Going from Oticon OPNS1 to More1 aids

@cvkemp: My experience is the same. I’m pretty sure this is what the Oticon marketing references to rebalancing the soundscape means.

@SpudGunner said:

rebalancing the soundscape

Even my OPN2s used to do that in a way that was kind of amazing. Forgive me if I’ve posted the following story before, but if I did it was a couple of years ago.

I was at the beach, enjoying the sound of ocean waves with a depth and degree of detail I couldn’t remember. I set the OPN2s to the music program, so I could really hear all of it, enjoyed it. Then I was walking with my wife along the boardwalk, still in earshot of the surf but in conversation. I realized I didn’t need to be in music program anymore and switched to the normal program. Instantly the conversation of a couple of women about 10 feet in front of us and walking toward us snapped into focus. The HAs just snapped it right into focus. Magic. Or great tech.

As it is with the more1s set up as they are, I’m pretty sure that some background sounds are quieter than my experience with the OPN2s. I’m in a room with a couple of aquariums in dire need of water addition so the sound of the water from the filter pouring into the tanks is fairly loud. But I’m pretty sure it’s quieter than with the OPN2s even without conversation. Of course without the old HAs around I can’t be positive. I didn’t manage a morning out in the garden today, so I don’t know how the birdsong is. With the OPN2s it has been very strikingly lovely in recent mornings. I was out in the morning a bit today but not a long time, and didn’t really notice any bird song.

There’s always the music program for times I want to really experience the full soundscape vividly, but I’d hate to lose any more of it as a default.

One thing I don’t notice with these More1s, which I had heard was a thing with the OPN-S is unnatural sibilants. Speech sounds natural.

@ha11: I live in the country. I wear More1s but have never worn Opn or OpnS, on which to base a comparison.

My devices deliver plenty of birdsong and squirrel chitter using my VAC+ program, but I get much sharper definition when I switch to the DSL v5.0 fitting rationale. (And I also use my Music program when I want close-to-unprocessed sound.)

@ha11 said:

She suggested that the trade off in aggressive noise suppression would be less awareness of environmental sounds — birds, etc. I told her I do want to hear everything. I have I believe above average ability to sort signal from noise considering my hearing loss, and my lifestyle is not very much in the fray, so if there were a trade off, I’d pick the noise.

I think this is incorrect and misleading on you audi’s part to make this suggestion the way she frames it. It goes to show how even many audis still don’t understand the difference between selecting aggressive noise suppression (her suggestion on the trade-off) and selecting the max value for noise suppression.

Her incorrect assumption that by selecting 10 dB for Difficult and 4 dB for Simple Environment in Neural Noise Suppression, it makes the More aggressive with noise suppression and cause you to lose out on hearing your surrounding sounds. This is incorrect.

The More will act the same way and apply the same amount of noise suppression between 0 to 6 dB if the max value were set to 6 dB or the max value is set to 10 dB. But if the environment becomes even more noisy than that, and more than 6 dB of noise suppression can help you, you’re not going to get any further help with noise suppression if your audi limits it to 6 dB. But if the limit has been set at 10 dB instead, you’ll get even more appropriate help, up to 10 dB, but ONLY AS NEEDED. So why wouldn’t you want more help with more noise suppression WHEN AND ONLY WHEN you NEED it? After all, that’s why you paid more money for the More 1, for this differentiation.

So I truly believe that your audi is doing you a dis-service by not applying the max value of 10 dB for Difficult and 4 dB for Simple Neural Noise Suppression for you, and incorrectly explained to you that it would give you too much/more noise suppression than necessary if set this way. It’s not about any trade-off you have to sacrifice, because you really don’t have to sacrifice anything. It’s about being to get the most help from the top tier model that you paid a premium for, and not having to suffer any trade-off because this top tier premium model is smart enough to apply the right amount of noise suppression for you ONLY AS NEEDED, but appropriately even more noise suppression than the lower tier models, IF AND ONLY IF NEEDED.

One additional note on choosing the “openness” that you want. Oticon adds in the Sound Enhancer feature specifically for this issue. They realize that their DNN algorithms may be too aggressive in suppressing noise for some users, but maybe not enough for others. So they decided to add in the Sound Enhancer to give users a semi-“override” mechanism to tailor the DNN’s result more to their likings. Users who like to hear more things more clearly that they think are suppressed too much in the DNN sound rebalancing can select the “Detail” value to lessen the DNN’s aggressiveness. Users who like to hear less things because they don’t think the DNN sound rebalancing is aggressive enough in prioritizing speech can select the “Comfort” value to enhance the DNN’s aggressiveness. This would be where your audi can adjust the level of aggressiveness to the way you like it. Not by messing with the Neural Noise Suppression. The Neural Noise Suppression really should always be set to the max value as much as can be afforded by the tier of your model to maximize the effectiveness of noise reduction so that it will be applied judiciously automatically by the More to as much as necessary but ONLY IF AND WHEN needed.

Thank you @Volusiano

I will study this and prepare for my follow up. As I mentioned in my first post, both my Audi and I were unprepared for this appt, which had been originally scheduled for 7/9 (in her case she was a bit thrown off and including time by the tech not charging the HAs before the visit, so we both waited while they charged enough, then ran a bit late).

I still don’t have my audiogram. I never got one before. This time I asked for it and she said, “I’ll print it now.” But it never got from the printer to me. My loss is ski slope, not too severe in the right ear, rather worse in the left ear. I can function in the world fairly well without HAs, only missing a few gaps in some conversations, not driving my (patient) wife too crazy with extra “what?”s. Open dome on the right ear, closed on the left. As I mentioned, I’m doing this crew rowing thing, which I do without HAs, and I don’t miss too much even though we are all talking at a distance outdoors. Basically I just struggle more without them and enjoy life less. If I were even more stupid or stubborn than I am I would probably be getting by without HAs at this point. However I enjoy life and people and the world a lot more with the HAs, and I know it’s good for my brain.

Birds were brilliant in the garden this morning. Absolutely no complaints about that.

@ha11 said:

One thing I don’t notice with these More1s, which I had heard was a thing with the OPN-S is unnatural sibilants. Speech sounds natural.

@Volusiano said:

@ha11 → can you post your audiogram

Thanks for the description about your hearing loss. You should make sure on your next visit to ask for a print out of it again. If there’s an issue with the printer, taking a phone pic of it on the screen is good enough, I presume.

The reason I was asking about your audiogram is because of the comment you mentioned above, hearing unnatural sibilants with your OPN S but not with your More 1. So I wondered maybe if you had Speech Rescue turned on in the OPN S but not in the More 1. This frequency lowering may produce the unnatural sibilants that you mentioned. Of course any altered sounds would be rejected as sounding unnatural, at least until the user gets used to it and accepts it as natural to them eventually.

But based on your hearing loss description, it doesn’t sound like your hearing loss would warrant using Speech Rescue anyway.

Everything is great with my More1 aids, but my left ear mold slipping out is still an issue. I have emailed my Audiologist with a update report, just have to see what he thinks should be done.

I forget, Chuck . You have acrylic moulds, right?

Yes, and cannot be silicone. I am thinking I will have to have a full skeleton ear mold to make it stay in place. The canal lock, and the helix lock doesn’t work for my left ear. And I haven’t had an issue with my right ear mold.

Again, I wish you good luck with the mould, Chuck.

My Audiologist has already emailed me back, I may have to get a new impression done to make Oticon happy.

@cvkemp said:

Yes due to my receivers had ear molds is all that will work. My receivers are molded in.

Hm, I thought that if the receiver goes bad, there’s a way to extract it out of the mold from the back to replace it with a new receiver but keep the same mold, no? Otherwise, it’d be a big hassle to have to make a new mold every time you need to replace the receiver. Because sometimes it may take a few tries before they can create a perfectly sized mold that doesn’t slip out.