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Coming up on new benefits for new hearing aids (Phonak Audeo L30's), trying to prepare for the 3 year failure.

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Since day one and for three years my wife's voice has been the main reason for getting hearing aids. Unfortunately, after nearly three years, multiple audi's and at least 4 different pairs of hearing aids (Phonak Audeo L90's, Oticon, Jabra-Costco:0( and one other that I don't recall) with two tests, her voice is still muffled; it's better if she speaks loudly, but that's another story.

Recently a friend suggested recording her voice with a frequency analyzer. Tried to use several of them (Android), the only one I was able to remotely comprehend was Spectroid which is also the only one that was mentioned in my search for recommendations. Is it the collective opinion that Spectroid will do what I'm hoping for and will it be beneficial for my next appointment? Or does anyone have some direction to offer in this case?

Uninstalled all and here I am looking for a discussion on this so I can be prepared for my appointment.

TIA, Nick

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@PCGUY said:

Is it the collective opinion that Spectroid will do what I'm hoping for

Could you please be specific about what you're hoping spectroid will do?

I hope you don't mind me asking some more questions. I'm just trying to get a feeling for reasons as to why you haven't managed to achieve success beyond the information you've already provided, which is quite a lot.

Have your audiologists following best audiological practices? If you're not sure what these are, you can get a list here: https://hearingup.com/best-practices-checklist

You've a significant number of hearing aids. What was the longest that you used hearing aids for and were you using them at least 10 hours per day, every day?

With the topic you mention that you're trying to prepare for the three year failure. Are you saying that your hearing aids are only lasting 3 years? If this is the case are there any personal or lifestyle factors that you can think of that might explain why this might be the case?

Thought the subject answered at least one of those questions. Kaiser benefits renew every 3 years for those on Medicare. My appointment will be for new hearing aids and testing and hopefully a discussion on how to be sure that the effort results in my being able to clearly hear my wife's speech.

I'm unsure of what to expect from a given frequency analyzer in this case, nor do I have any background there, hence this discussion. Think simplicity that will render a sample of my wife's voice that will prove useful in determining why I can not hear her clearly.

As for the aids I tried, I wore them for 14 hours a day for a couple of weeks each and the L30's were tried twice and I still wear them today. They were the least expensive and they provided sound equal to any of the others, no better and no worse. Obviously a subjective observation.

In reply to @PCGUY

Bring your wife to the appt. This eliminates questions about the recording fidelity. You should be able to tell immediately if the settings are correct. You are the only one who can say if it is correct.

WH

Edited

In reply to @PCGUY

I'd recommend trialing a device with soft speech enhancement. It may not just be the pitch of your wife's voice, but also the loudness. This is a feature generally reserved for higher levels of technology, but it differs between brands. You seem very capable of doing our own research so I'll let you do that but point you towards Unitron as one brand that may not be on your radar that has this feature and unlike Phonak's alternative it will work in background noise as well.

You also need to have reasonable expectations. Your word recognition in quiet at optimal levels is fair but not great for your better hearing ear. The limiting factor isn't the hearing aid, but rather what your hearing system can encode and deliver to the brain. Getting a hearing aid that optimizes your processing capacity is important.

You may find that your hearing system is better able to process temporal envelope rather than temporal fine structure information. There are processing techniques that emphasize temporal envelope cues. Phonak has a version of their fitting formula that does this and Bernafon also had this as an option. Consider getting your Lumity devices programmed using the alternative form of APD if it isn't already and see if you notice any differences.

The output of your hearing aids in response to you wife's voice can also be measured using live to see what is audible to you and what isn't so bring her along to your appointments as this could be essential in improving the problems you're experiencing.

Edited

In reply to @PCGUY

L30s: I got the same ones from KP (no cost, that's why I chose the 30s). They perform well in quiet environments only - IMO . They only do "speech in quiet" and "speech in noise". That means that anytime I'm not in a quiet environment, the aids thinks I am in noise and they treat sounds like that, even when I am not in noise (e.g. listening to music or watching TV) and that makes things sound unnatural and not necessarily helpful.

Women’s voices are approximately an octave higher than men’s ( average about 200Hz). I used an app called Spectrum Analyzer (IOS) that is similar to Spectroid. However, when I used it to test voices, I didn’t find anything particularly interesting. If you are having trouble with your wife voice, why not bring her to your next KP Aud. appt?

Ironically, my first appointment at KP included my wife with an emphasis on her voice as the primary objective. Sadly during the ensuing weeks, that got lost and then the audi left KP, for as you might imagine, undisclosed reasons... This next attempt is hopefully going to be successful.

Thanks for all the meaningful input.

For voices of particular person - there is Speech Mapping (kind of , but with sample of wife voice adjusted for appropriate loudness. @Um_bongo has more knowledge than me.

Another question is if the basics is appropriate:

  1. Do you have domes or earmolds? What kind of domes or what diameter of vents in your earmolds
  2. What receiver power do you have?
  3. Does your used REM to adjust your fitting appropriately? In my case 6 years ago, the fitter did have made of REM-based fitting but he has never informed me like: "Mr , your receiver power is too low to achieve targets. And there is also too low feedback threshold to achieve that. You need more occluding earpiece for getting the most from amplification, but that requires taking some risk due to probability of occlusion effect. Do you want to at least try? "
  4. Speech Enhancer in Infinio/Eon lineup (available in 90 - most premium versions) is very useful
  5. One of your ear has only 48% - it is eligible for at least evaluation because there is high probability that even the best fitted hearing aidnwill be not as much beneficial as CI.
  6. The 2nd ear is borderline to 60/60 rule to considering CI evaluation.

Indeed, it's worth to get evaluation before buying another new set of hearing aids and possibly unnecessarily paying much money for ear qualified for CI.

Bothered to dig out my last hearing test and determined that the (Word Recognition Score) was: Right WRS is 88%, but my Left WRS is 40%. Apparently, the left ear is clinically eligible for a . I'll have that discussion/exam before any new aids are considered. Many thanks...

Not having any background with devices, I looked up some photos; seems like there are a lot of overhead/discomfort/appearance issues. Lost my left a few weeks ago and have been successfully using only the right one. Will see how all this plays out at the end of the year.

Edited
@PCGUY said:

Not having any background with CI devices, I looked up some photos; seems like there are a lot of overhead/discomfort/appearance issues.

That's highly exaggerated reports. Look at the Forum users's opinion - it's mostly life changing for many of them and at least strongly improving their quality of life.

And keep in mind that even children wears much larger sound processors from previous generations which coukdbbe even 2-3x larger than current sound processors.

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/phonak-eon-launched/134933/129

Wonder how many folks have actually seen the hardware? Sample image10

Didn't even have to imagine wearing a device like that; that fellow looks like I do, hair and all. Even my left ear.

Perhaps the phrase "Perception is everything!" is applicable here

@PCGUY said:

Wonder how many folks have actually seen the hardware? Sample image2

"Hello oldie, my friend" - that's mine old Nucleus 6 sound processor.

Actually, your sample image is quite obsolete, with sound processor released in 2013. Here's comparison with newest Nucleus 8 (from 2022):

FTR, here's a photo5 of the Nucleus® 8 in and working. There does not appear to be a significant appearance/size difference. Going on 84, so I will have to think hard about the hassles/inconvenience of that device for the few years I may have left.

You had told you have problem with your female voice, specifically, your wife, so I have told you probably most efficient way to get some high frequencies to your neural auditory tracts. If you don't want to - no one will drag you down with oxen and force you to do anything, it's your life.

I had bigger N6 in awful beige color (I didn't have possibility to choose another) since I was 24 when I was interested in dates, impressing womens, etc., but I used that no matter what, despite some stigma probability.

What is left for you to do is carefully try the perfect fit for your hearing aid (points 1-4.). You have high frequency loss and problem with wife voice, so it's possible you need more occluding earmold to get as much high frequency amplification as possible to reach target gain (and sometimes more is necessary) and more gain to G50 (quiet ~50 speech):

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/coming-up-on-new-benefits-for-new-hearing-aids-trying-to-prepare-for-the-3-year-failure/135065/8

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