Initial impressions are that the world is now full of high-frequency sounds that are experienced as loud, relative to other sounds. I have not reduced the volume from the default setting of eight, though, per the audio’s suggestion. In the face of very loud sounds (as experienced, I mean), like my young nephew pouring ice from the ice maker into an ice container, I simply relaxed as much as I could and I’m trying to accommodate this new spectrum completely.
The Specsavers app is a simplified version of Signia’s. It allows Volume, Balance, and Direction. There are Programs, too, but I have not played with these. I did try shifting from Automatic to (i) Focus 360°, but changing back to Automatic, the app simply hangs. If I can get it to shift back to Automatic, I will leave it there. Done, but took ~2’. I prefer a Direction setting of 140° to the front; it’s raining here on the boat now, and the 360° setting means that the rain is unnaturally loud. The 140° setting feels more natural.
The other aspect I want to report is that when driving the boat, the wind rushing past the ears is very loud too. Around boats, there is always wind and sometimes very strong wind. I don’t think anything can be done about that so I will simply learn to relax into it. I will also take care to try to stay out of the wind as much as possible, but sometimes it’s not possible. Finally, the are not waterproof; I had to go outside into the rain a moment ago, and I forgot I was weearing the HAs… Luckily, no water ingress. I think the headband solution @MDB recommended on another thread will be effective, if a loose weave, and will not affect the sound too much, and (if I’m lucky) might act like a microphone “wind sock” to reduce wind noise. I will try and report back.
Otherwise, there is no doubt that I can hear voices significantly more clearly than before, particularly my partner’s. I have been wearing the hearing aids from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, or until I use the AirPods Pro 2s to listen to music or watch a film, again at the audio’s suggestion. As well, yesterday I came up to the boat on public transport all the way (while the railway workers were striking, so a 3-hour journey took 6) – and there were a large number of different soundscapes experienced in the process.
Re. listening to phone calls: routing the phone audio to the HAs via Bluetooth is hopeles—the audio is so tinny and high-frequency oriented as to render the other person’s speech unintelligible. Far better, I found, was to route the audio to the iPhone’s speaker, and listen to that output using the HAs. This works perfectly.
So far, so good.
You’re ignoring this member’s posts.