Oticon real 2 minirite

@Volusiano: Exactly, MrV … Exactly. Thank you for yet another brilliant lumificaton of a subtitled point.

I have worn Oticon aids for about 14 years now and have seen them evolve over the years. I now have the More1 aids and find them great for all of my needs and the environments I frequent. Seeing I get my aids from the VA I am not sure I will be getting the Real1 aids are not but I am hoping so. I don’t have issues with noise as long as it isn’t sudden like a dog barking, are a fast passing loud motorcycle or truck.
Just setting in a restaurant isn’t a problem for me, nor is riding my very quiet Vespa Scooter, or even driving my Jeep with the windows open. But I have to agree with the Oticon concept of allowing my brain to sort things out. But I also agree with some others that certain people have hearing issues that they can no longer tolerate the noise. And to be honest I didn’t think I would be able to in the beginning of wearing the newer Oticon aids, but I was able to progress and have reaped the benefits of the open concept.
By the way I only have the default P0 general program, which is all I need for everything I do and the environments I am in including listing to music, go the lectures, and movies.

@david33316 said:

I need to ask my aud to do a program with a directional setting for restaurants. I’ll let you know if it helps.

I had my Audi program my More1 P2 - Speech in Noise mics to 180 degrees - left - front - right. This setting helps immensely in restaurant and dinner table (think holiday) to be able to hear and talk to your immediate seating partners. Loud high ceiling restaurants booming are still a crapshoot. If a screaming kid or loud voices in the next table - pull out your phone and decrease the volume on that side.

I would expect the Mores and the new Reals to behave and sound the same, except for improvement with sudden noises and wind. I wish I had the new Real. That’s how I interpreted your post - same satisfaction, as you are experienced with Oticon’s open sound concept.
Thank you your posting your experience.

@david33316 said:

However their philosophy up until know of giving the wearer all the info and letting our brains sort it out has been a cop out in my opinion. I purchased Starkey’s because they handled noise much better, but, they don’t sound as natural. I think with the advent of the Real’s Oticon is admitting that they needed to let the aids filter the noise rather that our brains. I find them to be way more comfortable. As for in a restaurant situation all of the aids just provide too much info to use them for an entire meal. The ambient sound contains the same frequencies as the voices that I’m trying to hear and it’s just exhausting. I just turn off the aids and sit closer to the person that I want to hear. Until aids can create a cone of silence around us in a restaurant all aids as far as I’m concerned are just a compromise in restaurants. I’m loving the Real’s in all other situations including my car.

I think you have a misconception here about the Oticon aids. Their open paradigm is not a “cop out” at all because their previous models before they introduced the OPN, OPN S, More, Real did just that, the traditional beam forming like many of the other brands. It’s not like they can’t or don’t know how to do traditional beam forming so they found an easy way to cop out of it because their open paradigm is easier to implement. On the contrary, Oticon went to a lot more trouble to implement the open paradigm to differentiate themselves apart from the other brands. They didn’t have to do it and could have easily just continued the traditional beam forming like before and like the other brands.

But I understand that while some folks embrace the open paradigm, other folks don’t like it and would just prefer to stick with the traditional beam forming, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I want to clarify here that if you still find and prefer the Oticon sound more because it sounds more natural to you, and therefore still would rather stick with the Oticon despite not liking the open paradigm in noisy places, it’s not all lost to you because like @mago mentioned in her post above, there is an option to get the traditional beam forming functionality in Oticon if you want.

One way is to have your audi add the Speech in Noise and then select the Directionality Settings to Full Directional instead of the normal default value of Neural Automatic, then you will have gotten the traditional beam forming functionality like the other brands like you want. This is what @Mago had the audi done for her in a separate P2 program.

Another way to do this, more temporarily, without have to make an audi appointment to add another program for you, is simply to go into the Oticon phone app and turn on the MoreSound Booster, or in the Real case, probably now called the RealSound Booster. This effectively does the same thing, giving you the Full Directionality setting for Speech in Noise. The difference is that you can do this already right away, without having to rely your audi to setup another program for you.

@david33316 said:

I think with the advent of the Real’s Oticon is admitting that they needed to let the aids filter the noise rather that our brains.

Here’s another misconception. Sudden sound and wind handling addition in the Real is not Oticon finally admitting that they need to filter out noise. First of all, sudden sounds and wind is not really noise, but more like special annoyances and not normal noise. So the Real is for Oticon to expand the handling to cover handling of special annoyances, not an admission that they need to filter out noise. As mentioned above, they can already filter out noise aggressively and do allow users the ability to do so if they want. The way to think of it is that while they can do all that, they now can also let you hear the noise but still understand speech better, too, if you want → the open paradigm. And now to round it all out, while they let you hear everything you want to hear, things everybody actually for sure don’t care to hear like sudden sounds and wind, they’ll suppress them for you.

I have to force the HA dome (my left ear) deep to hear anything. I am constantly adjusting it. The bluetooth doesn’t seem to work with my phone for phone calls (Pixel 6.) I am still trying to get a decent interface for playing mp3 music through to the HA from my PC (windows 10). I just read the thread on playing through headsets. I tried it with a headset connected to my TV but it didn’t result in iany real improvement (pun intended.) For Zoom/Google Meets I have used a wired speaker and worn the HA with the BiCros in the right ear.

Unfortunately my fitter/advisor has taken a leave from the dispensary until mid January. I’ll be able to schedule a tuning appointment next month when the hearing center office opens their book for January appointments. I purchased Oticon Real 2 through the through Kaiser Permanente Medicare Advantage so am restricted to using their hearing center.