Oticon Intent hiss / floor noise

I have had my Intent 1’s for two weeks. They function well as a hearing aid and Bluetooth streaming device, but I also hear a hiss from the aids. The hiss only occurs when the aids are processing sound. When I’m in a very quiet environment I don’t hear the hiss. I mentioned this at my initial fitting and my audiologist said that I was hearing the electronics of the aids because of my good low frequency hearing but poor high frequency hearing. Tomorrow is my first adjustment appointment. Reducing the hiss will be my first request.

Hi Bill. Yes, these are my first aids. The trial is 45 days and I see my audi on Thursday at the 30 day mark. Before this I trialed Phonak for 45 days (less of a hiss but worse speech clarity). I am going bonkers with the hiss!

@MikeRelaxer, are you saying your audiologist is claiming that you’re hearing coil whine4? I wouldn’t expect hearing aids to be powerful enough to emit that.

@granadilla For a little background information, when I was first fitted with the Intents the audiologist tested my reaction when using 100% gain for my prescription. She said that she normally starts people at a lower level but since I was not experiencing any discomfort from loud noises that we would try 100% gain during the first two weeks. She explained that I could always reduce the volume in the Oticon app, which I did to -1 to help with the hissing. At 0, environmental sounds were fine and not too loud, but there was hissing.

I had my first follow-up appointment with my audiologist yesterday. Her explanation was almost exactly what your audiologist had explained. I am hearing the noise of the hearing aids themselves and that this happens most often when a person has good low frequency hearing but poor high frequency hearing. The high frequency gain from the aids is causing my brain to notice the hissing sound. She also mentioned that reverberation from the high frequency gain can indirectly contribute to the hissing noise.

The diagnosis is that we may have the high frequency gain set too high. She lowered the gain and I could tell that there was less hiss while in her office. Like your audi, she said that she didn’t want to lower the gain too much and reduce the effectiveness of the aids. My instructions are to use the aids at this level and give my brain time to habituate to the high frequency sounds and background hiss. I now have the app volume for the General program at 0. She was unable to tell me a percentage or db level of how much the gain was lowered. She said that the software does not show the quantitative change. Seems odd but that’s what she said.

@bpeckham I asked my audiologist about coil whine and floor noise. She said that I am not experiencing coil whine because I am not using telecoil. Apparently, I am experiencing floor noise from having the high frequency gain set too high. My audi lowered the gain which has helped with the hissing noise. My instructions are to try this lowered gain setting for the next two weeks until my next appointment.

Thanks for the detailed response. I’m glad you are now able to put the app at 0. I’m at -2 for the hissing. I’ll ask for a little more reduction in the gain on Thursday. If it still drives me batty after our next adjustment, I’m going to think about maybe trying another brand, even though it’s tedious to start from scratch with all the appointments again to adjust another brand. My low-frequency hearing starts at 30 db so it’s not awesome but I guess I’m sensitive to whatever hertz the hissing is on!

This is a well known problem with Oticon aids for people who still have decent lower frequency hearing. There are many postings about this on this forum.

I trialed Oticon for three weeks and I couldn’t put up with it.

The solution is simple - pick a different HA brand. There is no fix for Oticon aids. Don’t assume you will get used to it.

@wtolkien said:

This is a well known problem with Oticon aids for people who still have decent lower frequency hearing. There are many postings about this on this forum.

I trialed Oticon for three weeks and I couldn’t put up with it.

Did you try the 60dB receivers? This fixed it for most of my clients.

Are you using closed domes or open domes?

I had the same problem when I started with HA, I still remember myself playing with the middle frequency equaliser all day trying to reduce the hiss.

With closed domes I wasn’t able to manage the hiss. However, with open domes, 85db receiver in my Philips 9050, after one or two months the hiss disappeared.

Before, I trialed starkey, unitron and Oticon. With starkey the hiss was 10 times louder compared to other brands.

I’m using closed domes. My high frequency hearing goes down to -45 in one ear and -65 in the other ear. I’m not sure open would be good for me but thanks for the idea.

Unfortunately one ear goes down to -65 db so I don’t think that would work for me but thanks for the idea.

I have worn Oticon aids for 15 years and now wear INTENT1 aids that have the 105db receivers with semi skeleton ear molds. I guess my hearing is such that I haven’t noticed any hiss.