Oticon More Sound Booster Vs Speech in Noise

@Volusiano said:

After a while, your brain hearing is probably going to adapt and do pretty well around your house because that’s where it gets its most training. But that once in a while rare occasion that you go into a very noisy restaurant, maybe once every few months, you’re probably going to struggle nevertheless, because you don’t have enough opportunities to work out your brain hearing in those place that often in the first place.

@glucas: I can understand, to some extent, your reaction to @Volusiano 's statement, but I think there’s some misunderstanding. I can’t speak to what was in his mind when he wrote that, but permit me to share an anecdote:

• I started wearing Oticon More3s in March of this year, after 6 years of disuse of a pair of badly-fitted Unitron North Moxi Fit 800s. I upgraded to More1s a month later;
• Because they worked so well for me, I started wearing my Mores for, on average, about 18 hours a day. I soon realized that there were many sounds and words that I could hear, but not interpret/decode effectively;
• On this Forum, I learned from @Neville that, over those 6 years of hardly wearing my HAs, my brain had reallocated some cognitive capacities to other senses (probably vision), and warned me that it would take time and persistence to get the hearing capability back - if, indeed, I could do so - (he was right);
• By the month of June, my wife began to comment about how much my hearing had improved with my new hearing aids;
• In August, a medical emergency forced me to attend the emergency room of our local hospital. I had just put my More1 devices to charge after a long, 18 hour day, so I was forced to wear my Unitrons to the hospital, with predictably frustrating, annoying results which I’ve already documented in another thread. The Moxi Fits were as useless on that occasion as they had been for the prior 6 years.;
• Since August, I’ve continued to wear my More1s for 18+ hours a day. I have noticed an improvement in my speech comprehension along the way, however, a real test presented itself two weeks ago, when I dropped off my Oticons to the audiologist to remove the MyMusic program and load the Comfort program in its place (this has proven to be a good decision, BTW);
• On that occasion, for the first time in 6 years of terrible results when wearing my Unitron North Moxi Fit 800s I had terrific speech comprehension for the 4 hours I wore them, on the day I had my More1s adjusted. I enjoyed lunch with a close friend in a noisy little Korean restaurant (he wears a More1 on one side only) and hardly had to ask for a repeat, even though my friend is very soft spoken, and I was not obliged to deploy my remote mic, which was almost always required, in the past. (Needless to say, I’m delighted that I now have a spare set of HAs that give me good speech comprehension.)

The only variable here is time, and the brain learning that has been taking place since March. Normally, I find myself in the quiet environment of my home, with my geriatric pets, where even my poorly-adjjsted Unitrons were adequate, even before the improvement in my BrainHearing. Wearing my Oticon More1s, however, has given me the confidence to want to go out for the odd lunch with my friends, and I’ve been doing that about once a month since March. I’ve found myself in other noisy situations over the same interval, and so I have had more than one opportunity a month to practice my BrainHearing, including focussing and filtering. It’s all getting better.

Returning to @Volusiano 's comments: I don’t believe that he’s making as broad a statement as you infer in your reply (in which I think you make a valid point about the nightmare of noisy restaurants). I believe @Volusiano means to reference my type of situation, and the kind of circumstances to which member @cvkemp Chuck frequently refers, in which we’re getting consistent incremental improvements (though not necessarily perfection) through practice. The more I work at it (and - like Chuck - I’ve benefited from “hearing therapy” exercises like reading along with ebooks, as well as WaPo’s robotic reader), the greater my capacity to focus on elements of the soundscape in which I find myself, and filter out unwanted sounds and voices.

I’m not saying that everyone will share my experiences, however, I do think there’s a lot of truth in @Volusiano 's and @cvkemp 's posts on the subject of BrainLearning. It sure has worked for me!

@Volusiano said:

In your example of the pot and pan noise competing with your wife’s speech, unfortunately that noise comes from where your wife’s speech is, so neither the traditional front beam forming nor the OPN or More can help much. Well maybe the More can help a little better than the OPN due to the DNN, but not by much because the pots and pans clanging are not dominant/prolonged noise sources but spontaneous sudden and short burst of noise sources.

@Volusiano I’m not looking for an instantaneous wow factor. In fact i’ve stated that rather clearly in the two threads I’ve posted in. I fully understand the Oticon concept and, like every other brand that tout their methods, I only care if it performs. The kitchen scenario is only one example. And you’ve never heard my wife in the kitchen. I’m not a home body. I’m active. I spend a lot of time out. Crowded gatherings are common place occurrences for me. Also I’m in restaurants at least once a week. There are plenty of situations for the More 1 to flex its Brain Hearing muscles. And I’ve been clear that the best a 30 day trial can do is give me enough information, positive or negative, to stay with a product and go through the extended tuning process to obtain peak performance. Right now that is what’s up in the air.

I’ve already benefitted from the More 1. Voices from the side and back and even in meetings with people facing away from me are vastly improved. Music on the other hand is severely lacking in comparison to the Widex but I’ve gotten info here that should improve it. I’m also going to implement the suggestions I’ve gotten from you and Spud and hopefully that will improve things.

SIN is the holy grail. I was able to discount that for a time for other benefits like music performance with the Widex. That is no longer the case.

@Mark_Chambers said:

I may have to come to grips with the fact that there is nothing on the market yet that fixes things for me.

Have you considered Whisper? Everyone here who’s using it is impressed by its speech-in-noise performance. The catches are, it has an external processor (which is carried, not worn), and some features are still under development.

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/my-whisper-ai-trial-vs-oticon-more/64406/83?u=x475aws

I’ve read some of the testimonies and find them interesting. I’d rather not have to carry a “brain” as I find my own cumbersome enough. Also it is not covered by insurance–at least not yet. I can have the premier level of any of the top 6 for no out of pocket cost. I’d rather stay with one of those for now. I can have a new pair every three years and I’ll keep an eye on the Whisper. If I can’t find one that works for me I’ll surely be looking in that direction.

Thanks!!

As I read through these post I see that absolutely everyone has different hearing issues, losses, environments, and other challenges, which backs up my belief that we as individuals hear differently, because of up bringing, our living environments over our lifetime, how long we went without the hearing help we needed, all of this make each of us the individuals that we are.
Just something to think about.

@Mark_Chambers said:

That’s why my initial intention was to go with the Paradise and a Roger device.

@Mark_Chambers said:

SIN is the holy grail. I was able to discount that for a time for other benefits like music performance with the Widex. That is no longer the case.

Try the Paradise with the Roger On.

People on these forums share their WRS all the time, but seldom their SIN test results. There are people with loss like Volusiano who need a 3 dB SNR boost to do okay in noise, and people with mild hearing loss who need a 12 dB boost. There is no premium hearing aid on the market that can manage the latter on its own. Given your asymmetry, I would already be guessing that your SIN performance is a struggle–speech in noise processing relies heavily on binaural skills.

@glucas said:

I’m sorry Volusiano, but with the greatest of respect, no amount of “brainhearing” or “training” is going to adapt you to hear in a nightmare restaurant situation if the physiology of the ear won’t allow for it and you simply cannot tune into individual voices and are overwhelmed by a cacophony of voices. You are conflating your individual experience with Oticon and discounting other anecdotal experiences of people with more severe loss.

Yes - I get the point that brainhearing may lead to separation of sound sources but beyond that - I don’t think it works because the fidelity is simply not there in the high frequencies.

I guess you missed reading my previous comment in post 95, which I will quote again below for reference to the point you make. In this previous comment, I did say that not everyone takes to the open paradigm and some people simply do better with more help from the more aggressive beam forming approach…, which is perfectly fine, too.

And throughout many of my posts here and there, I’ve mentioned before an example of someone who tried in earnest the OPN 1 back then (@bluejay) and simply could not get it to work for her. Then she switched to the Phonak Audeo back then and was much more happy with it. Then she stuck with the Phonak brand and upgraded to the Marvel, and then the Paradise, and continued to be happy with them all.

But I would not make such a definitive statement like you did above simply because it doesn’t work out as well for you. While the physiology of YOUR ears won’t allow for it, the physiology of some other people are salvageable and can be trained with success to adapt and tune into individual voices OK. It’s worked for a lot of people and that’s why the Oticon OPN/S/More have be a success for many, even though it doesn’t work for many others as well. I notice that folks with severe hearing loss like yourself tend to have much less luck with the Oticon OPN/S/More than folks who have better hearing and the more normal ski slope loss.

So it’s not about drinking the Oticon Kool-aid like you claimed you did. It’s about if you already decide to give the Oticon OPN/S/More a trial, make an earnest and positive effort to try it out, and if it doesn’t work out for you, that’s perfectly fine and you move on to try something else that’d work better for you.

The bottom line is that I never said that it would work for everyone if they just try it and give it time. I only said give it the best try while you have it, and if it doesn’t work for you, then move on.

@Volusiano said:

It’s too bad that you only had a month of trial with the More, but just try to keep up with it with a positive can-do attitude while you’re on the trial and maybe toward the end of the month things may turn around for you. If not, then just move on the Paradise. Not everyone takes to the open paradigm and some people simply do better with more help from the more aggressive beam forming approach of the traditional HAs, which is perfectly fine, too.

I’ve spoken with you in the past Neville and you’ve been right on every time. I’ll be on the road today but I’ll get with you later or sometime tomorrow.

Thanks!!

Big Bang on the left side is the cause of that assymetry.

@Mark_Chambers said:

Big Bang on the left side is the cause of that assymetry.

@Mark_Chambers: Were you an artilleryman, also?

Sorry, what definitive statement did I make? Can you clarify?

@Mark_Chambers: All it takes is once. People don’t believe it.

When I go to the range I put my hearing protection on before getting out of the vehicle. I also mute my aids, but leave them on, my ear molds act a little like ear plugs

That was not my statement.

I am talking about comprehension, not adaptation to loud voices.

This is my scepticism. And why I reacted like I did. It’s very black and white. If you can hear nothing at all but a cacophony of noise, then no amount of adaptation is going to help.

Add that to what I know about the complexities I understand of separation of speech from noise and then distinguishing individual voices, then I am doubly sceptical.

I am not dissing somebody who is being helpful. And I understand his advice is heavily caveated. But I am genuinely questioning how many people this is going to work for and which groups of people?

If we said - maybe 90% in the mild/moderate category - ok. That is great.

If we said - maybe 50% in the moderate/severe category - ok. That is great.

If we said for severe losses - maybe only 30% - ok. That’s great as well.

But we know nothing.

I am happy it works for Volusiano. I truly am. And I understand that he understands that it doesn’t work for anyone. He caveated his information - that is fine.

But the claims are still wooly. For me - there should be little adaptation period. It should just work and things should be clear. I don’t want to read that it will take several months. This is beyond frustration. The fact that Whisper have appeared to do something that Phonak and Oticon could not have achieved so far is beyond belief to me. They should be well ahead of the game. What have they been doing but driving around in flash cars in Denmark and Switzerland whilst the Tesla of hearing aids have come up with something better???

Over the same time my speech understanding with aids has improved, while my speech understanding without aids has gotten worse. Go figure. Does it mean it works for all no, it depends on the efforts put into improving. Nothing in life is free and improvement takes effort regardless of age, and the older I get the harder I have to work. I spend at least an hour a day working on my word recognition, some days more like 4 hours. I find and issue with understanding a word or phrase I, write it in my journal and find a way to work at remembering it and recognizing it. I follow a long with my audiobooks by reading along with it. If I failed to hear the word correctly I back up and listen over and over if necessary.