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Too much noise reduction when using my Starkey Livio Edge AI

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I got Starkey Livio Edge ’s, custom ’s, in late Dec. I will begin by saying that overall I am VERY happy with them. New ’s, and a new Audi that adjusted me very differently from the previous one, has made a huge improvement in my hearing and speech understanding. Bluetooth integration has changed my life.

But there is some kind of background noise suppression system in these HA’s that doesn’t show up in or is controllable by the HA phone app. When I drive a vehicle, once the road noise reaches a certain point, I will hear the background noise shift dramatically. The HA’s really push back or suppress the road noise, but the problem is that it makes it harder for me to understand other people in the car.

The worst offender though and the reason I’m writing, is because it kicks in big time when I play the piano. I play at home a lot and for church, and the suppression makes for such a jarring, distracting hearing experience. Twice now, between fiddling with the Starkey app and the built-in iPhone controls, I have been accidentally able to temporarily “break” the suppression, where even a bomb could go off and my HA’s wouldn’t suppress anything. It was SO nice!! Yes certain sounds were much louder and the piano was as well but the hearing experience was SO much better.

Does anyone know exactly what this is called or what’s going on? And if there is a way I can disable it on demand? My current audi is pretty clueless about it and just says “oh it’s just the algorithm”. I went to another audi yesterday for a second opinion and she didn’t know at ALL what I was talking about and quickly changed subjects.

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In reply to @david4

Unfortunately there are only a couple in my town. The next major town is 400 miles away but I hear there is a goo done there, I may call her up and get her opinion.

I had my audi setup my main #1 program with very little to none noise compression or noise filtering because of the poor speech understanding and the way my voice sounded. If I get into a loud situation I double tap to turn on edge mode, which gives full noise filtering. Program 2 is setup with mild noise control and 3 is for very noisy situations. It also helps to turn all noise filters off in the app. My Livio’s are

You might call Starkey tech support and see what they sugest. Maybe they could contact your audi and tell them how to fix it.

Or audi can contact them, mine has had to call them several times, only takes a few minutes to get someone that always seems very helpful.

I have these programs on my Livio’s

  1. Normal
  2. Restaurant
  3. Television
  4. Car
  5. Mask
    Stream Boast activates for media, phone calls
    You can call Starkey Support, they may have a suggestion/solution for you
    800-328-8602

Thanks for all the suggestions and input! Regarding calling Starkey… I feel like part of my problem is that I don’t know what this is that I’m describing! Is this for sure “compression” that I’m describing?

@tim4 , what was your issue or complaint before the compression or filtering changes? And how was it afterward?

In reply to @malbert

Your audi needs to call Starkey, you just need to explain to the audi what your experiencing.

As for me, I have struggled with from the beginning, over a year ago. I have nerve damage and a difficult loss that stems from Meniere’s. My problems change from day to day even hour by hour. I tried two other brands of aids before choosing Starkey. The other two just didn’t have the user control that Starkey offers, which I needed.

The problem I have is people’s voices start sounding like their talking into a fan and I loose clarity. With any kind of noise filtering going on, it only makes this worse. I figured this out with a music program my audi setup which didn’t have any kind of noise reduction. That’s the program I would go to when things started sounding wacky, and it would help clear voices up. I can improve even more with the EQ adjustments.

I’m not to knowledgeable on all the hearing aid terminology, still learning myself and sometimes will come here and ask questions just so I know how to describe things to my audi better, which my audi and this forum have been great by the way. Hope you find one that can help you. I know the members here will help anyway they can.

@malbert said:

I have been accidentally able to temporarily “break” the suppression

I reread your post and wondering do you know what you did here. The Thrive app has three “background noise” adjustments. For playing the piano you would want all these off. Also you don’t want Edge mode to be active or Comfort Boost. I have a custom program for any quite situation and all these are off, sliders all the way to the left for the background noise settings.

Wear Audibel Platinum A4 IQ aids.
Equivalent is Muse 2400 IQ.
I have temporary aids right now.
This happens to me.
I notice it usually in the car.
Today sitting at the table it happened.
I am getting new aids in about a week.
I’ll have the problem addressed when I do.
It is quite annoying.

Hi,

Firstly I would get your clinician to set up a ‘music’ program - most manufacturers software will create one of these programs pretty quickly and will basically be a copy of your ‘automatic’ setting but with a lot of the features switched off i.e noise reduction / microphone directionality so that music is processed withiout colouring the sound too much

for the car setting the clinician should be able to get into the automatic program and reduce the severity of noise reduction when the aids are in the car. I am not sure if Starkey will have an actual ‘car’ classification as part of the automatic setting as I dont fit much Starkey but if they do then it should be a fairly straight forward adjustment.

Telling you that it is ‘just the algorhithm’ isn’t great advice because there’s plenty a clinician can do to address the issues your mentioning, or at least have a go at fixing before blaming the ‘algorhithm’!

One other thing to check regarding the car, in the Thrive app there’s a “car” setting that can be turned on and off. If it’s on, that could be switching to a program with more noise reduction automatically when car travel is detected. I keep that setting off.

In reply to @MFAUD

Thanks for this info. She actually did create a Music program for me, but it does very little with the compression or background noise suppression.

I’ve seen two audi’s now and I feel like they are both just too inexperienced. Unfortunately there aren’t any other options where I’m at. The first was the one that just chalked it all up to “the algorithm”, and the other I went to see for the first time last week because the first does not do , and I wanted one badly. The second did the REM but when I asked her about my car noise and piano issues, she fumbled and didn’t have a good answer for me.

There’s an audi about 400 miles away that I will go see soon. She came highly recommended by a friend there who is a long time -wearer. It will be easy for me to pass through that way on business.

I will let you all know how it goes.

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