Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Bass double vent domes vs. power domes

This topic is closed.

17 replies2.8k viewsLast reply

Link to this topic
Edited

I’m wearing Oticon More, currently with Oticon bass double vent domes. I always struggle with speech in noise, especially with speech in speech noise.

As a performing musician I spend time in noisy bar/restaurants. A couple of times recently I have performed as part of an electric band. When I perform in a band I wear Etymotic earplugs stuffed into my ears along with my . Then I decrease the volume on the HAs during songs and increase the volume between songs so I can communicate with my band mates and the audience. I feel that this gives me pretty good hearing protection.

During breaks I experimented with leaving the earplugs in (along with the HAs) while I talked to individual audience members. I sometimes felt that this setup provided a little better speech comprehension than just the HAs. The earplugs provided occlusion and seemed to cut down on the background din a little bit.

So I bought some power domes, figuring that they would provide occlusion similar to the earplugs, and tried them in a couple of restaurant and social situations. I didn’t get the same perceived speech comprehension benefit as I had gotten with the bass double vent domes plus earplugs. I went back to wearing the bass double vent domes for the next few restaurant/social events that I attended while some family members visited.

My audi, of course, had programmed my HAs based on the bass double vent domes that the Oticon software prescribed. My question (especially to the pros here) is: Based on my anecdotal experiences described above, should I return to my audi and ask him to give me a HA program based on my using power domes? Does switching from bass double vent domes to power domes call for such significant programming changes that I would need a whole new program to decide whether I would be better off with power domes? I’d love to hear any responses. Sorry for the long post.

9 people in this conversation8 min readJump to latest

Any time I’ve changed dome style I’ve had to have the aids reprogrammed. In my case with ReSound, Jabra or Philips aids I don’t recall a way to have individual programs set for dome type.

I’m interested in following this discussion. I can’t comment with any degree of knowledge on the reprogramming issue. But I play with an amplified acoustic band and have both a bass amp, drum kit and a banjo through a mini loudbox in the row behind me, a monitor at my feet and one of the mains just ahead and next to my stage corner position.

I want to try some of these etymotic plugs you referenced, and there’s no way I can make out anything my adjacent bandmates may try to tell me between songs unless they’re right next to me and I lean in. Same issue (speech in noise) in an electrified basement band as well.

I hesitate to make a dome switch to the power domes as I lost one buried deep in my ear a few years back and had to find an with a with hole in their schedule to retrieve it. Not fun.

In reply to @jay_man2

@jay_man2 said:

I don’t recall a way to have individual programs set for dome type.

I don’t know enough to be sure, but maybe the fitter could adjust the gain on one program so the gain curves match what the fitting program would automatically produce with power domes. Feedback calibration would have to be done with the vented domes you normally use, though, so you wouldn’t see the full benefit of power domes.

In reply to @eliotb

@eliotb said:

I hesitate to make a dome switch to the power domes as I lost one buried deep in my ear a few years back and had to find an ENT with a NP with hole in their schedule to retrieve it. Not fun.

My audiologist told me to come to their office, not go to a doctor, if I ever get a dome stuck in my ear. They’ll just go in and pull it out, while the doctor’s office will make it into a big deal.

@jay_man2, I’m thinking I could physically switch to the power domes and then my audi could program my Mores to create a new program that would optimize my hearing based on my and the fact that I’m using power domes rather than the programming-software-prescribed bass double vent domes.

Then he could perform feedback calibration and for this newly-created program. Then he could insert this newly-created program into one of the available program slots in the .

That way I could use Program #1 with the bass double vent domes in a challenging situation, and then excuse myself and physically replace the bass double vent domes with the power domes and change to the new Program #2. Then I could return to the challenging situation and see if the change I just made would result in an improvement. That’s my idea anyway. I don’t see why this couldn’t be done.

The main question I am hoping to have answered here is whether it would be necessary to go to all this effort in order to make a fair comparison. If so I would gladly do it. Or would the programming changes necessary to optimize my hearing with a power dome be so insubstantial that I could make a fair comparison just by switching domes with no programming changes?

@eliotb, the Etymotic earplugs I am using are the $20 models. You might be thinking of trying the $300 active Etymotic earplugs. Those might work for you. An audi who works for Etymotic told me that the amplification that the $300 active earplugs provide would be insufficient for my hearing loss.

Are you currently wearing hearing aids? If not, you might want to have your hearing evaluated. And please protect your hearing. An amplified acoustic act can still get loud enough to affect your hearing.

In reply to @ziploc

@ziploc said:

Then he could perform feedback calibration and REM for this newly-created program.

From my limited experience with programming my ReSounds, feedback calibration is performed for the whole instrument, not individual programs. Power domes need less feedback suppression than vented domes, so you could wear power domes on aids calibrated for vented domes, but not vice versa.

@ziploc, I just don’t think it’s possible the way aids are programmed to selectively set one program for power domes and the rest for . In my experience, you’re all in on the dome type. I personally would want to be messing around with the domes in swapping them on a regular basis, not get one on tight, and end up with a dome stuck in my ear canal. BTDT, no fun.

Thank you all for your responses. I guess I’ll have to try custom molds again. And I guess that will require a programming adjustment.

I didn’t like custom molds because they were so noticeable in comparison to using domes. Someone can easily see the molds in my ears and the molds’ wires come straight out of the molds horizontally rather than curving and staying right next to the ear where they’re hard to see. I don’t know if there’s any way to make them less noticeable.

In reply to @ziploc

@ziploc said:

The main question I am hoping to have answered here is whether it would be necessary to go to all this effort in order to make a fair comparison. If so I would gladly do it. Or would the programming changes necessary to optimize my hearing with a power dome be so insubstantial that I could make a fair comparison just by switching domes with no programming changes?

Not sure if you’re a type person or not, but if you’re game but don’t necessarily want to invest in the Noahlink Wireless for actual DIY, you can still download Genie 2 and “simulate” your More 1 programming based on your and look at the prescriptions for both the bass dome with double vent and the power dome and compare the gain curves in the Fine Tuning section to see how much different they are. If they look significant enough, then you should go through the trouble of having your audi re-prescribing the gains for the power dome then perhaps capture these gain curves, do , and create a Program 2 in your original bass dome program using the power dome gain results. But if your simulation shows an insignificant difference between the 2 gain curves, then at least you know that it’s not worth the effort to have the audi do all that for you.

With this simulation approach, you only have to invest in downloading Genie 2 and learn how to use it (which can be helpful for your understanding of the parameters anyway), and you don’t have to actually buy a Noahlink Wireless to actually connect your More 1 to Genie 2.

Of course, this can be a way for you to gauge on whether DIY is something you may be interested in doing or not, in case you find using Genie 2 is easy enough to understand for you. Then if you decide to do DIY, you’ll be able to open up a whole new level of independence in experimentation with things without having to depend on your audi as much anymore. It already looks like you’re the tinkering type by experimenting with ear plugs and then power domes anyway.

In reply to @flashb1024

Not sure I agree with that; there’s a fairly substantial difference between the settings for open domes and those for the double bass domes especially WRT the response from 250Hz-1KHz.

The ‘Open’ fit basically shuts off most of the LF response, the more occluded fits don’t. This makes a big difference in hearing the speech in noise management of the hearing aids.

Thank you everyone for the insight and ACTIONABLE suggestions. You guys are the best. I’ll let you know how it goes when I have time to work on this.

Looking at your it surprises me that you are not wearing custom earmolds.
Many of the things you are trying to correct or improve might be simply fixed with earmolds and then setting the aids up correctly.

Maybe have a a few different programs for each setting you have described.

I am also a musician and cannot tolerate the level of sound on stage. My very clever audiologist ordered a set of ear molds for my Widex Evoke behind the ear aids. She had them made with no vent so I have complete control over the sound volume with good pitch and speech discrimination. For all other times I remove the molds and replace my domes.

Related discussions