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Using ReSound Multi Mic in noisy workplace

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Edited

Hello
I have the resound multi mic
I work in a very busy Pharmacy and very noisy
How can I use the multi mic so I can hear what my customers are saying

I know if you keep vertical is usually worn around speaker neck

Horizontal is conference

I have to be in many places at once so moving multi mic
Is very inconvenient

Also it picks up other voices

I always shut my hearing aid mic off

Any recommendations??

Would make any difference??

Scott Sattler Rph

12 people in this conversation21 min readJump to latest
Edited

I haven’t tried this myself but could you wear it around your neck but tilt it in the direction of the customer that you want to hear so the mic, normally at the top of the Multi Mic when hung from the neck, is pointing towards the face of the customer? You might have to get a longer lanyard and have a sufficiently low counter between you and the customer to have a clear shot between the mic and the customer’s face.

I don’t have any experience with the Roger Pen, either. But failing to find a way to get the Multi Mic by itself to work, you could always get the right receiver to attach to the Multi Mic to receive transmissions from the Roger Pen (Phonak). The Roger Pen is designed to work selectively by pointing it at speakers that you want to hear - so there’d be that oddity to overcome - “Why is this pharmacy person pointing that thing at me?!” - and stuff made by Phonak can get pretty pricey if you buy it brand new. You could take a chance with getting used stuff on eBay and if it really works and helps you in your job, splurge on brand-new stuff down the line. If you search this forum, focusandearnit and efigalaxie have used Roger Pens in conjunction with the Multi Mic and ReSound ’s and I’m sure you’ll find others who have done the same.

Edit_Update: I presume that you’ve tried the Restaurant program in the Smart 3D app with the Narrow Forward Focus sound directionality for the HA mics and that doesn’t help much? When I first got my Quattro’s, I went to an extremely noisy Chili’s restaurant and using the Restaurant program with narrow forward focus helped me hear my wife about as well as she could hear me in all the din-she’s a ~normal hearing person. The Speech Clarity setting helps, too, in situations where the problem is noise and not other human voices as a lot of noise has a low-frequency component. With the Multi-Mic, if you want to tune that, you can enter the “Sound Enhancer” environment and adjust the relative bass, mid-tones, and treble to mimic the Speech Clarity settings that you find most useful for your environment. With the Multi Mic in the Sound Enhancer environment, you can also adjust the amount of noise reduction and wind reduction that the Multi Mic is applying to sound it streams. You probably want to be sure wind noise reduction is turned off inside a store (it can interfere with speech intelligibility) and you probably don’t want any noise reduction stronger than Considerable (Strong will interfere with speech intelligibility). The settings available to you in the Smart 3D app will depend on what model and level ReSound HA you have (I didn’t see that info in your post).

Thank you
How do I turn off wind noise reduction
All I see is noise reduction

Also resound informs me of u hold
Vertical it for speaker wearing around neck

Horizontal is mult speakers

In reply to @rxscott63

I am presuming that if vertical is unidirectional and horizontal is omnidirectional that there is some transition angle in between. Depending on where that transition angle or zone is, one ought to be able to tilt the device to some degree <bad pun intended> and still have it function in ~unidirectional mode. That’s why I suggested that if some tilt were possible, you’d want a longer lanyard to wear it lower down on your chest so it wouldn’t have to be tilted so much to be ~pointed in the direction of someone’s face and still be at a relatively shallow angle from the vertical (if the person were nearby) to still be in ~unidirectional mode. Just trying to be inventive here and save you possible additional purchases.

Later today I’ll try the idea with my own Multi Mic and see if I can determine at what approximate angle the transition between “unidirectional” and omnidirectional kicks in. I know that recently my wife and I were visiting a friend’s house and touring his garden. The wife was wearing the Multi Mic hanging vertically and she was some meters away with the friend’s wife. They were both coming in loud and clear in my ears, so much so that I had trouble hearing what the friend was saying to me through my Quattro external mics-so I switched out of the Multi Mic program. So there was an instance where although the Multi Mic was hanging vertically, supposedly in “unidirectional” mode, it was picking up the voice of a nearby person as well as my wife’s great.

I used to work in a shop many years ago l. I used to work on the checkout and I hung my system off the checkout area. It worked very well.

Edited

I guess if you have the ReSound ENZO and not the ENZO 3D then you’ll only have use of the ReSound Smart app and not the Smart 3D app. The Quattro, the LiNX 3D and the ENZO 3D have more features available through the Smart 3D app. Using the Smart app (not the Smart 3D app), when I go to the (remote?) microphone program in DEMO mode (didn’t want to pair my Quattro’s through the Smart app and screw up the Smart 3D app connection), there does not appear to be the ability to adjust the (remote) microphone in Sound Enhancer mode for wind noise or general noise reduction and only base and treble levels are accessible, not “mid-tones.” Maybe I’d see something different if I paired my Quattro’s and the Multi Mic with the Smart app but I don’t want to risk mucking up my phone- connection. Perhaps there is another ENZO user on the forum who has the Multi Mic and can advise you on what functionality you should see in the Smart app when everything is properly paired up.

Hearing aids ReSound - Device Compatibility - iOS and Android compatible...

Check if your patients iOS or Android phone is compatible with their hearing aids

Edit_Update: Relative to my comments just above, if I switch to DEMO mode in the Smart 3D app, the same is true for the (remote) microphone program. Unlike the Multi Mic program in the Smart 3D app, there are no controls in Sound Enhancer for Wind Noise and Noise reduction for just the microphone program viewed in DEMO mode in the 3D app. So I guess only another ENZO user who has a Multi Mic properly paired up in the ReSound Smart app can tell you comparatively what you should expect to see under Sound Enhancer in the Multi Mic program (which should be so labeled on the top band of available user programs).

OK. I tried the Multi Mic as a pointing device. I think one has pretty decent “unidirectionality” now to a tilt of about 45 deg or so, at least. I tried the pointing under two different scenarios.

I sat at the kitchen table with my wife a couple of feet away from me. I had her put her iPhone down on the table a few feet to the side playing a talk podcast fairly loudly. I had bass set at - 2 , mid-tones at about + 4 dB, and treble at about +6 dB. Turned off “Surroundings” (external mics). At noise suppression at CONSIDERABLE, wind reduction at 0%. Even though I could still hear the talk podcast vaguely to the side, her relatively soft high-pitched voice came in distinctly. I guess if you don’t have very good or do very poorly with speech-in-noise, you might not do as well. I definitely have a speech-in-noise problem but it is relatively mild.

The Multi Mic performed even better when used next to a roaring Jenn-Air stove top exhaust fan because that is a relative droning noise that the ReSound noise suppression algorithm can very effectively subtract out of speech. My wife stood a few feet away from me and by pointing the Multi Mic in her direction at about a 45 degree angle, her voice came through very clearly to me with a much-reduced drone of the Jenn-Air in the background. As a “control,” when I lowered the Multi-Mic to a perfectly horizontal position, the Jenn-Air noise streamed much more strongly to my Quattro’s. So in the case of a repetitive noise, I was getting both the benefit of some directionality from the Multi Mic and noise suppression from the Quattro firmware.

So if you can work by tilting the Multi Mic on a lanyard or holding it gripped in your left hand as you write with the right or maybe you could have a holder on a computer monitor that you just park the Multi Mic in if you need to type at a keyboard while addressing a customer. Since I imagine that you fetch and put lots of other things while you deal with customers, that with training, if carrying a Multi Mic on your person doesn’t work, that you could just place it and remove it from different objects preconfigured with holders. Or if you wear a white coat that has pockets, you could clip the Multi Mic to the inside of a side pocket (so if the clip comes loose, it falls into the pocket, not onto the floor). Then with your hand, as you’re doing something else, just pull out the Multi Mic as you need it and hold it pointing in the direction of a customer or place it on a preconfigured holder on a register or monitor, etc.

Don’t know how well this will work for you. Just suggesting it as an experiment to try. The audio talk podcast and the kitchen fan were both VERY loud and I was still able to hear my wife clearly - so perhaps there’s hope it can work for you. If there is other stuff going on in your work place, like overhead speakers broadcasting announcements, store specials, maybe you could ask the management to accommodate your workplace as getting prescription advice right and providing the right answers to patient questions, etc., is pretty important. If you have normal hearing co-workers who find the pharmacy work space too noisy, too, maybe they could support you.

I have the Enzo’s with the multi-mike accessory for about 3 years now and have been very pleased with it. I have found that for directional use it helps if you cuff your hand around the speaker to extend the range. I seldom use the speaker around the neck on the lanyard. I find it works best if given to the person you are holding a conversation with so they can speak directly into the mic. It also works very well to set next to a speaker which is at a comfortable level for others in the room. I have had both Siemens and Phonaks with remotes and this is hands down a better remote mic.

To set the stage, I live in a retirement community and eat in a dining room regularly – it is extremely noisy. Sometimes there are 3 others at the table, sometimes it’s only my wife with me. I experiment a lot – I’ve tried every combination I can think of with my many gadgets and tinker constantly, trying to find a better combination. The multi-mike clearly works best if hanging below the speaker’s mouth. I get that luxury only when working one on one. At our dining room table, I leave it horizontal on the table in front of my wife (she really doesn’t like it clipped to her blouse), if we are the only ones at the table, and, if others are present, I move it to the center of the table. When someone not at the table stops to speak to me, I find that I usually have to pick the mike up and hold it vertically a foot or so from the speaker (everyone here knows that I can’t hear). Even at that, some I can’t understand anyway, at the table, or otherwise - I maintain that they are mumbling!

Having said that, sometimes the noise really gets to me, and I have to turn the volume down (using the app).

If you are working at the same work station most of the time, you might arrange some way to place the mike horizontal and fairly close to where an average height customer stands. The mike really is quite good and will remain connected to your until you move 25 - 30 feet away.

I apologize for the rambling - that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know. Hope it gives you some ideas.
LRA

feels like multi-mic only provides benefits when you can use directionality to the full extent. I wonder if we can use some of the newer technologies like machine learning to better single out human speech.

As a practical matter, I use it in the horizontal position more than the vertical - & endure the noise. Without it, I can understand very little.

In reply to @rxscott63

I just hold the mic with my thumb and forefinger wrapped around it and the the other fingers forming a cone. Pretty much a trial and error thing but it does make them a little more directional.

Resound should be able to give you an answer. Are they made for iPhone? If so, highly likely they would work with MultiMic. If Costco guy thinks they will work, you could order and if they don’t, just return.

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