. The other is that I have to raise the volume quite high before the aids would shut up. So having them at a low volume just won't work. However, this gave me the best natural sounds of my music playing. Now moving on to my Sony headphones. These are the On the Ear style headphones. These are great because they don't smother my aids and give them a fit that they had with my Around the Ear headphones. The only problem I have with this is that the fact our microphones are outside of those headphones. So the music is going directly through the ear mold of our aids. So you will get the surrounding noises. So I use this for work. This is great because I can hear if someone is coming or talking to me. Plus, the fact I can hear my computer screen reader talking to me at the same time. Not so great for the music experience but good for the screen reader and audio books. Moving along to my latest set of headphones. This is a Bone Conducting style headphone. These headphones really vary from one person from another. It is not consistent from my experience with other friends with aids. There are advantages as well disadvantages for them. These are the most favorite set of headphones. The advantages of these headphones are that no matter what situation I am in. They work better than I had expected them to do. If I have a loud environment. The On the Ear headphones will be worthless because of the surrounding noises are bothering me. These headphones do great for all situations for me. Now for the disadvantages. Sadly, there are more disadvantages than advantages. The first thing I had issues with is they vary from people to people. I think it may have something to do with a couple of things. The hearing loss that you have. If you have a lot of hair. Lastly, the type of cheeks you have. You see these headphones are placed on the cheek bones. They have to be snug on the bones. With a lot of hair. There have been a few cases that this prevents the ideal snug fit you will need for them. People with a lot of loss of hearing don't really get much out of them. Plus, the biggest problem is the noise bleed. Noise bleed is that everybody in that room where also hear what you are hearing. Except, for those really loud environment I was talking about. So for being by yourself. I love them. If you have people around you. It may annoy them. So this leaves the very last option. Some people are lucky to have the option to get the iCom. These will only work from those Bluetooth hearing aids. The device goes through the iCom which we wear around the neck. It then transmits the music or audio directly to our aids. These are very nice. The bad news is that not all of us can use this and it is not cheap at all. Plus, as much it is great for the audio. They really suck when it comes to music. They also put a huge drain on the battery in your aids. Lastly, they have the older Bluetooth technology which has a slight lag between your devices to your aids. So there you have it. Those are the experiences that I have had. None of them give me the perfect experience I would want in a headphones. So also keep in mind that I have the Around the Ear style aids. So it can vary if you have the In the Ear aids as well. If that is the case then the Around the Ear headphones that have an empty cone inside of them may be your best choice. The flat On the Ear kind would give you that feedback that I had mentioned with my Around the Ear headphones. So I only hope this has helped you out or it may have confused you even more! ;) HTH Regards, AnonyMouse -----Original Message----- From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Paul and Paula Jordan Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 12:44 PM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: earphones with hearing aids Has anyone found a good earphone or set of headphones that work well with bilateral hearing aids? Thanks for any info. God bless! Paula and Babe -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. 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