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Best hearing aids for restaurant setting?

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So you have heard it many times, lots of people talking, can’t hear person in front of you.

I have been checking all the latest hearing aids and speech in noise features etc. The Oticon OPN on paper seems to be the one that stands out.

I would like to hear opinions from people who have tried the latest and best hearing aids, also from Audiologists who have had feedback on what seems to be the better hearing aids for noise, I know Phonak and Gn Resound also have some great hearing aids.

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Best for restaurant setting is VERY subjective. It depends on so many things that you cannot just make a generalization. An HA that works for somebody with a certain hearing loss may not work for somebody else, even with the same hearing loss. There are just way too many variables, like:

  1. Your type of hearing loss (ski slope, flat, reverse ski slope, cookie bite?).
  2. Your actual hearing loss (mild, moderate, severe, profound).
  3. What do you expect from noise reduction (you want to hear nothing but the person in front, or you do want to hear everything but also hear the person talking well)?
  4. What type of fitting you have (custom molds, open dome, close domes with small vent, power dome)?
  5. The HA brand and model and their associated hearing paradigm/strategy.
  6. The type of HA (, , , ).
  7. The cost/value proposition of the HA brand/model.

You mentioned the OPN but I don’t think it’s the solution for everyone, even though I wear the OPN myself. The best HAs for restaurant is the whichever one that works in that environment for that wearer and meets their expectations for the cost/value proposition that it brings.

@lahingoso said:

So you have heard it many times, lots of people talking, can’t hear person in front of you.

I have been checking all the latest hearing aids and speech in noise features etc. The Oticon OPN on paper seems to be the one that stands out.

I would like to hear opinions from people who have tried the latest and best hearing aids, also from Audiologists who have had feedback on what seems to be the better hearing aids for noise, I know Phonak and Gn Resound also have some great hearing aids.

It’s only going to be as good as the person programming it: the straight off the shelf speech in noise or restaurant program will need to be tweeked to work well in the restaurant setting.

@seb said:

It’s only going to be as good as the person programming it: the straight off the shelf speech in noise or restaurant program will need to be tweeked to work well in the restaurant setting.

I wholeheartedly agree! Any of the top aids can be made to work quite well as long as you don’t expect miracles. It really is the programming that makes all the difference. If you find a fitter or audiologist you trust then see what they suggest. They will also perform better with the aids with which they have the most experience.

Best for actually hearing voices most acutely in Restaurant clatter and speech noise? Probably the Resound 3D in their dedicated Restaurant setting. (And FWIW Phonak/Unitron product too.)

Will you enjoy this experience or find it very natural - possibly not.

So on balance it depends whether you’re willing to put up with more aggressive filtering/dynamic directional effects in this environment or you just want more normal ‘passive’ sounding aids and let your brain do the filtering. (Oticon/Widex)

In reply to @Psocoptera

@Psocoptera said:

I wholeheartedly agree! Any of the top aids can be made to work quite well as long as you don’t expect miracles. It really is the programming that makes all the difference. If you find a fitter or audiologist you trust then see what they suggest. They will also perform better with the aids with which they have the most experience.

Absolutely! I have Oticon Agil Pros with a “this is what the computer has” speech in noise program, It is okay but not great. I also have a pair of Resound Vivids that were programmed by a who really knew what she was doing and put in the pre programmed speech in noise and then went in a tweeked it. The difference is with the Oticons you still hear the background noise, just not as loud, with the Vivids, the background noise is gone and all you hear is the table your at and maybe the people at the next table.

My Audi and I have worked with Restaurant Setting in my two recent Starkey series. In the ZSeries I was getting a lot of background all way to kitchen in hearing dishes, etc and figured out we had the Vol too high at startup so I would fine tune the Vol down would cut out the background to the point of just hearing people at my table. So its a fine line in vol .

Now with my Muse aids, we set the starting vol lower and allows me to increase a little to get the correct mix. With the Muse I do have better acuity as sometimes I am startled to find I an actually hearing a conversation a couple of tables away even without restaurant setting on.

But all said restaurants are a huge challenge in any case, even for people like my wife with good hearing.

My own 2-cents’ worth: My older Agil Pro aids do better in “restaurant” setting than the new Oticon Opn miniRITEs. The reason is not only due to the style of aid (one has mic/receiver in the ear cup for better, more natural amplification of direction), but also due to program. I am going in to see my aud-guy about the restaurant setting on my Opn aids, cuz even tho they have the mic unit on top of the ear, and receiver IN the ear, there is currently just WAY WAY too much competition from ambient noise to actually distinguish speech even from a person facing me.

Totally agree that the programming and skill of audiologist is critical here. And o’course, try to avoid environments with lots of hard, reflective surfaces, which add reverb to the noise. Unfortunately, those include about a bazillion places in addition to restaurants.

In reply to @Um_bongo

@Um_bongo said:

Best HA for actually hearing voices most acutely in Restaurant clatter and speech noise? Probably the Resound 3D in their dedicated Restaurant setting. (And FWIW Phonak/Unitron product too.)

Will you enjoy this experience or find it very natural - possibly not.

So on balance it depends whether you’re willing to put up with more aggressive filtering/dynamic directional effects in this environment or you just want more normal ‘passive’ sounding aids and let your brain do the filtering. (Oticon/Widex)

Does the Phonak mention include Costco Phonak Brio 2?

@Hazeltoe said:

Does the Phonak mention include Costco Phonak Brio 2?

You can tweak that platform, but the automatic doesn’t have the speed or flexibility of the later platforms. However if you just want pure fixed directionality the degree of forward enhancement is going to be similar. Though speech recognition and noise management might not be as effective.

In reply to @Um_bongo

@Um_bongo said:

Best HA for actually hearing voices most acutely in Restaurant clatter and speech noise? Probably the Resound 3D in their dedicated Restaurant setting. (And FWIW Phonak/Unitron product too.)

Will you enjoy this experience or find it very natural - possibly not.

So on balance it depends whether you’re willing to put up with more aggressive filtering/dynamic directional effects in this environment or you just want more normal ‘passive’ sounding aids and let your brain do the filtering. (Oticon/Widex)

Um bongo thank you for sharing this.

On a “makes sense” basis - the Resound 3D allows the user to make and save custom adjustments to volume, tonal balance, noise reduction, and microphone directionality while the user is in the environment for which the adjustments are intended.

This makes a case that it may be best as far as its ability to achieve its maximum potential.

In reply to @Hazeltoe

Perhaps one most pronounced things with my particular loss was the improvement in restaurant situations. The day after I got them my wife said this was the first time in years she has not had to repeat to the waitress to me. I’ve got Resound Linx3ds and put them into the restaurant program. It’s really the only time I ever take them out of the default.

Finally got a chance to try the Oticon OPN “Speech with noise” program yesterday at a noisy restaurant. When we first walked in, the host asked if we wanted a (mumble mumble mumble). I asked him to repeat it, no luck. Then I turned on the program and found that he was asking if I wanted a “gluten free menu” (no). I could also then hear my wife sitting across the table from me, which I could not with the general program.

I have found each restaurant to be different. Technology aside here are some tricks that I found helpful when wearing . Sit with your back to a wall. Cycle through your programs to find what might work best in that room. Turn off one HA or the other by opening the battery door.

I just saw my aud-guy today to have the “restaurant” setting tweaked on my Oticon Opn miniRITE aids. Previously, I’d found little if any difference between Program 1 and Program 2. That’s cuz the only thing changed was “full directional” setting on Pgm 2! They both had the same MINIMAL noise management control and identical frequency set-up. D U H.

After explaining to my aud-guy that ALL situations outside of a cozy, well-padded room make it difficult for me to hear/discriminate speech over the ambient noise, he has set up Program 4 to try out. This one will have full directionality, aggressive noise management AND he turned down the lower frequencies in a sweep of ranges (wish I could give the exact numbers, but it was the lower 1/5 of the total ranges). So far it seems to be better than Program 2 with the minimal difference from my default program.

The jury is still out till I try these out in all locations: the mall, Costco (and busy stores), intermission at the concert, restaurants, airports, about 1000 other locations & situations.

I think the key here is to be persistent and articulate the problem. It isn’t always a simple fix, as there is fit, seal, programming and the various adjustments to noise management and frequency channels.

@lahingoso said:

So you have heard it many times, lots of people talking, can’t hear person in front of you.

I have been checking all the latest hearing aids and speech in noise features etc. The Oticon OPN on paper seems to be the one that stands out.

I would like to hear opinions from people who have tried the latest and best hearing aids, also from Audiologists who have had feedback on what seems to be the better hearing aids for noise, I know Phonak and Gn Resound also have some great hearing aids.

https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Birthday-Moments-Hearing-plastic/dp/B001BQV7BI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1502281173&sr=8-3&keywords=ear+trumpet2

PS do not beleve the hype it is different for all

In reply to @HalfEar

@HalfEar said:

I have found each restaurant to be different. Technology aside here are some tricks that I found helpful when wearing BTE HAs. Sit with your back to a wall. Cycle through your programs to find what might work best in that room. Turn off one HA or the other by opening the battery door.

With directional settings on most modern aids you are better off sitting with the noise behind you and the people you want to hear in front. The worst for hearing in a restaurant is with all the noise and the people you want to hear all coming from the front.

My new aids have a feature that lets me ‘focus’ them to the arc of my choice, i.e. I can trim off sounds from behind me and beside me and only hear the sounds that are coming from within the arc that the table is within. Works very well for me. It does require that I carry a smartphone, and that the aids are connected to it, which sometimes means turning bluetooth off/on and waiting for sync. One of these days I’ll remember to get that all working before I walk in the door. Maybe!

In reply to @Um_bongo

I got a new hearing test from Costco and decided to try the Brio 2 hearing aids to replace my four plus year old Oticon Alta Pros The impressions were done and I am scheduled to pick up the aids on Aug 23rd. I will let you know how it goes. I will trial these before I consider other options.

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