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Disappointed with Oticon Intent 1 vs. More 1

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In reply to @JackB

@JackB said:

What I meant was the opposite. Frequency raising!

That’s how I understood it, too. I’ve never heard of it being done, but I suppose it could be implemented. Whether it would help or not, or if the software/the aids would allow it is a different matter – I have no idea.

WH

The article I posted has been around for a while.
I’ve posted it before.
Dr. Neil Bauman wrote it.
A woman was given hearing aids that did exactly what the op wanted.
She said everyone sounded like Micky Mouse, but she was happy she could hear them.
If I remember correctly he addresses the fact that reverse slope is not very common and manufacturers have no real reason to address it.

Of course I never experience frequency “heightening”, so I wouldn’t know what it sounds like, but it sure would make sense if everyone sounds like Mickey Mouse, or maybe birdie sounding, or maybe tinny sounding like an AM radio, with frequency heightening. That effect would be much, much more unnatural compared to , where mostly just the “s” and “sh” and other speech fricatives just sound like lisping, but it would still sound much more acceptable and more natural because the voices still sound more normal rather than Mickey Mousy, which would not be very acceptable by comparison.

I would shudder to think what music would sound like through frequency heightening, but for sure it most likely would no longer sound pleasant at all. On the other hand, music still sounds quite natural to me with the Oticon frequency lowering using transposition and composition. I don’t have any first hand experience with what music would sound like with the Phonak and other aids’ frequency compression to comment on whether the integrity of the music would still be as preserved or not if the sounds are frequency compressed rather than frequency transposed.

But I think @freezerman404 hits the nail on the head to bring up the fact that the reverse ski slope loss is much less common than the normal ski slope loss to justify the need to address this type of loss more seriously.

Edited

In reply to @RSW

You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention! I looked into this claim from resound, and as it turns out, the 150% value is confusing.

What I can tell you is that the 150% figure is NOT a comparison between Resound Nexia versus their previous platform, ReSound Omnia, so my original point is valid, there’s no real gains in speech performance.

  • The 150% claim emerged with the launch of resound Omni (Link here). “ReSound OMNIA offers the only beamforming in the industry to improve hearing in noise without feeling cut off. It’s also the only hearing solution to simultaneously combine narrow beamforming directionality for hearing in noise and omni directional listening. The result? An incredible 150% improvement in speech understanding in noise.”

  • Looking at research from Resound in 2022 (link here) the 150% improvement is comparing Resound Omni Front Focus feature to Resound One’s Ultra Focus feature (which it calls a legacy feature). Again, no comparison of Nexia or Omni, rather a comparison of Resound Omni to Resound One.

  • However, in the Nexia brochure (link here), the “150% improvement” is against other manufacturers using technology or advanced noise management, as per Groth et al (2023).

  • I hunted down Groth et al (2023) link here, which was no easy feat, however it does show evidence that Nexia is 150% (4 ) better than the competition, but the claim is strange. According to the paper, Resound Nexia does outperform other brands, but only when speech arrives from the back! When speech is from the front, and noise is presented from the back, it does not perform significantly better than other brands:

“When tested in a diffuse noise environment with target speech in front and noise spatially separate in the rear,no significant differences were observed across the hearing aid brands tested. This was an expected result,as each brand’s strongest noise management feature is presumably optimized to perform well in this type of setting.”

Either way, there isn’t a “150%” improvement between Omnia to Nexia (which was the point I was making), it’s the same technology. If anything it may be an improvement from Resound’s One platform (ultrafocus) to Omni (Front Focus), OR Nexia versus the competition (when the person you’re trying to talk to is behind you)!

Hearing aid marketing… ya gotta love it!

  • Al
@bigaltavista said:

Hearing aid marketing… ya gotta love it!

He he, yeah so we keep telling anyone who’ll listen, they are so good because “we” tell you so!

When I trial the Resounds next month I guess I’ll see if I hear 150% better than I have been hearing with the Oticon Mores. Somehow I feel like I should temper my optimism a bit. I’d be ecstatic if I could hear even 25% better. I’ll be sure to report on my experience.

In reply to @cvkemp

Hi Chuck,

I’m also a long time Oticon fan now using Real 1 about six months in but not as lucky to have the same competent audiologist. Just 5.5 years to get Opn More Real dialed in ? Just in the nick of time before they fail or Oticon launches the next one.
( this isn’t your first rodeo you know when someone is respectfully messing with you ) Good luck with the Intents they’re on my wish list .

Tony

Hi Ziplock,

I’m a big Oticon fan. Epoq, Alta, Opn, Real about six months in. I found the Opn’s to be poor in noise and rarely used the noise program. The Reals while not perfect were a noticeable improvement in noise. I did trial the Lumity with custom acrylic molds (the mold$ are now in my vast collection in my drawer) I found Lumity to be too directional and closed off to the sides and rear. I really like to be aware of my surroundings. Phonak’s app has way more adjustability than Companion but is not as user friendly and more complex to operate, auto sense does not always seamlessly apply the proper settings and I found it all to be a bit annoying. As others here have mentioned perhaps more tweaking of the Intents would help.
No sound is more confusing than the one you are trying not to hear.

Good luck in your quest ,

Tony

In reply to @raylock1

Slightly more gain for low frequency sounds (<500 Hz)
Less gain for highest frequency sounds (~8 kHz)

This is to emphasize the lower tone differences in tonal languages whereby different pronunciation of a speech sound/word can alter the meaning (for eg mandarin, Thai, Vietnamese etc)

In reply to @cvkemp

I had these same issues after doing a 3 week demo of the Intents. I use oticon opn s now. After reading oticon’s marketing b.s. about how great the Intents are, i tried them out. My audi just copied and pasted my opn s settings into my Intents and said i was ready to go.

In the car i found that the intent had less highs than my opn s, like i had turned down the treble a step or two.

With my oticon s, background noise in a restaurant or bar is amplified just as much as the voices of the people at my table. I want to tune out loud people in the rest of the restaurant and tune into the voices at my table. The intents, for all the fancy terminology and oticon’s marketing hype, didn’t do any better at reducing background noise than my oticon S.

It’s “funny”(?) how the marketing team comes up with all these fancy names and descriptions for their new features. They leave me thanking that the hearing aids use the world’s most powerful supercomputer for processing and nothing less than 23rd century “Star Trek” to achieve their miraculous sound. I noticed no miracles in my three week test of the Intents. Maybe i didn’t give them enough time for a proper trial, but for $7000 they better be a huge improvement over my opn s aids.

Well Oticon INTENT1 have changed my life for the better. I have been wearing aids for 20 years and Oticon aids for 14 of those years. I have had the INTENT1 aids since late June, i have custom ear molds duevto severe hearing loss. I have the need for only the default general program. I no longer need the TV adapter or the t-coils. I am enjoying music for the first time since I was in my 20s, I am enjoying going to lectures, meetings, and concerts. My stress level has lowered tremendously. I can drive my Jeep with the windows down. I can rife my Vespa Scooter with my aids on an set to my normal volume. I enjoy be among friends, family and going out to noisy restaurants to eat.
You can bad mouth Oticon and the INTENT1 aids all you want but I have nothing but the most outstanding love for them.
My feelings is you had a lousy audiologist fitting of the aids.

@cvkemp said:

My feelings is you had a lousy audiologist fitting of the aids.

That or he needs more trips and make good descriptions of what is wrong.

WH

In reply to @cvkemp

I’m not dissing oticon in particular- all the hearing aid companies do this. Someone just posted a note in this forum about sigma having new noise reduction software, hyped up like i described about oticon, lots of fancy buzzwords and pretty charts. Replies have been pretty skeptical so far.

I think you’re right when you said my audi probably didn’t do a very good job setting them up or helping me. I sort of thought that the possibility of selling a $7k pair of hearing aids would have motivated them more.

In reply to @devicktimothy01

@devicktimothy01 said:

With my oticon s, background noise in a restaurant or bar is amplified just as much as the voices of the people at my table. I want to tune out loud people in the rest of the restaurant and tune into the voices at my table. The intents, for all the fancy terminology and oticon’s marketing hype, didn’t do any better at reducing background noise than my oticon S.

What you have to understand is that the intent doesn’t really reduce the noise but rather highlights the speech.
I would also prefer more reduction, but it works quite well as it is, even when it is louder.

The option to understand speech in noise reduces the noise around it, especially because I can use it to turn the volume down two levels to turn the noise down again and still understand the people opposite well.

It could also work with the normal program, but I usually forget that, because the first thing I do when I don’t understand is to turn the volume up rather than reduce it, but when it is so loud around me, it is usually not a good option for me

I just got Intent 1, I’ve had them 3 weeks, and honestly not much different from my More,s 2

my old ones were still working, I had them for 4 years, but heard so much good things about the Intent, I decided to try them, and these are my fifth set of aids so I know something about them,

When I went I got a hearing test which I was due, and I asked the girl are you the audiologist she said no, not sure what she is definitely a helper, the reason I asked is I just moved to Guelph a year ago, so I am only getting familiar with in Guelph,

these cost me $6000 so I need to be sure,

that’s why your post jumped out at me

If you can, you might want to consider returning the Intents. The Intents have been out for awhile and I’d bet that a new Oticon is not far off. Oticon has to respond to Phonak’s Infinio Sphere (released about a year ago). Especially if you (like me) are not experiencing much improvement compared to More, it might be best to continue with the Mores until Oticon releases something new.

In reply to @Rita2

@Rita2 said:

When I went I got a hearing test which I was due, and I asked the girl are you the audiologist she said no, not sure what she is definitely a helper

The key to any sound quality is the experience of the person doing the fitting, and it appears you didn’t get that. I would suggest asking for an appointment with the , and express your concerns.

The Intent is a major upgrade from the More with a new platform which, if programmed properly should sound better.

I had the More 1, and find the Intent to have a much fuller sound in large part due to the increase in frequency response, and new receivers.

I don’t use the advanced speech features like More Sound Intelligence or , because I prefer little to no digital effects, but when I 1st got the Intents I tried out those options to compare with the previous generation, and I did perceive a noticeable improvement.

The Intent also has , and just added in a software update just a couple of weeks ago. Bluetooth audio, and connectivity are rock solid. You can check the Companion app on your phone to see if yours is the latest.

Just tap on the Hearing Aids icon, and tap Hearing aid updates. It should be 1.3.0.

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