New Oticon Opn 1 hearing aids. Tomorrow is my last day to return them

They’re arriving Tuesday, from Factory direct hearing. Fingers crossed!!

@KenP said:

Dispensers with good hearing try aids to get an idea of what it is doing.

How would dispensers with good hearing try out aids if they don’t need any or minimal amplification?

If it’s just taking a quick listen to see if the aids work/amplify or not, it’s one thing. But to actually wear it all day long for a month in all different listening environment is another thing altogether.

If you don’t have adequate hearing loss, I’d say you’re not qualified to try out aids to offer an opinion on how well they work or don’t work. That’s because there’s no frame of reference on how bad it’d be for them if they didn’t have the aids on.

If that’s the case here, no wonder they all claim to see no difference between the OPN 3 and OPN 1. I’d take their opinion with a grain of salt.

If amplification was the end all, I guess the worst ears here make for the biggest expert.

With good hearing, they know what sounds right. Llistening to the processed sound, they get a handle on how normal the sound is. Remember, they would be listening to analog to digital to analog.

I disagree completely. The goal is not to make the hearing aids sound normal, because hearing impaired folks cannot understand normal sound in the first place, that’s why they need hearing aids. And nobody said that amplification is the end all, signal processing is another big part. Signal processing (like wide dynamic range compression for example), enhances the understanding for hearing impaired folks. For example, it makes softer sounds sound louder, and louder sounds not sound too loud. Normal hearing people simply can’t judge if a processed and amplified signal will sound right or not because what sounds right to hearing impaired people won’t sound right to normal hearing people.

What you’re saying is akin to having normal seeing people to don on prescription eye glasses and judge whether the vision correction when they look through prescription eye glasses is good or not. Of course the prescribed vision will never look good to normal vision people. The only time they’ll see normal is when they put on glasses without prescription lens -> non-corrective lenses.

@Um_bongo @user1
So, maybe the OPN 2 would be the sweet spot for average wearers?

Not necessarily. I’d try both if you have the option, but IMHO you’d not ‘hear’ the difference.

Oticon have closed down the functionality so much, there’s relatively few adjustments to be made in Genie2. Yes there’s more adjustment with the Opn1, but it’s fairly marginal.

If you trust the wizardry within, then yes spend the cash, but we only keep one version in stock. I’ll let you guess which one it is.

Doesn’t look like a big reason to stock the 1. Shutting down functionality seems to indicate they don’t trust the average fitter.

Several OPN 1 folks here are trying self programming. I guess it’s a good one for them to start with – training wheels and all.

This confirms what my audiologist told me - that the Oticon Opn did not have the potential for adjustment that she wanted to be able to access.

I got popping and crackling sounds in my BTE Hearing Aid with earmold and it turned out the microphones had to be replaced in that Aid.

Are your OPNs paired to your iPhone? If so that is likely the source of the cracks and static you are hearing. It’s even worse if you have multiple Bluetooth devices paired at same time like an Apple Watch.

I have been trialing the OPN 1 for the last month and it will spontaneously get static/ticking sounds. If I disable Bluetooth on phone and re-enable it, it will fix itself.

@Volusiano said:

There can be cracks and static on the older firmware, but if you have firmware 4.0 for your OPN, the cracks and static should have been virtually eliminated already. Also make sure your iPhone is on iOS 11.0.2, which should also help resolve any iPhone connection quality you should have with the OPN. I’m on this combination of firmware 4.0 and iOS 11.0.2 and my iPhone connection to the OPN has been trouble-free.

@bobbydigital16 said:

This isn’t true. I’m on 4.0 firmware and 11.01. Still has issue. Also upgraded to 11.1 beta 1 and issue still persists.

I sent feedback to Apple and they’ve acknowledged the issue but no statement on a fix nor the ETA.

Of course I can only speak from my own experience and if your own experience still sees the issue then that’s something new and a new data point to consider.

But from what I heard on the forum, most OPN users here who migrated to firmware 4.0 had seen most of these issues resolved, me included. Believe me, I lived with these issues in FW 2.0 for a long time so unless they actually went away for me in FW 4.0, I wouldn’t have endorsed FW 4.0 and iOS 11.

I think yours is the first report back that the FW 4.0 didn’t resolve the issue for you. So I suspect that maybe it’s an outlier data point and I wonder if it may be an isolated hardware issue to the trial unit that you’re using. If the crackling is only occasional on your trial unit then it can be overlooked, but if it’s a recurring issue you should ask your audi to provide you with a different trial pair to see if the problem goes away.

I am getting a replacement pair at my appointment Monday in hopes is a Hw issue vs software.

However given Apple has acknowledged the issue it seems it is more than an isolated case.

I’m also on the latest firmware for the Opn hearing aids, using the iPhone X and most recent software. I’m still experiencing the static sounds. When I first got the new phone there were no issues, but over the course of two weeks it has gotten worse.