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Oticon Xceed great for speech, not for music

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In reply to @phil1

Didn’t mean to sound confusing. I do not have ’s. I currently wear Oticon Dynamo SP8 hearing aids. I have been giving thought to the Exceed’s, so I pretty much read all the posts here relating to them. I was just noticing that from your post, your wife’s loss is similar to mine so I was genuinely surprised that she could hear music. I have had numerous audiologists attempt to program my aids with a music program.
Anyway, good luck to you and yours.

In reply to @phil1

@phil1 said:

Did you get your cochlear implants?

One implant scheduled for October 1, 2020.
Until you go through the evaluation process it’s tuff to say whether or not your wife is a candidate or not. Practically every member on this forum who got implants has done very well with them.

In reply to @Laura_B

Given my wife’s experience, if you still find your hearing aids useful for communicating with speech, you should be able to get something out of music. Zebras just suggested a direct audio input boot. We had used this on my wife’s 2 previous hearing aids but I didn’t know it was available for the Naida Q (I should have asked!). I know one is available for the Xceed, and very likely for the Dynamo. If the volume isn’t loud enough you can purchase a headphone amplifier — search online.

Another thing I do for my wife: Because most music has a dynamic range of about 30 , by using the free software Audacity I compress it down to about a range of 10 dB or less for her. She needs all parts of the music to be loud. This is also useful for us listening in our truck which is noisy. By using iTunes I make CDs of the compressed music. Audacity can also be used to compress the music into MP3 format which I’ve been doing to load onto our new iPhone 7, through iTunes.

I just got this reply back from Phonak which I intend to send her audiologist: “The hearing care provider can adjust the sound quality of the phone streaming by using the Oticon software in their office. You provider is welcome to contact our Audiology department for assistance with this during your wife’s next visit.” I’m sure there’s some way to get it right. But I think I will have to push on the provider.

if I can be of more help let me know.

In reply to @Zebras

did you, or anyone here, try the DAI for the Naida Q? I just tried it for the Supero and the sound quality was poor — there was distortion, at least at louder volumes — and it didn’t work on tele-coil. This is a nonstarter because music is only good when whistle block is turned off. This is probably why we switched to having her listen on headphones, and now a specially adapted powerful car speaker with tele-coil so she has no feedback. Plus the only place I can find that DAI is in the UK and they want £50 for shipping! But maybe her audiologist can get it if the Oticon doesn’t work out for music.

@phil1 said:

did you, or anyone here, try the DAI for the Naida Q?

Reason why the Supero doesn’t sound good to you is because you’ve got normal hearing! Please remember that!

How your wife hears and how you hear are too very different things.

I used to have the Sky Q70 SP (before I had surgery on my right ear) and used DAI shoes. They worked really well.

In reply to @Zebras

no. I can tell there is distortion. but at lower volume levels (that my wife doesn’t hear at) it may sound okay. But it may be different with the shoes for the Naida Q. But do they work with the tele-coil program? This is essential. As I’ve noted, the ComPilot does not work through tele-coil.

Your wife hearing loss is worse than mine. I have listen to music but l never can hear the song words. I can no longer hear the phone. I plan on buying the Xceeds in a few years as l would need more gains for speech than the Naidas.

Edited

Exactly…

Something else to note is the worse a person’s hearing loss is more difficult to tune the aids. In other words, it takes more skill from the fitter to tune aids for people with more hearing loss.

In reply to @Terost

But before you buy the Xceeds, if you are waiting a few years,look into what the latest Naida UP is. Her audiologist said it would stream from both iPhones and android, where as Xceed only streams from iPhone unless you spend $250 for the connect clip.

@phil1 said:

if you are waiting a few years

Phil1 - you’re some what all over the board regarding some unknown time frame for a hypothetical Phonak Naida UP. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think Phonak ever said they planned to manufacture a Naida UP. So what exactly is your source, since you and I certainly don’t trust True Hearing as a reliable base for predicting future aids. Also Phonak just came out with a Nadia M SP nine months ago. I’m all for more power hearing aids on the market, more selection but I’m not going to tell anyone to wait a few years for a hearing aid that might never see the light of day.

|### Phonak US Consumer Liaison info@phonak.com|Mon, Jun 1, 4:00 PM||!

Good afternoon, Phil-

Thank you for contacting Phonak with your inquiry. We are committed to launching a Naída UP with the latest connectivity benefits including RogerDirect, and can confirm it is in development; however this is going to require more time, and we do not anticipate having a UP device in the Marvel family. Best Regards, Consumer Technical Support

Also, my wife’s audiologist told us that it would stream to both android and iPhone’s. But he heard in a conference call with Phonak that it would not be available “for a while.”

Phonak and Oticon are in intense competition, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the next Phonak leapfrogs over the current Oticon. So if somebody is going to wait a couple of years, I would suggest looking into both of them. I’m not telling anyone to wait a few years — we didn’t want to. But Terost said that was his plan.

Thanks for reply. So if/when the Naida UP comes out it could be tied to the Paradise brand or more likely a completely new power aid. Your “noted” Phonak response was June this year, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Naida UP roll out come early 2021. I think the window is open for Phonak to swoop in and capture a large portion of the “power hearing aid market” because Oticon Xceed has not sold well and the Resound Enzo Q has received all most non-existent reviews. WIdex might of given up the power aid market, which leaves Phonak a golden opportunity to move in with a new power UP aid.

Yes, I suspect it will be in the Paradise line. Oticon is giving us a $50 gift card for trying the Xceed, so this implies they are desperate for users. But as I said, it was an immediate improvement for speech for my wife and I’m hopeful we can fix the music thing.

In reply to @tenkan

Which settings? We have ComPilot I. Maybe II is better. We also tried the remote mic with the ComPilot. It was louder but not as clear as the microphone on her hearing aid so we never bothered. But the goal is to get the music better on the Oticon.

Also, some time ago I determined on the Naida Q that there was distortion on the tele-coil when it was set to its very loudest volume. I solved this by lowering the volume some in Target— but she has to listen with the speaker at a higher volume.

I’m currently trialing the Xceed 2 UP. I use an Android phone, so have had to do my Bluetooth through the Oticon Connect Clip, rather than directly with my phone. I just popped up a video on YouTube on the phone to listen to. Now granted, I’m not a deep music aficionado, and wouldn’t know the deep details that it sounds like you are aware of. (Let’s put it this way, I played “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Addicted to Spuds”) But the music and lyrics seemed to come across just fine for me. Maybe your audiologist can get you one to try out to see if it helps any?

In reply to @Nighthawk700

what is the level of your loss? Hers is about 115 DB straight across. Is the feedback control on for the program you are listening to music with? One concern I have is that the feedback coontrol is affecting the music and to have it off she would have feedback. It only streams through tele-coil with distortion.

If anything,music should sound better without the connect clip since there’s one less bit of electronics in the way. I emailed Oticon about this and they said just have the audiologist adjust the program, calling Oticon if necessary. Unfortunately on our visit we couldn’t get the phone to pair (probably because the audiologist had other equipment on that the phone was trying to pair with) and the audiologist was getting very impatient and said for me to figure it out at home. So we couldn’t try the music then which is what I wanted to do.

I think it’s probably just more high frequencies than my wife is used to for music. I’m going to do an experiment with her tomorrow playing music for her and making adjustments on a graphic equalizer and see if there’s a formula that works. Then I can tell the audiologist to do such and such.

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