Oticon More 1 Low Hiss in Quiet

@padraighgriffin: This is probably not much help,but I’ve been wearing Mores since March 2 and haven’t experienced a problem with floor noise. It’s only really evident when I crank the volume via the app.

So, perhaps whoever set up your aids has gotten some of the gain settings wrong? And everyone’s hearing is different, so you may simply have a different threshold than me. I don’t know, but I don’t really think it’s a hardware issue, for whatever that opinion is worth.

Too bad you don’t have an audiologist you can dialogue with (or do you?).

It’s a well studied and understood issue/trade-off with HAs that use beam forming (fully directional mode) to help block out noise from behind and the sides in order to focus on sounds from the narrow beam in front. It’s been documented in research papers. The side effect/trade-off is the noticeable floor noise at the lower frequency spectrum, especially noticeable if it’s quiet.

I’ve had first hand experience with this myself on my OPN 1 when I put it in the Full Directional value instead of Open Automatic value in my Directionality Settings option when I tried out the beam forming option of my OPN 1. The OpenSound Booster and MoreSound Booster is basically that beam forming option, so it’s very understandable if you can hear the floor noise being louder the more you increase the boost.

But in Open Automatic, I don’t hear any floor noise anymore at the low frequencies because the OPN is now no longer in beam forming (fully directional) model.

What Directionality Settings value do you have set in your MoreSound Intelligence menu? If it’s being set to Full Directional, then you’ll hear the floor noise in quiet environments. It’s basically the same as enabling the MoreSound Booster. If it’s in Neural Automatic (like it should be) or Fixed Omni, then you should not hear the floor noise. So check it out to see if it’s set to Full Directional or not, and change in.

If you want it in Full Directional on occasions to help you focus on front speech, then use the MoreSound Booster instead so it’s only temporary and you can turn it off when you don’t need it anymore. But if you really want it to be set to ALWAYS be in Full Directional, then that’s a trade-off that you’ll have to live with. It’s not an Oticon only phenomena. It happens with all HAs. But it’d defeat your purpose to buy the More for the open paradigm if you force your More to always be in Full Directional.

Some of the more tradition HAs in the William Demant family like Sonic Enchant or Radiant, or the Philips HearLink, do give you an option to overcome this phenomena by suppressing the floor noise, but probably with some trade-off, probably at the expense of diminishing your low frequency gain or something like that.

Of course, this issue only affects folks who have good low frequency hearing (so they’d notice the low frequency floor noise) and only a ski slope loss. Folks with moderate to worse low frequency hearing wouldn’t notice this phenomena as much. In noisy environment, it’s probably loud enough that this floor noise is overwhelmed by the ambient noise that even folks with ski slope loss wouldn’t notice it. But in quiet environments and if the beam forming (fully directional value) is still on, then the ski slope loss folks would notice this floor noise. But you gotta ask yourself why you’d want to be in beam forming mode in quiet environments, especially if you own the More and subscribe to the open paradigm in the first place?

I do still have the tinnitus program and use it every now and then. I find it helps at times if I am in a very quiet location and I am trying to relax or read. I have to say that my aids for the most part are set up so my tinnitus isn’t noticeable to me as long as I wear them. I also, notice at times a hiss in the quietest of locations, but I am not sure if it is the aids are the very quiet hiss of a fan, because my wife has said she too can hear it.

Yes I am finding the Tinnitus program helpful. However no matter what settings I change in the Genie 2 app I can’t seem to get rid of the low hiss completely.

Also weirdly enough I find setting the directionality settings to ‘full directional’ actually reduces the hiss, the opposite of what is recommended.

The only thing that seems to reduce it is when i dramatically reduce the settings for ‘soft’ in the gain programming. Far below the target line from my audiogram.

It is a little bit frustrating. As the hiss is noticeable to me.

If you find that changing from Full Directional to Neural Automatic or Fixed Omni actually reduces the hiss, then it is not the floor noise I was talking about, but it must be something else then.

I was also under the assumption that you were not using the Tinnitus feature. If you have the Tinnitus program on, then all bets are off about what you hear as “hiss”. For debugging purposes, you should turn off the Tinnitus program completely to see if the hiss goes away or not. If yes, then it’s obvious that the Tinnitus program is causing the hiss.

With the Tinnitus program turned off, if you can remove the hiss by reducing the Soft gains, then there’s something wrong with your More 1 in the Soft gains functionality then. But it does make sense that if the hiss comes from that functionality, then reducing the gain would reduce the hiss because you’re basically suppressing the floor noise by suppressing the gain.

I would try further debugging on this by just reducing the Soft gains on one HA only to see if the other HA still has the hiss or not. Maybe also perform an in-situ audiometry and see how far off the in-situ result is compared to the original audiogram. Then re-prescribe the gains to the in-situ result anyway to see if the hiss is still there or not.

One other thing to try is to play around with the Soft Sound Perception values in the Sound Controls section of Fine Tuning to see if the hiss changes based on these values or not.

You should really post your audiogram on your profile so we can see if there’s something special about your hearing loss or not.

Maybe it’s a very slight whistling sound, have you tried using More’s openbass domes instead of openfit domes?@padraighgriffin

Volusiano is on point. Is the tinnitus program off too? That can also reduce hiss?

Thanks for replies. I don’t think it is to do with the Tinnitus feature. I have noticed the following.

When I reduce the soft gain in Genie 2 is reduces the hiss, but it’s a long way below the target gain that is based on my audiogram.

I can’t access the ‘Soft Sound Perception’ Values as it is greyed out and I don’t have the option to move the slider. As I have set my VC button to 1db +5/-5 and turning it down to -5 reduces the hiss noticeably.

I have posted my in situ audiogram in my profile pic, but I’m not sure if it the right way to post it.

I used this in situ audiogram to reprogram the settings. Seems to have some improvement. Definitely in Tinnitus masking as it is really quiet since, but hearing aid hiss is still there is quiet room.

I have ordered Double Vented bass domes and will try these.
I have some low frequency loss, particularly in right ear, but I’m not sure if this is normal range.

It is definitely something in my settings. The joys of going the DIY route. It’s just the expense here is crazy. €6,000 vs €2,400 DIY. I also like the ability to customise on the spot, but just need to learn how to program these aids properly.

Hm, that’s not the same result I get for my mock setup on the More 1. See below. I answered No to that Personalization question and I still have the Sound Controls menu available with 5 values available to me. This is for P1 which is VAC+ based. For any program that is not VAC+, the whole Sound Controls menu is grayed out. Mine is with the bass dome with double vent. When I switched to the OpenBass Dome option (assuming that’s what you’re using), I still get 4 out of the 5 Soft Sound Perception values to choose from. The right most value is grayed out.

I think trying the double vent bass dome as a next step is a good step. Your hearing loss should work fine with the open domes, but it doesn’t hurt to try the bass dome to see.

@padraighgriffin said:

Have tinkered with it but no complete elimination of the low hiss in dead silence.

Yeah well I don’t think you can totally eliminate circuit/microphone noise, it’s always there for some people, as in you have very good hearing in the lower frequencies, especially on your left,then once it’s past 2000Hz it drops off.
With your loss, I doubt you’ll take to the double bass domes, you need the open domes to let the lower frequencies in naturally, those double bass are gonna block this from happening, plus you’ll get the “occlusion effect” for sure, but not a deal breaker if you can tolerate it.

@padraighgriffin said:

When I reduce the soft gain in Genie 2 is reduces the hiss, but it’s a long way below the target gain that is based on my audiogram.

But genie shouldn’t be amplifying anything under 2000Hz anyway, I mean a loss like yours is considered in the “normal” range of hearing up to 20 -25dB loss is considered normal, which you have, so no need for amplified sound in theory anyway.

Just out of curiosity, do you notice the “hiss” more on your right side then the left?

@Volusiano said:

s VAC+ based. For any program that is not VAC+, the whole Sound Controls menu is grayed out. Mine is with the bass dome with double vent. When I switched to the OpenBass Dome option (assuming that’s what you’re using), I still get 4 out of the 5 Soft Sound Perception values to choose from. The right most value is grayed out.

Thanks. Just maybe regarding microphone noise. Is it possible I should be using 60 speakers instead of the 85 I received with the aids?

Thanks. My settings are definitely P1, General VAC. I have tried a number of different profiles with limited success. Still tinkering away with the different profiles. Delighted with the HA’s apart from that faint hiss. Would love to sort it.