Musician and Nonmusician Hearing Aid Setting Preferences for Music and Speech Stimuli

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate potential group differences between musicians and nonmusicians in their self-adjusted (SA) gain and compression settings for both music and speech stimuli. Speech recognition, sound quality, and strength of preference for the SA settings and the original prescriptive (National Acoustic Laboratories-Nonlinear 2 [ NAL-NL2]) settings were also compared. Method: Participants included 12 musician (M = 60 years) and 12 nonmusician (M = 55 years) adult hearing aid users with mild-moderate hearing loss, on average. Self-adjustments were made to hearing aid gain and compression settings for 2 music stimuli and a speech stimulus. Speech recognition in quiet and noise, sound quality for 6 dimensions (clarity, pleasantness, naturalness, fullness, brightness, and overall impression), and strength of preference ratings using paired comparisons were then assessed at both the NAL-NL2 settings and the participants' SA settings. Results: On average, self-adjustments made by both groups were quite small (< 5 dB for gain and < 0.5 for compression ratio). Furthermore, SA changes to gain and compression ratio were not significantly different for musicians versus nonmusicians or for music versus speech. Finally, speech perception performance and sound quality ratings did not differ for the SA settings versus the NAL-NL2 settings, with the exception of the naturalness sound quality dimension. Conclusions: These data suggest that a gain-frequency response specific to musicians and/or music inputs may not be necessary. Thus, current, validated prescriptive methods continue to be well supported as an appropriate starting place for listeners with mild-moderate hearing loss using open hearing aid fittings.