Hearing in the car

My old aids were Bernafon from 2012. I’ve had the Resounds since 2020. It is something I’ve noticed more recently. I don’t remember it being a problem with the Bernafons. I have been struggling lately and plan on getting retested. It just seems worse in the car and that seems strange since since my wife is sitting right next to me.

@Needsofthemany i think @hass5744 meant the first set of resounds.

WH

Whatever hand is your favored hand, e.g., if you’re right-handed, use that hand. Make a fist, bring your hand near the HA mics on one ear, and strum your thumb against the fingernails on your hand. Do you hear the high frequency “thrrrfffft, thrrrfffft, …” sound that the rubbing should make (or do you hear high-pitched sounds like crickets?). If not, the external mics on an HA body may not be working properly. As others have said, your fitter should also be able to perform a more precise evaluation.

If your external mics seem fine as far as detecting high-pitched noises that you can only hear with your HA’s on, you might try using the Sound Enhancer in the Costco equivalent of the ReSound Smart 3D app. Road noise is probably mainly low frequency bass noise. You might increase the treble and midtone sound volume to a rating of 4 to 6 in the app (I don’t know what the units are in the app) and decrease bass levels to -2. It might make your wife’s voice sound more tinny or too loud in treble (you can turn down the overall volume) but you might be able to hear her more clearly in the car above the road noise. As someone else mentioned, don’t turn noise suppression above the Considerable setting. STRONG noise suppression eats into speech understanding and is intended to be used only in strong noise situations where there is no speech.

I have an older Honda Accord. It has a lot of road noise. I bought a ReSound Multi-Mic and I’ve asked my wife to wear it around her neck at times when we’re in the car. It makes her voice very easy to understand but if she rustles her clothes, etc., the noise from that can get pretty annoying. I try to keep the Multi-Mic at about 50% charge when I’m not using it as storing a Li-ion device at 100% charge or <20% charge is not very good for the long-term battery lifespan. With my car the amount of road noise and the need for the Multi-Mic really varies with the type of road surface and condition of the road that we’re driving over. Most of the time we get by fine without it.

I also ran into this while using Starkey Muse. and I outsmart it by reducing the frequency from 250 to 500 at 50 DB unseen. so I no longer need to hear the noise of the car . and can hear again.

Thanks everyone for the response. I realize now I had “noise reduction” at max. I’ll try using different settings. I was hearing a lot of road noise I think that is why I turned up the noise reduction. I’ve been saying what? a lot more lately so I will see my fitter soon.

Definitely wouldn’t be safe.

I just realized that when I turn off my aids the “noise reduction” goes back to max. I think this was the problem. So now when I put on my aids in the morning I’ll set the noise reduction to off or mild and the wind noise reduction to off. That seems odd to me it would always go back to max when I put them in the charger.
Thanks for all the comments, I’ll see how it goes.

@Needsofthemany said:

That seems odd to me it would always go back to max

This is because they are set this way in the software by your audiologist, can you set up a
“favourite” program and save that in the App.

I’m not sure it is a pressure change I just find it hard to describe. I haven’t gone anywhere today but I’m sure going to try using the app.
Thanks emjay

I had this pressure feeling too when testing different branches. When they cut out all the low noises and I was only left with high beeps and unrecognizable music, I had this difficult-to-explain air pressure feeling too. The new fitter managed to have more low tones in the car and I don’t have that feeling anymore.

I recently went to a concert with 6 others in a minivan. At the concert I put my aids into the music setting. On the return trip my aids were still in that setting and I heard better than ever in the car. YMMV

Now that there is funny! I’m curious; what model hearing aids?