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Organ music playback distorted

  • 13 March 2024
  • 5 replies
  • 41 views
P

ORGAN MUSIC DISTORTED. I play organ music from burned CDs, via a Brennan B2 and smartphone on my One and OneSL. The music sounds bright but is frequently distorted. High and medium frequencies seem to merge together so that they can’t be distinguished. I am deaf, so use two digital hearing aids by Phonak to listen to music on my Sonos system. These hearing aids have equaliser settings, but even so the organ music is still distorted. Has anyone else experienced a similar problem / found a solution? 

I shall be very grateful for any assistance!

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Best answer by Stanley_4 14 March 2024, 00:47

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buzz

Full disclosure: I have very little experience with hearing aids.

Do you know what frequencies the hearing aids present to you? Typically, I think that hearing aids restrict their coverage to the vocal range. If your organ music presents significant information outside of this band, the hearing aid processing might be overwhelmed.

Maybe you can find a program that can edit your organ files and cap them at 4KHz. You also might need to reduce energy below 100Hz. Try editing one file as a test.

Stanley_4
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I play a lot of organ music and it sounded fine on my (previous) Phonak hearing aids and on my current set. Been playing Bach organ from Amazon all morning here.

Edit, just checked my current set are Phonak too, KS-10s on firmware 1.1.15.0

Depending on your Phonak model you may have various settings/modes available from your remote, trying different options there usually gives very noticeable differences.

 

I’d suspect something in your source chain is the issue.

Here I’ve used the Sonos Music Library as my source, from ripped CDs (to lossless FLAC) and had no issues. Same for organ music from Amazon and other streaming sources.

Do you have access to another source for organ music? Amazon or one of the free streaming sites that would feed directly into your Sonos?

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Full disclosure: I have very little experience with hearing aids.

Do you know what frequencies the hearing aids present to you? Typically, I think that hearing aids restrict their coverage to the vocal range. If your organ music presents significant information outside of this band, the hearing aid processing might be overwhelmed.

Maybe you can find a program that can edit your organ files and cap them at 4KHz. You also might need to reduce energy below 100Hz. Try editing one file as a test.

While a bit weak on the low end (fair considering the 1/16” drivers) my hearing aids do a credible job of streaming Amazon Music from my cell phone over their Bluetooth link.

P

Thanks for the helpful comments and suggestions. I am using Idagio lossless for streaming, but even that is a bit fuzzy and indistinct. 

However, I have discovered how to link my Brennan B2 using a toslink cable to my Phonak hearing aids, and am accessing organ music from there a little more successfully. Work in progress!

 

P

Hello, I’ve managed to connect the Brennan B2 via an optical cable, but the volume is weak. Do I need an extra DAC or something?

 

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