Sound Issue with Oticon Real 1

Adding a little to the Speech Rescue, switching between this technology and off is not the best idea in my opinion. It’s a special thing that typically takes time to learn and switching in and out of it will not be a fair try at this technology.

Typically when setting up frequency lowering the idea is to push the technology until the S starts lisping then back off the setting a touch. Your post gives me the idea your Speech Rescue setting is a touch too aggressive but maybe not.

You are getting some great help and doing well.

@Raudrive said:

Adding a little to the Speech Rescue, switching between this technology and off is not the best idea in my opinion. It’s a special thing that typically takes time to learn and switching in and out of it will not be a fair try at this technology.

It’s a good point, I wouldn’t do constant A/B comparison anyway, like every other hour. But one can do one day with and one day without in the beginning, just to see if one can notice much difference or not. Then maybe one week with and one week (or a few days after) without.

But yeah, even if you find it off-putting in the beginning, stick with it for a while and eventually you may get used to it enough that you won’t even notice it anymore, or it won’t bother you as much anymore. Then once you’re that used to it, if you switch it OFF, you may find that you miss it a lot.

And the volume strength can be eased into as well. Like if it’s too annoying at first, set it to a lower strength, then in the next visit, up the strength. Or if you have another one or 2 extra unused program slots, you can use them for the various strength to get acclimated into without needing more audi visit.

Thanks for your post. I’m pretty much living in Speech Rescue program and stopped hearing the trailing ‘s’ after about 10 minutes. I wanted the non- Speech Rescue program to do some occasional comparison to Speech Rescue. So, far it’s too early to compare the two programs but they both seem very comfortable. As @Volusiano suggested, I may listen to some music in both programs (probably the same song) and see if I can tell the difference. Thanks!

Thanks for your comments. I’ll definitely do some A/B testing with music.

I do think the HA Providers probably need to step up their HCP training. My understanding is all training is now virtual. I have an outstanding HCP and she had never heard of flutter in the Oticon context. Given the necessity for her to understand multiple hearing aid brands, their models, BT connectivity, acoustics, etc, I totally get why she wouldn’t have time to read and digest a white paper from Oticon. Unless flutter is an edge case, I’d put the onus on Oticon to make sure HCPs understand Feedback Analyzer. Just adding an information panel inside Feedback Analyzer would probably do the trick.

Thanks for your help!

I’m really interested, Thanks for your posts here.

DaveL

@ToriNi said:

I will look at giving Speech Rescue a go but at the moment, it makes the fluttering a bit worse I think and I am not sure that I like it really but have been advised to try it more. It is on program 2 at the moment and I do notice the S lisping when I do use it.

It’s understandable that Speech Rescue may make the fluttering a bit worse because you’re now jamming the high frequency sounds down into the lower frequency destination range, so there are more sounds in that (more) audible area that need to be amplified → more potential for feedback to occur.

I would advise you to have the audi turn OFF the High Frequency Bands setting, if not already done so. This will ensure that there’s no amplification in the high ends, hence no potential feedback at least on the high ends. If that still doesn’t help, you can turn down the Strength setting to Medium (in the middle), and if feedback still, then to Low (no black bar → all the way to the left). Of course the trade-off is less audibility on the lowered sounds, so you’ll need to pick your own compromise balance there.

Thanks so much for this. You have been really helpful. I’ll ask for this and see how it goes.

Need some clarification and thanks. I asked the Audiologist to set up a speech in noise program. I wanted like everyone else to have the noise behind and to the side cut back as much as possible to beam form in front just to experiment to see if it can be better than the automatics in P1. She insisted that the mics be put on Omni and not full directional.
I’ve read some information here on the board in bits and pieces over the last few weeks so I’m curious why the mics be set on Omni.
My speech in noise program seems to have the same noise reduction as program 1 except there is a few Db increase in front.
Shouldn’t the mics be set on full directional? And are there any other adjustments in Genie to improve speech in noise in my case?

I don’t see any reason you could have P1 plus P2 omni and P3 full directional and decide between P2 and P3 for yourself based on empirical evidence.

@mstrmac said:

Need some clarification and thanks. I asked the Audiologist to set up a speech in noise program. I wanted like everyone else to have the noise behind and to the side cut back as much as possible to beam form in front just to experiment to see if it can be better than the automatics in P1. She insisted that the mics be put on Omni and not full directional.
I’ve read some information here on the board in bits and pieces over the last few weeks so I’m curious why the mics be set on Omni.
My speech in noise program seems to have the same noise reduction as program 1 except there is a few Db increase in front.
Shouldn’t the mics be set on full directional? And are there any other adjustments in Genie to improve speech in noise in my case?

Below is the screenshot for the Speech in Noise program with its default values based on my hearing loss.

The Directionality Setting has 3 values → 1. Neural Automatic, 2. Full Directional, 3. Fixed Omni. When you said that your audi insisted that the mics be put on Omni, did you mean that she really said “Fixed Omni”, or did you mean that she probably implied “Neural Automatic”? The built-in My Music program has it set to Fixed Omni, but the default program P1 should be set to Neural Automatics so that the aid can decide the most appropriate directionality to set for you, which can be anywhere between Full Directional and Fixed Omni.

If your audi told you that the default P1 should be left alone with the Neural Automatic value, then she’s correct, because that’s the intent, to let the aid find the best directionality setting automatically for you in most listening situations so that it’s consistent with the Oticon open paradigm.

But if she said that even Speech in Noise must be in Fixed Omni (or maybe she meant Neural Automatic), then she’s wrong because it can be in whatever you want to change it to be. There’s nothing wrong with changing it to Fully Directional if that’s what you really want, to attenuate the rear and side sounds more aggressively for Speech in Noise in another program other than P1, as long as you remember to go back to P1 when you’re not in a noisy situation anymore.

But hey, even if you want to be in the Speech in Noise program with Full Directional all the times, that’s your prerogative, although you’d be limiting the potential of what your aid can do for you.

In the screenshot below, the Speech in Noise Neural Noise Suppression is set to the 2 and 8 dB values for Easy and Difficult Environment respectively by default, but if you want more aggressive Neural Noise Suppression, by all means have the audi increase them to the max values for you.

But Neural Noise Suppression is independent from the Directionality Setting. Some people want to suppress noise to the max, but still want to be able to hear speech from behind or on the side. So that’s when the Directionality Setting should still be Neural Automatic, so not force the aid to suppress speech in the back or on the side blindly.

The screenshot also shows you what other adjustments in Genie 2 you can do for the Speech in Noise program. You can define the scope of what a Difficult Environment is by expanding or contracting on the dark gray area, which in turns will change the scope of the Easy Environment to be the opposite. And based on your selection there, the various parameters you choose in each of these 2 types of listening environments as shown will be adjusted accordingly.

Update on my experience so far. So I went for REM and adjustments yesterday with my UK audiologist. It turned out that the receivers was set at 85dB, so it was changed to 105dB. The REM was performed, and from that point additional adjustments were made including turning off high frequency banding to see if the flutter could be eliminated.

After I described the flutter issue, they said they had another patient with the exact same issue and they had tried everything to eliminate it even including turning the Feedback Optimiser off.

We tried different settings of the Feedback Optimiser, along with the Traditional Feedback turned on and I was still unable to have this off due to feedback. Low was acceptable.

I was unable to simulate the flutter upon leaving the practice, and was generally happy with the settings.

However, upon leaving the practice, I discovered I was having issues with whistling simulated by the environmental noises including handling my coat etc. I was not experiencing this in a quiet environment.

So I went back, and they did some more adjustments, including putting Feedback Optimiser on Normal. They also adjusted SR and as a result, it does feel a bit softer currently which definitely needs to be adjusted again.

But, I am no longer experiencing feedback AT ALL when cupping my hand against my ears, which for me is the strangest thing. So the moulds are a good fit for me, confirmed by the audiologist, which makes it even more confusing that I am experiencing this whistling. I am assuming it is the sound wave pushing through and then leaking back out?

Unfortunately, the flutter is still there but this is occurring a lot less than previously.

I was definitely not experiencing any whistling on my previous settings, so I think this is related to software more than hardware e.g. my moulds especially when I am not getting ANY feedback at all externally if I press against them.

I did think it was just me overreacting but it was slightly audible to others when it does occur, and is quite distressing for me.

Any suggestions at all where I go from here and what else they can look at on Genie2 to eliminate the whistling? Thank you in advance.

@ToriNi said:

Any suggestions at all where I go from here and what else they can look at on Genie2 to eliminate the whistling? Thank you in advance.

You mentioned whistling and flutter. Just to get the terminology straight, usually with the traditional feedback system, the whistling is a REACTIVE effect of the amplified sound bleeding back out (from the vent holes usually) of the ear and gets picked up by the mics, then reamplified again by the aids, which bleed more out and picked up even more by the mic, which is what feedback is, and whistling is the end result.

The fluttering from the Sound Optimizer is not a reactive result of a feedback that’s already occurring. It’s actually a proactive measure to insert the quick repetitive breaks into the sound signal picked up by the mics to dissipate the energy build up that can result in feedback, BEFORE feedback can occur.

So whistling is after feedback. Fluttering is before feedback.

It’s indeed weird that if you now have a good tightly sealed mold that has no vent at all for the amplified sound to leak out, I wonder why there would still be whistling feedback if the feedback path/loop has been cut off completely. I don’t know how the audi can confirm that the mold is a good fit if feedback is still not eliminated. Did he or she explain to you how it was verified to be a good fit in your ears? Are you sure it doesn’t have any vent hole, no matter how small? Or maybe where the receiver wire enters into the mold, the seal around that wire is not tight enough?

One other suggestion to suppress the feedback whistling more aggressively is that when you do the white noise scan in the feedback analyze step, simulate whatever action that is causing you to experience feedback, like wearing a hat or cusping your hands on your ears, etc, while the white noise scan is being done, so that the feedback analyzer takes into account this action and adjust the feedback margin for even more suppression than if you just sit there with no obstruction during the test.

Thanks for your reply.

No vents. They ran the feedback Analyzer software a few times on Genie2 and confirmed it was a good fit. These are award winning U.K. and European audiologists so I do trust if they say it is a good fit. However they did suggest a couple of options if we can’t resolve this with the software.

We have isolated the issue to when music is playing and other sounds at a similar frequency. Been trying to watch Eurovision but it’s been triggered by this.

We are suspicious it could be speech rescue, but will take this information back to them next week. Otherwise, they are amazing. I can hear with unbelievable clarity and even heard music changing in a busy restaurant but the whistling is being triggered by music and high frequency noises.

With the exception of this, I don’t have any other feedback as previously I would have this when hugging people, leaning down etc and I don’t have this anymore.

This post probably won’t help you in any way. Just my experience.

I don’t know what FLUTTER is. I don’t hear anything abnormal using these Real 1 aids. So maybe there is, I just don’t hear it.

Below is a pic. I have have the smallest vent possible. So much so that it’s difficult to clean the vent of wax with the standard tool and the small diameter plastic tool used to help clean tubes. I have no serious feedback issues with the 105 db receivers even when cupping ears with my hands.

I have speech rescue on and have a a/b p1/p2 with the high frequency bands turned on/off. I hear nothing different between the two.

Did the REM process noticeably help speech?