Oticon Intents -- still having trouble with voices

I’ve been wearing Oticon Intents for almost a year after a long stint with Oticon OPNs. My audi and I did a lot of tweaking, swapping out some programs. It was better, tho’ still problematic. I’m still having issues with voices.

One problem is maybe a lifestyle issue – I’m not in difficult situations frequently enough that I can really identify what’s wrong or what might make things better. For example, I’m not in noisy restaurants once or twice a week.

I sometimes find myself in a small group – 6-8 at a dinner table. I’ll miss someone across the table. Yesterday I was at a conference in a small multi purpose room – I missed a lot in presentations. Loud restaurants are a known disaster. But I even might have trouble with just 3 or 4 people standing around talking.

I’ve tried “lecture” program – no joy. I’ve fiddled with the equalizer; sometimes that’s marginally effective. SiN is maybe better, but not much. “Comfort” seems to work best in restaurants and dinner tables – but not perfect. Comfort is the only thing that gives me measurable improvement.

I’ve finally made an appointment with my audi –I’ve held off in the hope I could better define my problem. But I still don’t know what to ask for. He’s excellent and we’ve had a terrific relationship for many years. Do any of you have suggestions for me?

ACT is an audiometry test, done in 2 minutes, requiring the same setup as an audiogram simply with a different sound bite. it shouldn’t be that hard. genie 2 has ACT values integrated, so simply find a place to quickly determine your value.

The only way you can counter masking is with compression. and recruitment is highly individual.

you will have to trial and error how to apply low frequency and high frequency compression in relation to your lowest point in your cookie bite.

for instance I have always higher compression ratios for 500- 800 Hz than 1khz to 1.5/2Khz.

usually the 6-8Khz are nearly linear, I consider that to be fairly inaudible and usually have more than 1.5 compression in those high frequencies. around 1.7 for both moderate and loud.

edit: I personally also made MPO changes.

125 around 105-107, 8khz around 113. I have 250 around 7-8 higher than 125, that is 115dB.

500 to 1.khz are above 250, around 5dB. 1.5khz and 2.5khz are peak MPO, for clarity, everything else is too boomy. 3 to 4khz go down. 5 might go up a little and 6 is normally less than 5khz due to limitations.

venting affects pretty much everything up to 1.5khz to 2khz.

I have a collection vent. it’s a big 2-2.4mm half circle under the receiver filter, it’s gets thinner, the end is very tiny at 1mm circular at the back of the aid.

that is oticon’s 105dB powermold , receiver ingrained into the mold.

@Um_bongo said:

Your description of upward and downward masking is flawed too: it’s just related to adjacent frquencies being differently amplified within the cochlear and has little to do with the particular compression being applied.

yes it does, if moderate sounds overshadow others it simply masks them. there’s no need to twists words here. I said soft sounds need to be audible and compression needs to be used to counter recruitment(sudden loudness perception after audible threshold). lower frequencies tend to get louder unequally than mids and need compression to not overshadow/mask them.

same goes for high frequencies in the cookie bite, since those are up to 20dB better heard than mids, these too can be an issue and need to be held down with compression.

the gist of it is, that mids needs to be “protected” and moderate and loud gain on both sides, low and high, needs to be observed in relation to mid frequencies.