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Any updates on 9050 and noisy environments?

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I’ve been reading the 9050 threads with interest, as these are still fairly new and I am interested in replacing my 5 year old Resounds. Am looking primarily at the 9050s, which has a new method of dealing with noise. However, still not a lot of reported experience out there in noisy restaurants and such, unless I missed the forum threads on this.

I tried the new Jabra 20s earlier this year, but returned them due to poor noisy environment performance. (was also told after I returned the Jabras that they do not play well with Android) Whether the poor noise performance was due to the or the Costco HA tech/audiologist is still a question in my mind. On a positive note, I have since changed HA tech who actually improved the performance of my Resounds (high frequency hearing loss), so that addresses the poor HA tech performance (fingers crossed).

I am heading down to Costco for an appointment this week to check the 9050s out, hence the question. However, when I drop by the Costco HA booth last week, the HA techs there say they have only fitted a few 9050s, and really don’t have an opinion.

Since I don’t want a repeat of my experiences with the Jabra 20s, is it still too early to tell if the Philips noise mitigation approach is working well?

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SMCC,

I’ve had mine for a little over two weeks. I work in an office. So, my experience in a “noisy environment” is meeting with multiple people talking simultaneously or in a busy restaurant. Previously, I struggled to follow conversations in these situations. Now, with the 9050s, I feel like I can better participate. Is it perfect? No! Is it better than before? Yes! How much better? It’s better enough for me to continue wearing them. Your hearing loss is probably different than mine, so your experience may be better or worse. I’m happy and will keep mine until something better comes along. One of the great things about Costco is the extended trial period. Buy them and try them out. If they work for you, great. If not, you can return them within six months with no hassle.

DrBob,
Thank you for the update, it is helpful. I am at the point of wanting/needing to update my 5 year old for current technology. “Better participation” in a noisy environment…I interpret that as favorable. Currently I try to avoid those situations as it is practically impossible to follow conversations at the same table.

What has been an unknown to me is how to evaluate marketing hype vs real world performance on a newly released HA. Not looking for perfection, just the best performance for the current generation of HAs. Hearing in noise is the holy grail, IMHO.

I’ve had my 9050s for a little over a week. My wife and I joined another couple at a restaurant a few days ago. This restaurant has quite a lot of background noise when full, which it usually is. The 9050s quite successfully blocked out surrounding noise so that I could actually hear and converse with everyone in our party. Afterwards, my wife remarked that, unlike before, I actually took an active part in the conversations. It wasn’t perfect but it was far better than my previous KS9s. I am using the 9050s with a Pixel 8 and thus can take advantage of its LE capability.

Bobwal, thank you for your update. Do you find that the 9050 ability to focus on what is in front of you what did the trick? Or does that ability to follow the movement of your head make you nauseous at all?

Ok, this gives me hope. I am also interested in what new capabilities are in the 9050, but admittedly am not a power user.

The ability to focus on the speaker may or may not have helped. What I really noticed was that the surrounding noise was quite effectively subdued. Haven’t noticed that the movement of my head has made any significant difference. My advice is give them a trial. It took me a few days to get accustomed to them. At first, they were a bit too loud and shrill. Now they (my brain) have normalized.

For better or worse, I bit the bullet and just purchased the 9050’s this week. Admittedly have not yet been in noisy environments yet, that will be later this week or weekend. The Costco audi senior tech performed some additional in ear testing in the fitting session (after the full evaluation session), made adjustments, and I will be back in 2 weeks for a checkup.

Still in the initial early stage of getting used to these, but will say that these (as adjusted for my hearing loss) are significantly better performing than both my old Resounds and the Jabra Pro 20’s I had previously tried out (and returned). Speech recognition (even with a low voice phone call) has been very very good. Have been in a multi person conversation (outdoors), and could hear the others very clearly. Some incidental noises (vehicle wind sounds, opening a bag of chips, etc.) are not as jarring (painful) that I experienced previously. (Interestingly, the Costco audi senior tech had a bag of chips in the sound booth to see how the sounded to me when she crunched the bag.)

For the Hear in Noise setting (not yet used), it was set up for a “wide” front focus, to mimic a multi-person conversation such as at a restaurant. If it turns out to be too noisy, I may have that adjusted to a narrower focus.

For the Movie/Theater App, and using that for TV viewing, was able to listen at a much lower TV volume setting.

The one negative so far is that, with my Android S24 phone, am unable to answer a phone call with my HA’s buttons. Per the Costco audi, a software update “someday” should address this.

In reply to @Jack_F

@Jack_F said:

My 9050’s worked great the other day in a moderately noisy restaurant with 3 other people at the table.

NOTE: The above quoted experience was in a fairly small room and we were seated in a booth with back rests that were very tall.

Since I posted the above quote I had other experiences in restaurants with not so good results, so I went back to COSTCO. The made some adjustments to the settings in order to improve speech-in-noise performance. After that, I had an experience in a very challenging environment: a Christmas party in a large room with about 100 people sitting at tables. The 9050’s did a very poor job. I was sitting at a round table with 5 other people. When the live band was playing, I could not make out what anyone at the table was saying. When the music stopped, I could really only make out what one other person was saying. There must have been something different about her voice, as I still couldn’t even make out what my wife on my immediate right and a man on my left were saying. It didn’t matter how I turned my head or moved my head. It also didn’t seem to matter if I used the regular program or the special “speech-in-noise” program - in fact the regular program may have worked a little better. BTW, the “speech-in-noise” program has seemed to be a little bit better in some environments, like out in middle of the COSTCO store.

I am thinking of returning the 9050s, as they aren’t much better than my 5-year-old Philips 9010’s in noise. Perhaps I am expecting too much?

Jack, thank you for the update, and sorry to hear that, really am. While my noisy environments have been limited so far, the 9050’s are much better than what I had before. I do know that my current Audi tech spent quite a bit of time adjusting performance to match my hearing, and perhaps that made the biggest difference. (Went through a couple of Audi’s before finding this one) Perhaps you should consider a different Audi tech?
FYI, I bite the bullet and purchased the 9050s about a month now. Regardless of noise performance, compared to my original Resounds, these are a giant leap forward. Even listening to the TV is highly improved.
For noise performance, I have only attended 1 Christmas party so far (thankfully), very crowded, and I was able to have a conversation with the guy to my immediate side with no difficulty (was not using the Hear in Noise selection).
I also note that incidental noise (such as my coffee grinder, garage door opening, or even flushing a toilet) does not startle me like the Jabra’s did (which I tried for seveeral months earlier this year). Can even use these on my volunteer fire/medical calls without a major issue, which are relatively noisy and multiple conversations in a small space.
While I dislike the idea of even using Hearing Aids, these have finally convinced me that they are worth wearing almost all the time.
Good luck.

I updated to 9050’s 2 months ago or so. They are much improved (for me) over the 9030’s. A combination of an excellent fitter and the technology itself means I miss much less conversation. One thing to try when using speech in noise is to reduce the volume one or two steps. For me, this seems to improve the signal-to-noise () in noisy situations. And this, coupled with the directionality, is a big help in restaurants.

As they say, YMMV

Edited

In reply to @Jack_F

@Jack_F said:

I am thinking of returning the 9050s, as they aren’t much better than my 5-year-old Philips 9010’s in noise. Perhaps I am expecting too much?

By looking at your , you have pretty good hearing until 2 KHz where it starts dropping off. I bet that you wear open domes. That is the problem right there for you. Whatever noise reduction that any hearing aids can muster up for you, those open domes pretty much throw it all out the window (or shall I say out the open vents?). Even if you wear the Phonak Sphere I90, which purportedly has the best noise reduction available, it’s not going to make any dent to help you hear in noise if you’re in a super noisy environment like you just described. Any gain in signal to noise ratio your 9050 can achieve for speech is already lost by the extreme noise that your open vents in your open domes let in. Maybe an analogy to it is to have a super efficient heat pump in your house for the winter, yet you leave the doors and windows wide open to let the cold winds into your house.

So I think you can’t really blame the 9050 in such super noisy situations. What you could have done to help in those situations is to switch to or maybe a bass dome with a single vent to help keep out the noise as much as possible. Even just a small plug to keep the noise from coming into your ear should help tremendously.

Edited

In reply to @smcc

smcc,

Thanks for your reply. I’m glad the 9050’s are working for you. I’ve decided not to give up on them yet.

BTW, the Philips TV adapter works great for me. The same as it did on the 9010’s.

Jack.

I would only switch to when you need the extra assistance with speech in noise in a very noise place. Normally I would continue to wear open domes for regular situations if I were you, because the closed domes will have the occlusion effect that’s not desirable for everyday use. But the domes should be fairly easily interchangeable for you to do it yourself.

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

I would only switch to closed domes when you need the extra assistance with speech in noise in a very noise place

Mr. V…don’t youthink @Jack_F is a candidate for Molds with a medium vent, or perhaps the Select-a-vent kit of adapters?
Looks like that sharp drop starting right around 2k makes ear molds a very sound (PUNNY) choice. IMHO.
Seems easier than having to swap out domes anytime he enters a noisy venue.

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