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OPN S 1 BTE with motorcycle helmet and headset in helmet

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I have used a 3/4 helmet for years and it works fine with my aids. I have to set a program or turn down the volume over the years and brands. I have had aids since 1974 and have been riding since that time as well. I now am enjoying the OPN S 1 and my own programming. I am hearing so much better with these. The helmet is ok with a restaurant mode setting. I am still getting a feedback that I have not been able to get rid of. It works best with directional mic setting. I think I will try turning off the speech rescue for this program. I’ll turn on max noise reduction as well. Anything else you can suggest to ensure is off or is on. I just want to hear the speakers in the helmet and the volume can be reduced as they are so close. I tried searching this site and found very old discussions where most just remove the aids. I wear all the time - some times I even wear one while sleeping.

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I wear aids inside Quiet Rider muffs which have intercom speakers inside. I usually turn down the volume 3 notches from normal before putting on the helmet, and verify that the phone is connected to my intercom and not the aids. Recently I turned on dual-connection Bluetooth on my Android phone. Only had one opportunity so far to evaluate - at highway speed and I recognized the aids’ ringtone. Audio was louder and clearer than usual at that speed but since the aid mics are in the muffs I didn’t expect the caller to be able to hear me. But he heard so well he couldn’t even tell I was on the bike. I need to experiment more but what I’m assuming is that audio was going to both my helmet intercom and the aids, and probably both mics were working as well. Very promising.

Am I hearing you right that you have speakers built into your motorcycle helmet, presumably positioned to be right at the opening of your ears? And that you experience feedback with the helmet on that you want to get rid of?

I assume that you already had run the Feedback Analyzer while having your helmet on so that it takes into account this enclosure situation? If not, I’d create a program dedicated for helmet use and run the Feedback Analyzer and have Feedback Shield (in Automatics) turned on for this program.

I don’t know if your OPN S 1 has tcoil or not. If yes, enable it for your helmet program so that it can pick up the magnetic field on your helmet speakers. If there’s no dedicated tcoil on your OPN S 1, at least turn on the Autophone mode if available so that when there’s a presence of the magnetic field from the helmet speakers, it’ll be activated.

I only have the original OPN 1 so mine don’t have tcoil, but the Autophone mode enabled on mine works very well when I wear headphones and put my inside the “well” of my ears instead of behind the ears. This helps position my HA right up against the headphones’ speakers and helps activate the Autophone mode so the sound is now induced through the speakers’ magnetic field instead of the mic picking up the sound through the air, thereby causing feedback.

I don’t think turning off Speech Rescue would help remove the feedback situation when wearing your helmet. If anything, I’d just turn off the High Frequency Bands in Speech Rescue to avoid the high frequency feedback caused by the situation with High Frequency Bands being ON.

Dusty, good to hear things are working for you. Answering the phone has been my challenge but I don’t have it mounted on the handle bars yet.

Volusiano, Yes I have a helmet set that consists of 2 speakers as well as a microphone. I can talk on a CB and I can also listening to radio or CD or USB stick music. I have used prior aids and I use a particular brand (ARAI) of helmet that has deep ear pockets. It gives room for the aids and the speakers. With my normal program I put on my helmet with no sound being played and I get feedback like I have my hand up against the aid. I have used a program that has full one directional option and that reduces the feedback. I can also turn down the volume a notch or two but when music plays it is not real clear and seems to cause some feedback. No, I have not tried the feedback analyzer. My audi says she did not find value in it because it affected all programs so you could not set one up with a specific feedback control. But putting the helmet on and going through the feedback analyzer sounds challenging. Don’t the aids need to be connected to the software (Genie 2). I only have cables with mini HI-Pro. If you give me some ideas with that analyzer maybe I can try it out.

I tried the feedback analyzer - it does affect all programs. I just held my hand up to one ear while it analyzed . It makes the same noise as the helmet creates. The changes it made was to drastically reduce all the lower frequencies and left the high freq unchanged. This occurred for every program. I undid the change. I did create a Tcoil plus mic program and it copies P1. I may have to turn the mic down but I can test how the tcoil works. I did check for Feedback shield and it is on but only for P1 and it is not helping.

Wow - a new discovery. The Tcoil + mic program trims low freq and it uses Pinna Omni with noise reduction. The default just had complex at 50%. If I put the helmet on I get no feedback. In P1 which has open sound option I have feedback while helmet is on. The sound is similar to when I put my hand up to my ear. With this new P2 program my hand still makes that same feedback noise but I don’t get it when I put the helmet on. I did see also see that my Music program also is using Pinna Omni (that is interesting) but is has no noise reduction. I tested running the volume of mic all the way down and the tcoil was picking up pretty good but I had to run the volume up on the radio. There is a little distortion with mic’s a standard volume and my reducing them 2 step seems to eliminate that and I don’t have to run the volume up too much on the radio. This is all testing standing still. I’ll have to be prepared to make some changes on an actual trip and see if I can repeat the same music with different items. All in all, I think this Pinna Omni is the key.

Keep testing and I discovered that the Music program with Pinna Omni does have the same feedback as my other programs. So the new Tcoil + mic program has something else that does eliminate or greatly reduce the feedback. I see that it says in the fine tuning section the gain values are the same as for my P1 but it says that the “m relative to the T (db)” is set at -6. it can be set to 0, -3, -6, or -9. So maybe that is enough to pull that feedback out.

It’s the mic that’s causing the feedback, not the Tcoil. But I assume that you want both the Tcoil so you can hear from the speakers, but also from the mics so you can hear the surrounding noise, abeit however good that may be since the helmet is blocking some of it.

I’d keep experimenting with the various Tcoil + mic and whatever other programs they have until you find a combination that solves the problem for you. That’s the beauty of , huh? :slight_smile:

In reply to @a2wheelerte

@a2wheelerte said:

My audi says she did not find value in it because it affected all programs so you could not set one up with a specific feedback control.

I don’t know about the OPN S, but with my OPN 1 in Genie 2, under More Tools → Automatics, at the very bottom is the Feedback Shield option that allows you to have it turned on or off on each side of the . And this is specific to the current Program that you’re selecting. If you switch to P2, P3 or P4, you’ll see the options dedicated for those programs separately. So I don’t know why your audi thinks that the Feedback Shield (which is the execution option for the Feedback Analyzer) is applied to all programs together. This is simply not true. You can turn it on individually (or not) for the programs independently.

Thank you for that clarification. I did notice that the Feedback Shield is available on each program and that I have it turned on for all programs. The key item you mentioned -Feedback Shield (which is the execution option for the Feedback Analyzer). I will play with the Feedback Analyzer for some other minor feedback issues. The one with my hand over the aid was a bit severe on the solution.
I do want to thank you again for the idea of using Tcoil for my solution. It seems to work well. I will have to do some test riding to see overall results. But it makes sense that it works as it is reducing the mic by 6 and actually the tcoil ends up picking up more bass (so it seems so far).And yes - I love this capability and this website.

Test ride indicated the volume for the Tcoil was a little low. The default setting was to make the Mic a -6 from the Tcoil, to make it comfortable I had to turn down the Mic 2 clicks. Then I just had to increase the volume of the radio.
I changed the Mic to a -9 dB from the Tcoil and I was able to leave the volume setting on the aid at normal setting. The Tcoil picked up very nicely with its higher volume setting. Radio sounded better than I have ever heard it with hearing aids in the helmet. I will just leave this program in place as I ride a lot.
Thanks again for the help.

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