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Has anyone recent experience using Roger and Phonak aids?

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In reply to @imcandrew

@imcandrew said:

what he basically said was that matching a hearing aid to a patient was very much an individual thing and the best/most expensive was not necessarily the best one for the individual.

He nailed it! Our audis do their best with the , tone tests and word comprehension, but at the end of the day, our BRAINS are so unique that no one can predict or push us into wearing aids that don’t work with that brain.

My brain could not comprehend speech no matter what the settings when I had a pair of Oticon OPNs years ago. I never cared for the sound world of Widex either, but oddly, the Phonak aids I have - even while NOT set per the recommendations - deliver the kind of sound I want to live with.

In reply to @DaveL

@DaveL

I don’t like Autosense one bit, so it’s no longer my startup programme. I also don’t like the idea of “Sound Recover”, where it picks up sound on a certain frequency, and sends it to you as a different frequency, to help word recognition. I suppose I’m lucky on the latter as my hearing loss doesn’t require it, yet.

I’ve changed all my saved Programmes (Music, Comfort in Echo, Speech in Car, Streaming and Roger) to fully omnidirectional, so I don’t get the situation of not hearing the person next to me.

Peter

Peter - You seem to be referring to something I don’t have. I can alter some settings using the MyPhonak app on my phone, That has Automatic, and user settings - Music, Restaurant etc. No Speech in Car nor the others you mention.
Ian

Edited

In reply to @PeterH

Soundrecover is not exclusive to Phonak. As you may know it is frequency transposition and exists on other hearing aids.

I am interested in your position on Autosense. Yes, it certain instances it will not behave in a way one expects. I have this issue in the car where the car program kicks in automatically and it seems to lower amplification to the extent that voices are not heard above the noise. I don’t have this problem with my Oticon Dynamo aids. However switching everything so that omni directional microphones are only activated - would that not mean that stereo zoom and ultra zoom which are for speech in loud noise and speech in noise are not activated? Or do you have separate manual programs for those?

MyPhonak allows individual volume control and then 5 presets - Automatic, and 4 others I can create and setup.
I have control over on/off/dual/individual volume control
3 channel equalizer - bass, middle and treble
Noise reduction - High to Low
Speech focus Wide - Narrow
Dynamic - Reduce loud sounds, increase soft sounds - change balance between them

If there is a manual for it I have yet to find it. Audi didn’t even tell me about apps existence. I have just experimented. eg preset Car - the preset turns volume fully down on right when I’m driving - on left side of road to avoid confusing those of you who drive on the wrong side of the road :slight_smile: and turn left one up. Others I have tweaked to what seems best. That way i can hear passenger more easily.

In reply to @imcandrew

@imcandrew
Hi again. Speech in Car & Comfort in Echo are parts of Autosense 4, so you will have experienced them without always knowing. They can, however, be added as individual programmes via the Target software (by your Audiologist). With Paradise P90’s, I think you can have up to 4 additional programmes added.

My P90 startup with:

  1. Music (1 beep)
  2. Comfort in Echo (2 beeps)
  3. Speech in Car (3 beeps)
  4. Auto (original multi-tone beeps)

If I bluetooth stream, or use TV or Roger, it will return to Music afterwards.

My backup Marvel M70:

  1. Music
  2. Speech in Noise
  3. Auto

Again, these settings can only be done in the Target software, but this setup works for me. I hear more sounds, and the world is a noisier place.

@1Bluejay has suggested I’d be better suited to Oticon hearing aids, and she’s most likely right. I’ve made these work for me, and my speech recognition is far better for me now. This might not suit others though.

Peter

In reply to @glucas

@glucas
Hi,
To me, I can be in a group conversation, and in mid sentence, one of the speakers voices will have his/her voice reduce in volume by half. I’d rather hear all of the sound. I have to concentrate more, but it works better, for me

In reply to @imcandrew

@imcandrew
Hi again Ian.
It seems your audiologist hasn’t helped you regarding some of the best features of Paradise, which happened to me in the NHS. The sliders in the app, are, sort of, replicated in the Target software. Here’s one of those pages:

20230726_112128

So, you can have 4 fixed added programmes PLUS 4 user ones. In most of the added programmes, I have all those sliders (in the software, not the app) fully to the left, except WhistleBlock, which I have at “4”.
Peter

edit: the picture of laptop is from my audiologist. I’ve since made the above ammendments on my laptop.

In reply to @glucas

@glucas

I have that issue too. I was riding as passenger in my Jeep Wrangler. It’s built like a farm implement. It’s noisy.

I couldn’t hear my wife who was driving. I booted the myPhonak app. I was using autosense. It had selected “speech in loud noise”.

I checked the settings. The offender is “Speech Focus” which has been set at “Narrow”, to the extreme. In other words the directional mics are looking at the windshield and beyond. I could barely tell my wife had talked. I couldn’t understand what she said. By the time I asked “excuse me” I was tried and convicted of by her for ignoring her.

Perhaps better settings are necessary. I just want to put my hearing aids in my ears and have them work.

I find autosense isn’t helpful. My hearing aids are bought and paid for, but 2 years after I received them they are still being set up. It’s a work in progress.

’s are Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R/s

In reply to @PeterH

@PeterH

Thanks! Clearly the hearing aids work with the right settings. But the setup is most important.
The audiologist that supplied my hearing aids didn’t know how to set them up. I’ve moved on, and we’ve parted in a friendly manner.

Edited

In reply to @DaveL

I found I had problems with Autosense when I had a pair of Virto hearing aids about 7 years ago. The audiologist did not perform . As a result they were way way underamplified for my loss and Autosense would switch to programs like Comfort in Noise and it felt like total silence. KS9 (Marvel) and KS10 (Paradise) were a massive improvement but I still have issues with the Car program.

I have a leaning now towards Oticon if the bluetooth is direct and painless. Otherwise it’s a trial of the lumity or Naida Lumity to see if car and music sounds better (another issue with the KS10).

There are references to Autosense and Target apps neither of which I was aware of before stating this thread. Peter’s screen capture has partially answered what would have been my question regarding these two. I’ll Google Target to see if it is a download I can use.

If you wish to get Target, ask in the forum here. You’ll need a Noahlink wireless to access most modern hearing aids to go with it, that is about $100 or so when you find a good deal on ebay.

WH

In reply to @glucas

@glucas said:

I have this issue in the car where the car program kicks in automatically and it seems to lower amplification to the extent that voices are not heard above the noise.

Me TOO! In fact, the other day I brought my Roger V2 stick in the car, and sitting in the back seat, pointed it back and forth trying to catch what the 2 guys in front were saying? No idea why, but it simply didn’t DO ANYTHING. I had no better idea what was being said than if I had left the Roger V2 at home.

Now MAYBE the case was that I should’ve increased the volume of my aids? Cuz there is no other way to jack sound up without the Roger base.

Yes. I had exactly your problem when my wife and daughter (who relegates me to the back) were in the front. I then tried my Roger On iN and put it in the well of the car, but there was no improvement.

With my Oticon Dynamo the voices come through.

It looks to me like the noise suppression at work is also unfortunately suppressing the voices with the Phonak.

@glucas

@1Bluejay

Years ago I found that all features need to be turned off for Roger program as these features when background noise increases actually lowers the speech coming through the Roger.

Found this out before my hearing got worse.

All my NoiseBlock etc are turned off and speech coming through the Roger is a lot louder and clearer.

Roger is the only way I can understand people.

Background noise doesn’t over power as speech coming through Roger is A LOT louder so noise is still super quiet.

In reply to @glucas

@glucas said:

It looks to me like the noise suppression at work is also unfortunately suppressing the voices with the Phonak.

AUGH! Long-time issue and frustrations with that Noise Management. It’s built right in to my default start-up program, but I’m reminded that I should think about having my audi look at the setting.

Other thing I’m going to tinker with is perhaps (max power output) and gain. If those are too close together in the setup it can impact speech comprehension. (Or so the Phonak rep told me a week ago.)

In reply to @Zebras

@Zebras said:

Background noise doesn’t over power as speech coming through Roger is A LOT louder so noise is still super quiet.

OK that is the GOAL! I want that Roger boosting the speech over ambient sounds. But my prob is that I only use the Roger for TV viewing at night. So my audi and the Phonak rep urged me not to completely disable all noise suppression, cuz then I’d be blasted with everyday life sounds all but those 2 hours of streaming TV at night.

It’s a balancing act, I’m thinking.

Do you (or anyone here) know what happens if I have my aids set to a dedicated program like “Speech in Loud Noise” or “Music” and then start streaming with the Roger V2? Does it override whatever program I’m in at the moment?

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