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Power Domes HURT!

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@1Bluejay said:

Sigh. At least they work pretty good with the TV streamer. But again, the total volume is about 15-20% lower than streaming with the Widex domes for whatever reason. I wonder if the foam is somehow getting in the way of the receiver tip? Like maybe squishing over it to plug it up somehow? Oh to have a teensy little person sit inside my ear canal with a flashlight and report back to me.

Sorry to hear about your issue with hearing on the phone using the Comply foam tips. I’ve ordered me a set from Amazon after hearing your great testimonial here. They arrive tomorrow. I’ll try them out and report back as well and compare notes.

Regarding the 15-20% volume loss, I’m guessing that it may be because the memory foam is more porous than the silicon power dome, and that’s why some of the sound may escape. That’s probably what makes it more comfortable in the first place, because the air pockets inside the foam allows soft but conformity to whatever shape your ear canal is. But with air pockets comes porosity and therefore lets not just humidity but also sound escape. If it’s simply a volume loss across the board, you may want to try to simply increase your volume buttons a notch or two to see if that would make you happy again. If yes, it’s a very simple matter of asking the audi to increase the overall default volume next time you visit him to your liking.

There are settings in the OPN for the different types of domes to factor in the sound escaping (like in open domes or with single or double vent holes, etc). My audi fitted me with closed dome with double vent holes originally but it has some feedback issue so I switched to a closed dome with only a single vent and the audi didn’t bother changing the settings back to the original closed dome with single vent hole. But I can’t really tell any difference between those 2 settings anyway. I know there’s no built-in setting for foam tips but maybe your audi can try to use the setting for closed dome with vents and see if this helps boost up the volume and compensate for sound loss. I’m guessing that you either change the dome setting or adjust the default over all volume. But you can try manually adjust the volume yourself first to see if you’re happy with that fix before making it permanent through a program change.

Comply also makes another type of foam tip called “Isolation” tip (instead of “comfort” tips). This type is designed to block more noise out compared to the comfort tip. It has a little bit longer, bullet shape tapered design to create more contact area with the ear canal to block out noise compared to the comfort tip. You can see that the shape of the comfort tip promotes less contact area (only in the middle) compared to the isolation tip. If it helps block more sound from coming in, I assume it would also help block more sound from coming out as well. So this may be another option to try out, beside the volume adjustment or dome setting change. However, I saw a Youtube comparison between comfort and isolation tips and the user said that the isolation tip may have a higher tendency to get squished at the tip if your ear canal is not long enough to accommodate it. If squished at the tip then it can block the sound coming from the receiver tip. But if you feel that your ear canal is long enough and this wouldn’t be an issue then it may be worth a try.

Then there’s also a “sport” foam tip which is designed for wearers who exercise and/or sweat more inside their ear canals.

I’ve skimmed over this thread quickly so this might not be relevant anymore to your situation but you could perhaps snip the little loop off at the end of the power dome so that there is just a hole at the end of the dome rather than the big sticky-outy loop. This will then expose the (similar to the older Widex power domes) and after performing a quick check with one out the front of the clinic on one of my Widex receivers, does not seem to compromise the integrity of the dome itself (so should still stay on providing it is trimmed correctly. I find that loop annoying too, although more from the standpoint that it seems to trap wax rather than inhibit it and means that the dome has to be removed each time in order to change the wax guard! I

Thanks ALL for your great advice! First off: I will have to ask my aud-guy if he has capability in his office? As I’d mentioned, he has never used that setup to fit me with aids. Hope I don’t throw him for a loop. And speaking of which, MFAUD, I did indeed snip my loops off my Widex domes, and it completely resolved that open wound in my ear. But the integrity of my dome’s shape may have been compromised by having done so.

Yes, I truly LOVED the comfort of those (M) Comply tips! I even pushed the receiver as far forward so the was flush with the foam donut’s edge, thinking the closer I get that sucker into my ear canal area, the better! But the best suggestion would be to take the foam tip to my aud-guy and see if he can boost my gain, cuz I have just 2 little steps to MAX volume as they are currently set up (which is LOUD enough when I have the Widex domes on).

I did not know that Comply had such a “wardrobe” of molds, and now I will have to surf up to the 'net and read about them. I think the bullet-shaped ones may be so long that the receiver would be nestled too deep inside of them, in which case sound may be very muffled. I also didn’t think about the foam being so porous, resulting in leakage of a different/new sort. Good luck Volusiano, when you try these foam domes out!

Oh, and THANK GOD I still have my 4-yr old Agil Pros workhorse! My battle with Agil Pro vs Oticon Opn is like GMC truck vs Shelby Cobra. Both good in their own way, but neither perfect in functionality or use to me yet. I hope the snow STOPS some day so I can get off the mountaintop and back to my aud-guy.

@1Bluejay said:

But the best suggestion would be to take the foam tip to my aud-guy and see if he can boost my gain, cuz I have just 2 little steps to MAX volume as they are currently set up (which is LOUD enough when I have the Widex domes on).

This is interesting because with my setting, I have 4 clicks before I get to max level, and 8 clicks to get to min levels. I wonder why you only have 2 clicks to your max level. You would think that they should have the default in the middle, and the same # of clicks to max and min levels. Unless the default is wherever our hearing compensation needs to be within the range of the receiver we have, and in my case, I have 4 clicks until my 85 receiver is maxed out. And in your case, maybe you have 2 clicks until your 85 receiver is maxed out. If this guess is correct, then I wonder how much more headroom left your audi can boost for you anyway. Maybe a little bit more but not much more.

By the way, if you have a bend in your ear canal where the Widex dome tip rubs on, I’m not sure if you can go much deeper with the foam tip or anything else anyway before it makes contact again. So that longer Isolation tip may not work out for you if that’s the case.

I thought you were saying that TV streaming and regular hearing sounds even better with the foam tip. So is the only trouble you have with it is in the phone mode? Or is the 15-20% volume loss across the board in any listening situations?

^^^^ Augh. It could be that in just 2 more steps, I’ve maxed out with my 85 receivers … we shall see!

And yes, once I actually switched the foam domes with the Widex power domes, I realized that across-the-board, volume was about at least 15-20% better with the Widex domes over the foam ones - that’s pretty significant! I could’ve lived with the foam dome volume level for maybe 80% of my lifestyle, but when it came to the phone? I was shocked at how garbled, muffled and low the volume was. I found that the foam domes lacked high frequencies, which is both good and bad. Sometimes the high freq heard with the Widex domes is kind of “shattering”? Those levels were more muffled using the foam domes.

I’m at this crossroads now: While my Agil Pros have NO compatible TV streamer, they have a working phone streamer. My new Oticon Opn aids are fabulous with the TV streamer, but there is no clip-on phone streamer for us users who prefer not to be on the IOT. The Comply foam tips were by far the most comfy to wear all day, from dawn to bedtime, but it seems that for now, sound quality is compromised. Much to smoke a bubble-pipe over …

@1Bluejay said:

^^^^ Augh. It could be that in just 2 more steps, I’ve maxed out with my 85 receivers … we shall see!

And yes, once I actually switched the foam domes with the Widex power domes, I realized that across-the-board, volume was about at least 15-20% better with the Widex domes over the foam ones - that’s pretty significant! I could’ve lived with the foam dome volume level for maybe 80% of my lifestyle, but when it came to the phone? I was shocked at how garbled, muffled and low the volume was. I found that the foam domes lacked high frequencies, which is both good and bad. Sometimes the high freq heard with the Widex domes is kind of “shattering”? Those levels were more muffled using the foam domes.

I know you bought a mixed set of foam tip sizes, right? Have you tried out the large size tips instead of the medium? It’d be worth a try because you already have it. My theory is that the large size tip will compress a bit more compared to the medium size tip, therefore squishes in the porous air pockets in the foam a bit more compared to the medium size you’re wearing, given that your ear canal size is the same with either size. The more squished in the foam is, the less sound can escape from it, because there’s less air pockets, at least in theory. So perhaps the large size tips may work out better than the medium size tips in terms to keep more sound in. It may be a slighter reduction in comfort because the foam is more squished and therefore not as soft as the medium, but maybe it’s still comfortable enough for you.

You should really try it because you already have it in your mixed pack, so there’s nothing to lose.

I’m not surprised that you are losing highs. As Doc Jake was pointing out, you need to have them adjusted with the foam ones in place.

In reply to @1Bluejay

@1Bluejay said:

My new Oticon Opn aids are fabulous with the TV streamer, but there is no clip-on phone streamer for us users who prefer not to be on the IOT.

Your comment here sounds as if you think that the IoT gives you the ability to stream in some way, but because you prefer not to be on IoT, you lose that ability to stream via IoT, so you have to wait for the ConnectClip streamer to come out. So I just want to clarify that even if you’re open to using the IoT in the OPN, you still cannot stream from your non-Apple phone via IoT anyway. For folks who don’t have the iPhone (or iPad or iPod), they’re going to have to wait for the ConnectClip streamer to come out, regardless of whether they want to utilize the IoT functionality or not.

In reply to @KenP

@KenP said:

I’m not surprised that you are losing highs. As Doc Jake was pointing out, you need to have them adjusted with the foam ones in place.

Great point here. 1Bluejay, you don’t have to live with the trade off on losing the highs wearing the foam tips. If your audi can do , he can adjust both the volume across the board and the volume on the highs to make up for the loss from the foam tip. He can still adjust it even if he’s not equipped for REM, but it’ll be less exact, that’s all.

Well, I received my Comply medium size comfort foam tips today (the same kind 1Bluejay did) and I tried it out. Having been wearing a single vent hole OPN bass domes for the last 2.5 months on my OPN, I find the foam tip feeling a bit more occluded for me. Which is naturally to be expected since I’ve been used to a vent hole all this time. But I can hear more bass with the foam tip, which is also naturally expected as well due to the occlusion. I don’t feel like I lost any of my highs, or my overall volume with the foam tips, unlike 1Bluejay’s experience. But I think it’s because the medium size foam tips fit my ear canals VERY snugly, albeit still fairly comfortable. I think the tight squish on the foam tips in my case minimized the amount of air pockets remaining in the foam and therefore retained the highs and the overall volume for me.

As to using the foam tips with my Samsung Note 4 phone, or my Plantronics headset (with mic), it’s the same experience as before with the OPN dome I wore. I don’t notice any diminished volume or highs from the phone’s speaker or the headset at all.

By the way, 1Bluejay, I’m assuming that you already know that the way you hold your phone to your OPN is critical in getting the proper volume, right? Most people hold their phone up against the side of their face, with the phone’s speaker facing the ear canal opening. But for type like the OPN, I have to hold the phone so that its speaker is right above the mics of the OPN, which is right above the top of my ear. My phone is also no longer along the side of my face. Instead, I hold it at an angle that would be parallel to the (turned down) brim of a hat, if you were to wear a hat with a brim. I hope this visual explanation helps.

In the end, I decided to revert back to my regular OPN bass dome with single vent hole, mainly because I feel much less occluded with the domes, and also because I never had any issue with these domes in the first place. But for folks who wear custom molds or power domes where occlusion is something they’re used to already (or don’t have a choice with anyway), then I think the Comply foam tip can be a more comfortable alternative.

It’s interesting that I didn’t experience the volume loss or the high frequencies loss like 1Bluejay does. But like I said, my medium size foam tips fit REALLY snug in my ear canal, so maybe that helps. I’m curious to see if trying out the large size foam tip with help 1Bluejay better or not.

@Volusiano said:

By the way, 1Bluejay, I’m assuming that you already know that the way you hold your phone to your OPN is critical in getting the proper volume, right? Most people hold their phone up against the side of their face, with the phone’s speaker facing the ear canal opening. But for RIC type HAs like the OPN, I have to hold the phone so that its speaker is right above the mics of the OPN, which is right above the top of my ear. My phone is also no longer along the side of my face. Instead, I hold it at an angle that would be parallel to the (turned down) brim of a hat, if you were to wear a hat with a brim. I hope this visual explanation helps.

By the way, if you don’t like holding it this way and prefer holding the phone the traditional way, one thing you can do to see if it helps with better sound pick up is to simple move the part that sits behind your ear to the inside well of your ear (just for the phone conversation only, then put it back behind your ear, of course). This way, you can hold the phone the conventional way and still be able to have the speaker applied right at the mics for direct sound pickup.

^^^ OK! I am late to the game here, and appreciate all the new good posts! I do not want to give up on my SUPER comfy foam tips, so I think I will make an app’t with my aud-guy and bring both (M) & (L) tips in with me. I’m back to my Widex power domes, and have found that one prob is that I need to literally pull my earlobes DOWN and insert those suckers INTO my canal area. I think - being a newbie myself to the style - part of the problem is my clumisness in inserting any kind of dome where it needs to go for the best fit & performance. That may explain why the loop at the end of the Widex dome was poking into my ear and making that open sore.

Geez, I really had to yank that Comply tip off one of my receivers, and that makes me nervous about swapping them back on again - for fear I’ll yank the wire in half or something. I did like the less “shattering” sound quality of the Comply tips, so it seems that the phone use is my final frontier.

Given how easy the Widex domes are to insert, tho, replacement domes over time could be problematic with the Comply tips.

The suggestion about putting my entire Opn mic unit into my ear cup to hear better on the phone is intriguing! Perhaps I’ll try that and call Anthem.com (as I always do to test out a LooOoooOoOng phone call with robo-attendant) to see if I can hear better.

Volusiano: I’m glad the Comply tips worked for you!

@1Bluejay said:

Geez, I really had to yank that Comply tip off one of my receivers, and that makes me nervous about swapping them back on again - for fear I’ll yank the wire in half or something. I did like the less “shattering” sound quality of the Comply tips, so it seems that the phone use is my final frontier.

Given how easy the Widex domes are to insert, tho, replacement domes over time could be problematic with the Comply tips.

Removing the receiver off the Comply foam tip, while not a breeze, is not too hard and should be safe to do repeatedly if you do it the right way. Don’t hold on to the foam tip and try to pull the receiver out by its wire at the bottom end of the receiver. This is a no no to do. Instead, hold the foam tip and PUSH the tip end of the downward away from the foam tip, until it comes out all the way, or even out about half, at least out far enough to let you grab onto the bottom body of the receiver and pull the rest of it out. But never pull it out by the wire only because you may break the connection between the wire and the receiver end.

^^^ YES! That is the way I need to get these foam tips off. Practice makes perfect. And I’m damned determined to give these foam tips another try - plus, I could put my aids in my ear and see if I could hear on the phone any better. It was THAT issue only that bummed me out so much I removed the foam tips.

OH TO HAVE THE CLIP-ON phone streamer for my Oticons! Still no word on a Q1 release … but I realize January isn’t even over yet. <:-(0)

@1Bluejay said:

OH TO HAVE THE CLIP-ON phone streamer for my Oticons! Still no word on a Q1 release … but I realize January isn’t even over yet. <:-(0)

Unfortunately I don’t know if there’ll be a delay on the ConnectClip or not, but according to this update (Hearing Aid Forum - Active Hearing Loss Community1), if you read the bottom part, it says that the ConnectClip will be available later this year. Before they were saying specifically Q1’17, now they say later this year… I don’t know if we can read too much into it or not, on what “later this year” means.

In reply to @Volusiano

Well well well well! Why am I not surprised? It appears that Oticon wants to force us into their vision of IOT solutions for streaming. I am irked. My aud-guy said the Oticon rep he spoke to (twice: in Nov and Dec last year) assured him it was coming out in Q1 - just around the corner. Now it appears that they’ll keep us dangling and then just say, “SUCKAH! Get on the IOT so we can SPY on you!” >:- /

This means that I can NEVER stop using my Agil Pros! I will have to stock two sizes of batteries and travel with the Agil Pros, their StreamerPro plus my Oticon Opns. I feel very misled, and had said on several occasions that a streamer was the deal breaker before I bought these aids.

@Volusiano said:

Unfortunately I don’t know if there’ll be a delay on the ConnectClip or not, but according to this update (Hearing Aid Forum - Active Hearing Loss Community), if you read the bottom part, it says that the ConnectClip will be available later this year. Before they were saying specifically Q1’17, now they say later this year… I don’t know if we can read too much into it or not, on what “later this year” means.

In reply to @Volusiano

No, I haven’t yet! They looked a little big to me. Granted I’m wearing a (L) Widex power dome, but it has to be folded into my right ear. I could try just scrunching that (L) foam tip into my ear and see if it goes in far enough. Thing is, whatever dome/tip is on the end of my Opn receivers, it has to extend into the doorway of my ear canal, I’m thinking. Otherwise, I don’t get maximum benefit from the sound being as close to my eardrum as possible.

Again, I should take both (M) and (L) sizes to my aud-guy. Cuz if he thinks they’d work, he should re-program my aids for these domes for the best possible sound quality.

@Volusiano said:

Did you try out the Large Comply foam tips? Does it do any better at reducing the volume loss you experience compared to the Medium size foam tips?

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