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Speech in Noise performance - Phonak Lumity 90s

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For reference my is posted

I am currently wearing Phonak Lumity L90-RT. I also wear custom Phonak ear moulds, migrating from power domes. It’s a transition that has made speech clearer for me. I am using the Adaptive Phonak Digital fitting formula as after having tried all the other options within Phonak Target, I feel this gives me the clearest speech recognition.

My questions and request for advice is in noisy environments.

Yesterday while at the fitness gym, I was struggling to hear the client at the weight station next to me, a mere 5 feet away. Using a db meter on my phone the average noise level was 88.7db and a peak of 98.5db. Most of the time, I am streaming music while working out. For those times that I am talking to someone, I’d like to improve the performance in this noisy environment.

I have attached screenshots of GAIN & and PROGRAM OPTIONS for the Speech in Noise program. I’ve not made any adjustments to GAIN & MPO from the default settings provided by the fitting formula. In PROGRAM OPTIONS, I’ve adjusted NOISE BLOCK to a level that will cover multiple venues, trying to avoid making adjustments on my phone.

I realize in noisy environments, distance is our enemy. If I am in a restaurant or large gathering in a noisy venue, I do have a Roger On microphone and I use it as often as I can. However in the gym I don’t carry as its not very convenient when lifting weights.

I am in my 5th year of living with hearing loss, moved on from Phonak Audeo Marvel 70s to Lumity 90s which has been a great improvement. Given the level of my loss, is this as good as it will get?

TIA

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6 people in this conversation5 min readJump to latest

Actually when I was wearing Audeo Marvel 70s I took my laptop to the gym and tuned and tweaked while in the gym. I haven’t done that yet with this new setup, I was looking for some advice from other users before I made any adjustments.

@orgullodemexico said:

trying to avoid making adjustments on my phone.

But this will help you know what to change on the software!

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Having a separate speech in noise program would help.

Despite being in noisy areas, my AutoSense seems to stay in calm situation 95% of the time and yes I’ve changed transition speed.

The automatically kicked in the Speech in Noise program as expected. I did not try Restaurant program

I wish it was possible to examine the detailed settings of Restaurant program, perhaps clone and alter that program.

I previously posted that Restaurant and TV programs are factory provided and not accessible.

orgullodemexico, I think I could help you.
I am not surprised that you cannot hear your client in a noisy gym room. I bet your client was next to you, not in front of you, and you couldn’t hear anything because all the sounds were cut off when this program kicked in. In my opinion, your setup for “speech in noise” is too aggressive. You should try making the following adjustments:

  1. Hearing aid microphone is too “Ultrazoom” - set it up to 4 (Real ear set up)
    2.Dynamic noise cancelation will cancel itself when you adjust step 1
  2. Sound Relax is too strong. Set it up to 10
  3. Noise Block too aggressive - Set it up to 8
  4. Wind block should be at 13.
    Try the above setup and let me know how it works for you.

I dont want to stray to far from my audiologist settings, but ive found the “automatic fine tuning” to be very helpful.

In reply to @black_sabbath

@black_sabbath

Thank You for the suggestions. I am going to make these changes this evening, as I have a session with my personal trainer tomorrow morning. I will post here how these changes worked. Regarding your question, the personal trainer was directly in front of me, 5 ft away, and I struggled to hear her in 88db avg. background.

One week ago, I attended a wake. I struggled to follow conversations with background of 80db avg.

By adjusting the microphone, you don’t believe in activating Dynamic Noise Cancellation?

Yes I purposely set up NoiseBlock, WindBlock and Sound Relax high.

Dynamic Noise Cancelation will be inactive when you set up the microphone at Real Ear.
Try this setting tomorrow and let see if you can hear better.
Also I just saw that you still have activated the Speech in Loud Noise.
For tomorrow experiment you should deactivate it.

I am afraid that your hearing aids enter directly in this program and everything around becomes very silent, inclusive the speech.

@black_sabbath

Thank You again for your input. I’m going to be very detailed on how my were set up for this experiment.

I have been using Adaptive Phonak Digital Contrast as the fitting formula. Voices & streaming music sound more natural vs Adaptive Phonak Digital. A memo from Phonak Pro states “slow compression increases the options for severe to profound hearing loss” Perhaps I am not a candidate that requires slow compression, however, this has nothing to do with the fact that background noise is preventing me from hearing speech.

Gain Level - 110%

Calm Situation - Gain & 1 step increae

Speech in Noise - Gain & MPO 3 step increase

Speech in Loud Noise - Gain & MPO 3 step increase

I will admit I may have been too agressive in bumping up NoiseBlock, SoundRelax and WindBlock. I admit I may have increased gains unnecessarily.

My phone was on Do Not Disturb, Phonak app set to always connected, phone connected for calls only.

At the fitness club, I do monitor quite a bit what mode in which the HAs operate by opening the Phonak app and clicking more settings. The HAs have never entered Speech in Loud Noise Mode.

As expected background was noisy and for a time it appeared the HAs were “cycling”. Things would get very quiet and then loud. This repeated every 3 to 5 minutes or so.

During my 1-on-1 session I did pickup the instructor’s speech a bit better, particulary when she was not directly in front of me. However I lost speech if she was further than 5 feet.

I have since reset APDC to a gain level of 100% instead of 110% and also reset Gain & MPO in all channels to what the fitting formula prescribes, so I will need to try these new settings at my next session next week.

I have been doing some research on this forum and other sites about the effective distance of a hearing aid. I share the following:

“Hearing aids have a maximum pick up range of 23 feet in quiet, which reduces to 6 feet in noise.”

“Hearing aids are most effective at processing sounds within roughly 3 to 6 feet.”

I am beginning to think my expectations of what my HAs, or any HAs for that matter csn do, are unrealistic

More to come.

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