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Noisy Restaurant Experience

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While I had been out to a restaurant before, last night was my first time with my KS8 ’s to what I would call a very noisy restaurant. I have to say I was not all that pleased with the way the HA’s behaved. In a quieter restaurant they were just fine in the Noise/Party program. However, a very noisy environment seems to be an all new ballgame. I walked in with them in Automatic mode, and everything was way to loud. I tried the Noise/Party mode and it didn’t help that much. Just too much loud noise and really hard to follow the conversation at our table. I then tried the Automatic again but adjusted the microphone focus to forward and very narrow. It helped, but still not great. Since the rest of our party was to my right I then tried the right focus of the microphones. However in the right focus mode you cannot adjust the focus to the narrow mode. It was not that much better. I finally went back to he Noise/Party mode and simply turned the volume down to about 25% on the volume range. That seemed to be the best of what I tried.If I leaned forward to the person speaking I could do OK. Not real enjoyable, but OK.

Is that as good as it gets? Any suggestions for improvement? Here is what the sound exposure graph looked like from the Smart Direct app. We were in the restaurant from about 7 to 9 PM.

PNG

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When I trialed those here is what I noticed: the noise program works great for steady background noise. I went to one restaurant that had heavy machine and HVAC noise and the KS8 made it sound like the power went off. Almost silent background.

But, in a restaurant where there is a lot of various noise and other people talking, the noise program didn’t help. But, the directional program works really well for that and if you narrow down the cone it works even better. I’m trying to remember exactly how you get to that. Is it the cafe setting?

So between the two I got good results but I had to look at the environment and use the one for that environment. With the directional program it helps to not have any sound coming from behind your source you are trying to hear. So if possible sit with your back to the noise and face the wall, if your table is next to a wall.

Thanks for the comments. The only program that I have where I can control the directional focus is the Automatic one. You can bias it to one of four quadrants. However, the only one where you can further narrow the focus with the slider is the front quadrant. There are three programs added by the Smart Direct app; Cafe, Cinema & Theater, and Group Conversation. I didn’t try any of them. I am a little suspicious that these programs are “placebo” programs and may not do anything. When I switch between the 6 programs that are set up with Connexx I hear the beeps indicating there is a switch, and in some case I hear the difference the program makes. Perhaps I am being overly skeptical but I don’t hear any difference when I have tried these three. Unlike the Connexx programs where I know how they are set up, I have never seen any detail on what these three additional programs are supposed to do…

I was sitting the opposite to what you suggest. I had my back to the wall and was facing the rest of the restaurant. Next time I will try to remember to do it the opposite way as you suggest. That makes sense. I did have the other people at our table on my right which is my better ear, but facing all the noise probably outweighed that benefit.

I did find some information in the Signia description of the Smart Direct app7 on the extra programs.

“Café: Directional microphones and moderate noise
reduction are activated.
Cinema & Theater: TruEar is engaged along with less
noise reduction for a more natural and spatial sound
quality.
Group Conversation: Slightly more directionality than
TruEar is engaged, as well as a little more noise
reduction to provide both speech clarity and spatial
sound quality.”

I don’t have any great suggestions and I think you discovered one key point–turn the gain down in your noise program. My noise program is set up with less gain than my normal automatic program. A lot of the issue with restaurant noise is that it’s overwhelming and reducing the “overwhelmingness” of it really helps.

@MDB said:

My noise program is set up with less gain than my normal automatic program.

I second that! Mine is also set with less gain. Makes a huge amount of difference!

I have found the “cafe” setting to be the most beneficial with my KS 8s. Sometimes adjusting the microphone directionality helps, but that is only available in " automatic" mode. I don’t think any gives truly satisfactory results in a difficult restaurant setting.

There are numerous restaurants my wife and I don’t frequent because they play loud music. Why they do this is a mystery to me as even hearing individuals find it extremely difficult to carry on a conversation. I remember the old line clubs my father used to belong to where you could hear a feather drop. How times have changed.

There are a lot of articles out there on this, but it basically comes down to two things.

  1. Current restaurant design choices. More hard surfaces (easier to keep clean), combining the restaurant and bar into a single space, and opening up the kitchen to the eating area.

  2. Loud makes more money. There are studies that show that people are more likely to spontaneously go into loud restaurants because they seem lively. Loud restaurants also see an increase in alcohol consumption. And they turn over faster, loud music makes us eat and leave so that the table is opened for new customers. The music suppliers even have special tracks that change the loudness and tempo of the music if the manger wants to subtly encourage diners to eat and leave faster.

In reply to @member98

I have not done a restaurant with loud music yet. I’m suspecting that would be the about the worst. This one I had trouble with did not play music, but it had very high ceilings, no carpet, and was essentially glass all around. It was this open kitchen style. New, trendy, and expensive. There was a bar, but we were kind of around the corner from it. And we went toward the end of the happy hour, so conversation was loud, and everyone was trying to talk over everyone else. We are going to try another this morning for brunch. Will try the tips gained here, hoping it will go better.

Tried another restaurant this AM. It was an older style, but they were playing music at a low to moderate level. It was not busy when we got there but got more and more so during the meal. This time I seated myself with my back to the rest of the place, and it was much better. I could essentially hear all the conversation at our table. Used the Noise/Party program and did not have to turn the volume down. Tried the Cafe and Group Conversation programs briefly but they were not as good as the Noise one. They seemed to crank the volume up more and the overall tone got sharper/shrill. My Sound Exposure graph of the brunch:

PNG

Overall the experience was much more enjoyable. Perhaps a very loud/noisy restaurant, or a bar, is not the place for hearing aids. It seems when you get up to 80 or so, trouble starts…

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