Oticon Intent review at 3 weeks

@Volusiano said:

Whether you prefer the full directionality in the SIN program that your audi might have set for you or not, it doesn’t change the fact that you made an incorrect statement that needs to be corrected (by telling people that the SIN program imposes full directionality), because an incorrect statement is not a hair split, it’s a big deal because it can make people incorrectly think that it’s a fact when it’s not.

Mea maxima culpa, the SIN program doesn’t impose full directionality by default — which makes sense, given the whole design of the “open paradigm.” But unlike V., most people don’t configure their own hearing aids, so I believe that what is ultimately important to them is whether they can discern speech better in noisy environments under settings different from the defaults of the “General” program, not whether or not it is technically true that full directionality isn’t invoked by default under SIN. Again, the very fact that this setting exists is, to my mind, a tacit acknowledgment that there are situations under which the “neural automatic” setting doesn’t suffice. This isn’t just a nod to people who miss having the different programs offered by other hearing aids.

Surely what is so attractive about a hearing aid that is supposed to relieve the user of making adjustments on the fly (regardless of whether all of the adjustments fall under the rubric of “Open Paradigm” or not) is precisely that, because if you suddenly find yourself in a difficult sound situation, making changes is awkward at best and impossible at worst. This isn’t really about personal preference, although V. wants to cast it that way: all I’m saying is that for me and other people like x475aws, the “open paradigm” model doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. It’s a great concept / theory / goal, but it falls short of the mark.

What I’d like to know is 1) whether the Intent is noticeably better than the Real at helping most users discern speech in noisy environments, and 2) whether the Intent comes closer to the ideal of relieving the user of the need to make adjustments on the fly.

my experience is yes on both counts. Your mileage may vary.

@happymach said:

1. whether the Intent is noticeably better than the Real at helping most users discern speech in noisy environments, and 2) whether the Intent comes closer to the ideal of relieving the user of the need to make adjustments on the fly.

I can’t compare to the Real but here’s what I found with the Intents. The General program is pretty good for most situations but I switch to SIN for difficult environments (lot of background noise in echoey places when trying to converse with people with quiet voices). I wouldn’t call that “adjustments on the fly” but I have found it necessary to switch programs. As a consequence, I’m going to set up the the hearing aid buttons to switch programs.

With my ReSound 3Ds (which have a very flexible app) I was forever adjusting programs on the fly to try and improve my experience. I can’t do that on the Intents, which I initially thought would be a negative but the performance of the General and SIN programs are meeting my everyday needs.

Just a comment about the Open paradigm v user preferences. It seems Phonak do the same thing with “Speech Focus”. This is a slider that can be set in Target, but Phonak say it should be a user preference which is controlled in the App and it will potentially yield an extra 4dB boost in SNR. I was confused as to why it is not just a default target setting but it must be that they cannot gauge an optimal setting when somebody is in a SIN situation.

@OldMusicGuy said:

Changing EQ isn’t really tweaking in my book

Got it (and I agree with you)! Oticon seems to be opening up more options for users, which is great to see. Or maybe not lol, I don’t really know… I could see myself doing exactly what you used to do with your old hearing aids

So my audiologist, who probably handles more hearing aids in one day than you have in your life, sets up her clients’ Real aids (and presumably Intents also) with directionality in the Speech In Noise program. It sounds like @happymach’s audiologist does the same.

Without question, you’re entitled to your opinions and judgments. But when you express them in this forum, they become everyone’s business. Yes, you’re an Oticon superfan who’s read everything they’ve published. You’re also a lone DIY’er who AFAIK hasn’t touched a hearing aid newer than your 6(?)-year-old OPN 1’s. The knowledge you disseminate on this forum appears to be based entirely on the information Oticon lets you see, which is at its heart marketing literature. If you can learn something from how competent professionals fit their Oticon patients, I think you should incorporate that into your postings.

@x475aws said:

So my audiologist, who probably handles more hearing aids in one day than you have in your life, sets up her clients’ Real aids (and presumably Intents also) with directionality in the Speech In Noise program. It sounds like @happymach’s audiologist does the same.

If you can learn something from how competent professionals fit their Oticon patients, I think you should incorporate that into your postings.

It’s funny that you’re assuming that I’m not doing things like your audi or @happymach 's audi does, because I actually do have a SIN program on my hearing aids, and I actually do set the Directionality Settings there to Full Directional like your audi and @happymach 's audi did for you guys. So you’re making a totally wrong assumption about me that in their infinite wisdom, your audi and @happymach 's audi are doing something that I’m not doing. And I didn’t need to learn any of that from how competent professionals fit their Oticon patients. I just use common sense just like your professional used common sense.

The common sense for setting Full Directional in the SIN program is that while there’s already a SIN program occupying the space of 1 of the 4 available programs, you might as well make it as aggressive as possible to make it worth occupying that 1 program space. And the most aggressive approach is to add on Full Directionality. There’s nothing special that would require years of experience fitting dozens of patients everyday to arrive at that logic. A mere DIY’er like me do, too, simply using common sense.

But I don’t switch to the SIN program constantly at every chance I get. In most noisy situations, if I still don’t have much issue understanding speech, I keep at the General program because it’s still working well for me. Only in the most extreme situations where I have a really hard time understanding speech do I switch to SIN. And of course, that’s when I need to throw in everything to fight the issue, including directionality.

In fact, Oticon has already made something very similar like that available at the finger tip of any users for a long time already, without having to even resort to the SIN program. It’s called the MoreSound Booster, and it’s available in the Oticon phone app for user to switch to, starting with the OPN S. The only main difference is that you need a phone app to activate the MoreSound Booster while you’re in the General Program, and it reverts back to being disable next time you reset. If you don’t want to depend on having and using a phone app to activate it, then a SIN program would be needed so you can change to via a button on the aids.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, and I think we all already agree by now, that the issue is not about preferences for Neural Automatics or Full Directional, nor is it about preferences to the open paradigm or not. Those are individual preferences that everyone is entitled to. I simply clarified an incorrect statement made by @happymach, in which he and you pivoted into other things like individual preferences with directionality and the open paradigm, or things like how I’m doing things differently than your experienced professionals who add directionality into the SIN program (which you assumed that I do differently but I actually do the same). That is why I didn’t even bring up the fact that I also have Full Directional in my SIN program (until you brought it up) because it was irrelevant to the main point, which is to clarify an incorrect statement.