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"Wind Noise"

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So as not to hijack another thread, I’ll start a new one. On a discussion on another thread, I realize that I may use the term “wind noise” differently than others. As a hearing aid user, “wind noise” has come to mean to me the noise the wind makes when it passes over the hearing aid microphones. I can eliminate it by not wearing aids or by turning them off. To me this noise is akin to the noise one gets when one blows over the top of a bottle opening. I can certainly hear the wind without my hearing aids, but it’s different. Curious of other’s takes. I think it’s an important distinction, but perhaps I’m splitting hairs.

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Do you mean that you get the note or tone sound from the wind?
I cut my hair way back and immediately noticed the wind blowing across the mics. This seems to me more like testing 1 2 3 [blow, blow] testing 1 2 3 sound check kinda thing people do. Not the fun bottle sound of blowing across the top.
Interesting if that is what you get.

I am glad you clarified things as when I started to read I was thinking flatulence.
I have phonak marvels and the wind noise is very annoying for me it sounds to me like someone screwing up a paper bag, I turn my aids off that is the only way for me as if I only turn them down it’s just quieter but still annoying.
Dell

In reply to @z10user2

No, the testing 1 2 3 is a better description. I was trying to convey that the noise is made by the interaction between the microphone (or microphone opening) and the wind rather than the noise the wind is making.

For myself, the experience of wind on my has definitely been the microphone testing. Except as @z10user2 stated 1,2,3, blow, blow, for myself it’s more of a bloooooooooow, in that the intensity does not abate until the wind completely quiets. More testing to be done with this current set, but initial impression from a bit of breeze yesterday after I first put them on, seemed to not cause any issue. I’ll definitely report back if this continues to be the case.

I agree to mic noise with wind blowing across it. The Phonak wind block works well but not perfect to minimize this noise.

As MDB states the noise is not like real wind, it is different, almost scratchy.

I noticed the other day something which I had never noticed before… wind noise when I was walking very quickly down the corridor at work, and now I can’t not notice it anymore. I suppose what this really means is I should slow down more :laughing:

On very windy days here in Colorado when I worked outside tracking with my dog, I would be unable to hear anything except the wind (Rexton Trax 42s), so I bought some lightweight headbands and wore those so I could hear my mentor who walks along with me. That fixed the problem.

Right now I’ve had KS9s less than a week. It’s pretty windy here today, and just walking outside, the wind noise is not bothersome. Maybe that would change if someone were trying to talk to me or if the wind kicked up higher. If so, I’d solve it the same way.

Good idea to start a new thread and not have me hijack BrianMB’s trial thread with stuff about noise.

The Oticon white paper stuff on noise is pretty interesting and shows how overwhelming mic noise can be compared to any “natural” wind noise, being considerable even at just a few mph wind. So I would agree that normally wind noise on the mics is the big problem and any other form of wind noise is much more minor.

Too bad I could find any data for the loudness of plain old wind on the ears - looking at motorcycle helmet data is a more specialized problem but BrianMB was kind enough to point out to me in a PM that I screwed up in calculating the noise of a 25 mph wind in a helmet, 25 mph = 40 km/h, not 15.6 km/h. So that would make the noise of a 25 mph wind about 82 . in a helmet affecting “natural” hearing without any HA’s.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that, AFAIK, mic noise reduction is just REDUCTION, not elimination. The Oticon whitepaper says that their system can reduce mic wind noise level by 10 to 30 . ReSound makes similar claims. So a HA will reduce a 90 dB to 100 dB wind noise on mics to the level of 60 to 70 dB, loud enough to interfere with normal speech without raising your voice possibly. So after wind noise reduction on the mics, you’re going to have a residual level of mic noise as well as now being in the ballpark of the noise level of wind directly on open(vented) ear canals - based on the screwy motorcycle helmet “wind noise” calculation above. I don’t know about Oticon but ReSound warns that applying the maximum amount of wind noise reduction can mess up speech intelligibility, too, because of removing low-frequency sounds that predominate in wind noise: https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/oticon-phonak-resound-oticon-or-my-hearing-journey-thus-far/46204/60?u=jim_lewis (member archive)

A brisk wind with my KS8’s makes wind noise intolerable. This gets into a comparison that I really cannot make any longer, now that my hearing is impaired. However, to me it sounds louder with aids than I ever remember wind noise when I was young, and not hearing impaired. It seems as if there is a limit to what the aids can deal with, and above that the noise is simply brutal. In this situation I just mute my aids and everything goes quiet. However, that is an apples to oranges comparison. I am comparing virtual earplugs on top of impaired hearing to mucho amplified hearing aids blasting in my ears.

Bottom line, is that I have accepted in brisk or higher winds, I must mute the aids. My ears cannot take it. Low to moderate winds are just fine.

I find Wind noise to be annoying but when I switch to my Speech in Wind program on my Phonak’s, I can not hear Wind noise at all. It’s great.

I have found that just turning your head a few degrees one way or the other pretty much stops MOST wind noise. I spend a lot of time on the water and sometimes I just have to turn the aids off.

Interesting article on wind noise that bicyclists experience. The guy who conducted the published study theoretically should know what he’s doing and the article says he had the assistance of Ford Motor Company engineers in conducting the studies in a wind tunnel. The guy’s basic point is that if you’re cycling 30 mph but doing it into a 10 mph headwind, your ears are experiencing the sound of 40 mph wind. Interestingly, the article says that the more downwind ear experiences more hearing noise.

Listen up: Why cyclists are at risk of hearing loss

It’s something we’ve all experienced. You’re out riding with your mates, trying to hold a conversation as you tap along. You head downhill, or the wind

Dr Michael D. Seidman is director of otologic/neurotologic/skull base surgery at Florida Hospital Adventist Health System and Professor of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery at the University of Central Florida.

The wind has been really strong here in Colorado the past couple of days. My guess is I could carry on a conversation outside in the wind with someone facing me or walking with me, but the noise it produces in the KS9s ranges from annoying to uncomfortable.

When I was just outside to feed my horse, I put up with it. When I spent time outside training dogs, I dug out one of my lightweight headbands.

Simple tuning for those aids to minimize or eliminate the wind noise.
Maybe a manual program for those circumstances would help. It would at least show you how tuning can make big changes. Then changes can be made in AutoSense once you know what works.

My follow-up appointment with the Costco audi is 10/4, so I’ll put wind noise on the list of things to mention. However, that’s the least of what I’d like tweaked.

My car is small and produces a lot of road noise at speed. I did enough highway driving the other day to become very unhappy with what the KS9s do in that situation. It’s not that the Trax are good about it, but they never drove me to remove them. That’s what I did with the KS9s. Without aids, I can just turn the car radio way up, hear it, and not even hear any road noise. If I make a habit out of doing that, I bet I lose an aid sooner or later.

With the aids, when I got going at speed, there was a noticeable change - everything got louder. Road noise didn’t diminish at all, just the voices (talk radio) got louder. Too loud. I think the same thing happened when I had lunch with a friend in a restaurant. I didn’t notice the switch when/if it occurred, but I did notice that her voice was obnoxiously loud and had to turn the aids down.

Try to take notes about issues with the aids. Include the environment when you have these issues. It will help you keep track of things and also help the fitter understand what you are talking about.

You are describing AutoSense changing programs during environmental changes. It’s all adjustable.
Hang in there and good luck.

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