[smallcaps]

Hi All,

So I'm the resident audiophile for my community of friends and I try to provide them with info and opinions on various sound-related questions. However today my friend asked me a question that I really don't know the answer to, and I thought that it would be important enough to ask here, where I learn the most about audio from the super-duper head-fi community.

A bit of background: My friend's mom takes care of a cranky, 94 year-old dude in the community. She does things like grabbing him groceries, spends time with him, and other hope-in-humanity activities. Due to his age, he has a lot of trouble listening to shows and music via his satellite TV, and my friend is thinking about bringing over an old amp and Sennheiser HD6XX they have lying around for him to use. He wants to connect the amp to the TV via RCA, and have the old guy be able to control the sound via the volume and 3-band equalizer on the amp.

Now here's the question: the old guy wears a hearing aid, and my friend is wondering if there would be any issues with him using headphones with them. Should he take them out and use the headphones without them? Or is it safe for him to use the hearing aids with the headphones? I know this might be considered 'double-amp-ing', but I am not so sure he is concerned about the quality of sound, but more about potential interference and possible hearing-health issues that the setup may cause.

Hoping some of the gurus here can help shed some light on this particular use case. Thanks for your time and let me know if I can provide any more detail about this.

Cheers

 

[PurpleAngel]

I would say to remove the hear aids when using headphones.
You could say the headphones act like an external hearing aid.
Guessing the headphone offer better audio quality, then any hearing aid.

 

[smallcaps]

I would say to remove the hear aids when using headphones.
You could say the headphones act like an external hearing aid.
Guessing the headphone offer better audio quality, then any hearing aid.

Thank you for replying and this is totally makes sense.

 

[IEMusic]

I would say to remove the hear aids when using headphones.
You could say the headphones act like an external hearing aid.
Guessing the headphone offer better audio quality, then any hearing aid.

I agree, if he is not concerned about the quality of sound. If one were concerned about the quality of sound, than the purpose of the hearing aids would be to balance out the perceived amplitude of the frequencies (by boosting the particular frequencies of hearing loss). I am not certain about interference problems though, as using hearing aids to listen to music would pertain better to loudspeakers.

 

[smallcaps]

I agree, if he is not concerned about the quality of sound. If one were concerned about the quality of sound, than the purpose of the hearing aids would be to balance out the perceived amplitude of the frequencies (by boosting the particular frequencies of hearing loss). I am not certain about interference problems though, as using hearing aids to listen to music would pertain better to loudspeakers.

Thank you for your input. That's an interesting point about balancing amplitude and frequencies. Not sure about if his hearing aid is for general volume or for frequency response? Feel odd typing this lol...

I was thinking about loudspeakers in this situation, as well, but I think there are limitations to the gear they have and the environment. Let me ask my friend if this is an option for him. Thank you again!

 

[smallcaps]

Just wanted to update the thread:

Yesterday my friend set up a listening station for our elderly friend and it looks like he likes it!

Apparently he is only using 1 hearing aid to boost the volume in 1 ear, so he's still experimenting with keeping it in or taking it out while listening. The amp has channel balance adjustment and he's testing it out to see what works best for him. My friend is going to hook him up with a longer cable today, so that he can have a bit more freedom of movement.

Thanks @IEMusic and @PurpleAngel for your advice on this. I think you've helped to convert another person to the hobby... I'll apologize to him for his wallet on your behalf!