My experience going from Widex to Oticon to Starkey trial

After almost a month without the moments I got them back this morning with the new custom molds . Audi had trouble trying to clear up a major echo I was hearing. She helped it but couldn’t get it completely fixed. She finally said she thought the air vents were to small. She drilled them out one size larger but couldn’t go any larger because she didn’t have any bigger drill bits. I went ahead and left with them in hopes it would get better which I think it has, especially after I lowered the bass to -2. My voice is sounding like speaking in a can that’s up to my ear, really weird sounding. I will give it a few days maybe that will get better.

She tweaked the OPN’s some but I haven’t had them back on since. If they are even better then I’m not sure the moments will ever surpass the OPN’s capabilities for me.

The one thing I have already noticed and have missed about the moments is the way they lower sudden loud noises. This is very important to me at work and it works great. I can walk through the shop and not worry about loud tools and such.

On the drive home it didn’t take long to realize music sounds much better to me than with the OPN’s. After tweaking the trucks equalizer, music sounded great, vocals not as good but better than the OPN’s. I could understand about half of the lyrics. Same with the TV. With OPN’s I had to use the streamer. With moments I can get 90% of what’s spoken at normal volume.

If any of this changes after I go back to the newly tweaked OPN’s I’ll report back here.

Update:

I’m not hearing the echo that I was hearing setting in her office. With the volume and bass pulled down voices are sounding mostly clear and plain. Now if I can just get use to my voice the moments will give the OPN’s some competition.

@tim4 said:

The one thing I have already noticed and have missed about the moments is the way they lower sudden loud noises. This is very important to me at work and it works great. I can walk through the shop and not worry about loud tools and such.

There is a setting in the OPN called Transient Noise Management. If not already checked, make sure that your audi enables it and set it to max value. It should help with making sudden loud noises sound more comfortable.

tim4Author

Thanks, I will ask her about it. I know on my second visit I complained about the OPN’s not doing as well as moments and she did something then that helped but still not as good as moments.

Aug 5, 2020Edited

In reply to @tim4

@tim4 said:

On the drive home it didn’t take long to realize music sounds much better to me than with the OPN’s. After tweaking the trucks equalizer, music sounded great, vocals not as good but better than the OPN’s. I could understand about half of the lyrics. Same with the TV. With OPN’s I had to use the streamer. With moments I can get 90% of what’s spoken at normal volume.

There’s a chance that because the Moments does a bit more noise suppression while the OPN does less noise suppression, you may find that music sounds better in a moving car with loud road noises from the Moments because you get to hear less road noise and more music with the Moments, while you hear both road noise and music with the OPN by design due to its open paradigm.

You can try to listen to the music in your car after you’ve stopped the car and turn off the engine to see if this enhances your music listening experience with the OPN or not. But even if it does, that will only explain why the road and engine noise lowers your music listening experience with the OPN. You’ll mostly listen to music while driving the car anyway, not while it’s stopped, so the Moments still score more points in this respect.

Another thing to mention is that it sounds like you just have custom molds on the Moments, but you don’t have custom molds on the OPN, is that right? Is that why the custom molds on the Moments is making your own voice sound more occluded? It’d be hard to compare both the Moments and the OPNs if you have custom molds on one set and domes on the other set, because then it’d become apple to orange comparison.

tim4Author

@Volusiano said:

it sounds like you just have custom molds on the Moments, but you don’t have custom molds on the OPN, is that right?

That is correct. The molds will fit both moments and OPN’s but she didn’t have the tool to remove them from the moments. She has ordered the tool so we can swap the molds also. Should be in next week.

I told her pretty much what you just said, really not a fair comparison with molds on one and not the other.

Thanks for bringing that up.

tim4Author

In reply to @Volusiano

If molds improve OPN’s overall sound…game over!

Texas Hill Country

Just remember it’s all about tuning.
Both aids have many adjustments.
Seems the best aids are the ones the fitter is most knowledgeable about.

tim4Author

You are right on @Raudrive. It’s always in the back of my mind, is she getting the most out of the aids, either one? How do I know for sure? And even if she’s not, I like her, I can tell she really cares and wants to get me to hearing better but she may not know all the ins and outs.

Texas Hill Country

For what it’s worth. My wife trialed some top of the line Starkey aids about 8-10 months ago, her first pair. The fitter was sweet as she could be but she could not get the aids tuned right for my wife. After two trial periods, 4-5 months, my wife went to Costco to try the KS9 aids. She was floored by the KS9 aids, loved them. I personally think the difference was the fitter. The Phonaks have better Bluetooth but not sure about the speech and sound quality, both good aids.

Not telling you what to do but it’s your hearing and quality of life.

tim4Author

I here ya. It’s a crap shoot. I could go to Costco, get the KS9 aids with the wrong fitter I would hate them. I’m really leaning towards !

Texas Hill Country

I’m not saying go to Costco. The example is to get the best aids for you. That usually brings a good fitter into the picture. It’s your ears.

tim4Author

Yeah got cha. I was giving example also. Curious, did you wife’s audi say I can’t do anymore or did your wife just walk away?

Texas Hill Country

My wife’s audi put her in more expensive aids when the first ones didn’t act right. When they didn’t act right I asked the wife to turn them in before she was out $6000.
I asked her to try something else. So we went to costco to give them a try.

DanInSD

All,

I’m thoroughly enjoying this conversation. I am 6 weeks into my trial of Moments and will be starting an OPN S1 trial on 8/17. I am using round tips as that’s what the software recommended I needed.Overall, I like the Moments but do find that I can’t hear my wife or TV one room away. She has normal hearing and can hear just fine.

@tim4 I agree with your assessment that turning the base down makes things clearer. In my last fitting, I had bass all the way down and treble all the way up. It reduced background noised and improve clarity. That was actually after going through SoundSense Learn.

tim4Author

When you say you can’t hear your wife or tv in the next room, do you mean you can’t hear them or you can’t understand what is being said. I’ve noticed with both , the further I get from people or tv, the less I can understand. Turning the bass down also decreases volume, so you may have to increase the volume to compensate.

In reply to @DanInSD

@DanInSD said:

@tim4 I agree with your assessment that turning the base down makes things clearer. In my last fitting, I had bass all the way down and treble all the way up. It reduced background noised and improve clarity. That was actually after going through SoundSense Learn.

I remember watching a podcast or vlog from Don Schum, an Oticon VP, who talked about the Oticon VAC+ fitting rationale and how it is designed to treat people with reverse slope loss. He said that unlike conventional wisdom, increasing low frequency amplification for these folks only serves to muddy up speech clarity. They’ve found that holding back on low frequency amplification and focus on amplification in the high-mid to high frequency areas seems to give better result on speech clarity for these folks. So that’s what they do in the Oticon VAC+ fitting rationale to treat reverse slope loss.

I remember some folks on this forum who have reverse slope loss and wear the OPN seem to like them for speech clarity in noise. I don’t know what that will do to music listening, though. But you can always add the built-in Music program on the OPN and see how that works out for you.

DanInSD

In reply to @tim4

@tim4 said:

When you say you can’t hear your wife or tv in the next room, do you mean you can’t hear them or you can’t understand what is being said.

It’s the latter. Her speech sounds muffled.

@Volusiano said:

The high-mid to high frequency areas seems to give better result on speech clarity for these folks. So that’s what they do in the Oticon VAC+ fitting rationale to treat reverse slope loss.

Very interesting. What I don’t understand is why anybody would want to increase the base and add in so much background noise. My wife says that she needs to turn up the TV because the air conditioner is so loud. But if we have the ability to filter that out, why wouldn’t we?

I now have my next two research assignments: Learn about both the VAC+ fitting rationale and reverse slope loss.

Sequoia_Woman

USA

In reply to @DanInSD

@DanInSD said:

Overall, I like the Moments but do find that I can’t hear my wife or TV one room away. She has normal hearing and can hear just fine.

DaninSD, I trialed Widex Moments while my Signia Pure 13 aids were getting their final 3yr warranty checkup. I could not hear well with them at all. I was constantly asking my husband ‘What?’ I heard him but didn’t understand what was said. I’ve worn 16yrs. I’ve had 4 or 5 different HAs. The BT was a huge game changer for me.
I don’t have faith that my Audi tuned and fir them right. I had the round domes. It was not an easy 3 weeks. I felt like just not wearing. The Moments have their own software to set them up. They don’t use the but their own program. Since Moments are fairly new July 16th I believe I question my Audi’s ability to get my fit right. She gave me a hearing test and then with them in my ears she spoke words, I believe, and I said yes if I heard it. It really soured me on Widex.