One of the questions I
get asked the most is how do I listen to music with hearing aids. When my hearing loss was more mild, I
would just take my hearing aids out and use regular old earbuds. Now that my hearing loss is creeping
into the moderate range, earbuds don’t work as well. I can hear through them, but not very clearly, and I can’t
make out any lyrics at all. When I
listen to music through my hearing aids, the sound is much clearer and crisper,
and I can usually understand at least some of the lyrics.
If you want to have
music on in the background and not use your hearing aids as earbuds, you can
simply leave your hearing aids on your normal channel, or if your aids have a
music program, you can use that.
My current hearing aids don’t have a music channel, but I’m about to get
new ones, which will have it. I’ll
let you know what I think of it once I’ve given it the old college try J.
There are a few
different options for using your hearing aids as earbuds. I’ve used a neck loop for the past few
years. A neck loop is an FM
transmitting system that plugs into the headphone jack of a computer, CD
player, or MP3 device. The top
part goes around your neck (thus the term “neck loop.”) You turn on the neck loop, put your
hearing aids on the tele-coil channel, and you can hear the music right in your
ears at your decibel level. I
learned from experience that the sound quality diminishes with the battery
life, so I own two sets of rechargables that are only for my neck loop, and I
change them out when it starts sounding “static-y.”
Cochlear implant wearer
Rachel Chaikoff has done a blog entry on listening to music with cochlear
implants. The only one she mentions that won’t work for hearing aids is using
regular earbuds. I don’t know how
you’d get them to stay put if you wear hearing aids. Rachel has tried more listening options than I have, so if
you want to try something other than the neck loop, click here to read her take
on it!
