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Oticon launches Opn hearing aids and Velox platform

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In reply to @Volusiano

AH, that makes me feel better! I believe my aud-guy is using the Genie software on his computer? So perhaps just a fresh set of batteries will make it easier. That brings up another odd issue: my TV streamer. Last night, I was watching a “Bourne” DVD and throughout the entire movie, my aids just randomly beeped from streaming to default Program 1, to Program 3, streaming in ONE aid, no streaming, on and on and on and on! I’d been using these Opns SO WELL with my streamer up to that moment - listening to Netflix shows, other “Bourne” DVDs, and AmazonPrime movies with NO issue.

The batteries had been changed 5 days ago, so maybe I should check them (I have one of those small battery voltage readers). Otherwise, I’m wondering if I’ve got a bum TV streamer unit. TV streaming is my #2 TOP priority for these aids (#1 being the phone streamer … which I’m still waiting on).

Has ANYONE here ever had a similar situation with the TV streaming just fritzing out non-stop when listening to a show, watching a movie or viewing a DVD? I even wondered if that old “Bourne” DVD may have been cast with old technology or something that interfered. I will also try re-pairing my aids with the TV streaming unit to see if that helps. But it could be just a change of batteries needed …

=========================

@Volusiano said:

As long as the HAs sync up with the computer, your settings should be saved and your audi should get confirmation of it.

My audi has trouble syncing up my OPNs to the computer fairly often, too. The first thing she did was to switch out to brand new batteries just in case. Weak batteries may cause syncing problems. If that still doesn’t work, she either moves the set up to a different laptop and it usually works there. If not, quitting the app and reopening it should help. Or disconnect and reconnect the USB dongle.

@1Bluejay said:

AH, that makes me feel better! I believe my aud-guy is using the Genie software on his computer? So perhaps just a fresh set of batteries will make it easier. That brings up another odd issue: my TV streamer. Last night, I was watching a “Bourne” DVD and throughout the entire movie, my aids just randomly beeped from streaming to default Program 1, to Program 3, streaming in ONE aid, no streaming, on and on and on and on! I’d been using these Opns SO WELL with my streamer up to that moment - listening to Netflix shows, other “Bourne” DVDs, and AmazonPrime movies with NO issue.

The batteries had been changed 5 days ago, so maybe I should check them (I have one of those small battery voltage readers). Otherwise, I’m wondering if I’ve got a bum TV streamer unit. TV streaming is my #2 TOP priority for these aids (#1 being the phone streamer … which I’m still waiting on).

Has ANYONE here ever had a similar situation with the TV streaming just fritzing out non-stop when listening to a show, watching a movie or viewing a DVD? I even wondered if that old “Bourne” DVD may have been cast with old technology or something that interfered. I will also try re-pairing my aids with the TV streaming unit to see if that helps. But it could be just a change of batteries needed …

=========================

I’m assuming that you’re talking about using the Oticon TV Adapter 3.0 streamer with the Oticon OPN here, right? But if you’re using the OPN then that’d be the only TV streamer that would work with it anyway, I think.

I can tell you about my experience with using my OPN on the Oticon TV Adapter 3.0 streamer:

  1. If the battery in one of your OPN starts running low (you’ll hear a 3-beep warning), then the TV Adapter 3.0 streamer would stop working with that . The other HA, if still has a good battery, would still work with it just fine. That’s probably why you’re hearing streaming stop working in one HA but still working in the other HA. If you changed out the battery 5 days ago, it’s most likely that your battery had started to run out of juice and needed to be replaced. Most people reported their batteries lasting between 4 to 5 days on the OPN. So you’re most definitely on the tail end already.

  2. The input into the TV streamer needs to have a minimum threshold volume level to continue to stay on. If the volume is too low, or if the program ends and there’s no more sound, eventually the TV streamer will turn off by itself. If there’s sound but the input volume is weak below the streamer’s threshold, it’ll turn off eventually as well. I find it better to turn up the volume to the TV Adapter input and if it’s too loud for you then turn down the HA volume to adjust. That will guarantee that the TV Adapter will continue to stay on.

I have a hearing aid battery voltage reader, too. But worn out batteries detected by 3 beeps on the OPN still shows a high voltage on those readers. So those voltage readers are not very useful in determining the status of OPN batteries. The best way is to notice the 3 beep warning. You’ll probably get a couple more hours on that battery before it finally dies with the 4 beep warning from the OPN, though.

@Volusiano said:

So those voltage readers are not very useful in determining the status of OPN batteries.

ANY batteries. Unless you’re trying to sort out a bunch in the drawer to separate out the absolutely dead ones.

In reply to @Volusiano

LOL! You and Corona save my sanity! I’ve used this goofy battery tester for years, and have found that once it measures 50-60% power, I probably have a few hours left on my batts. But here I sit, about 6 hours later with my size 312s in my aids … just waiting for them to conk out. I expressly want to keep them IN and make sure they give me the warning beeps before they go down.

Very interesting to know that TV volume may have triggered all the ON! OFF! with my streamer last night. Altho “Bourne” is pretty much an action movie, I didn’t pay attention as to when my aids were fritzing. But I have also noticed that the streamer shuts off automatically when the show is over and my TV muted. I also moved the position of my TV streamer unit to make sure nothing is blocking the signal from that to my aids. More testing is needed.

I just have to express gratitude for knowledgeable sources here on this site - cuz my dear hubs (with bat-like hearing) is utterly at a loss to explain the myriad issues I have with aids and the technology that interface with them.

@Volusiano said:

I’m assuming that you’re talking about using the Oticon TV Adapter 3.0 streamer with the Oticon OPN here, right? But if you’re using the OPN then that’d be the only TV streamer that would work with it anyway, I think.

I can tell you about my experience with using my OPN on the Oticon TV Adapter 3.0 streamer:

  1. If the battery in one of your OPN starts running low (you’ll hear a 3-beep warning), then the TV Adapter 3.0 streamer would stop working with that HA. The other HA, if still has a good battery, would still work with it just fine. That’s probably why you’re hearing streaming stop working in one HA but still working in the other HA. If you changed out the battery 5 days ago, it’s most likely that your battery had started to run out of juice and needed to be replaced. Most people reported their batteries lasting between 4 to 5 days on the OPN. So you’re most definitely on the tail end already.

  2. The input into the TV streamer needs to have a minimum threshold volume level to continue to stay on. If the volume is too low, or if the program ends and there’s no more sound, eventually the TV streamer will turn off by itself. If there’s sound but the input volume is weak below the streamer’s threshold, it’ll turn off eventually as well. I find it better to turn up the volume to the TV Adapter input and if it’s too loud for you then turn down the HA volume to adjust. That will guarantee that the TV Adapter will continue to stay on.

I have a hearing aid battery voltage reader, too. But worn out batteries detected by 3 beeps on the OPN still shows a high voltage on those readers. So those voltage readers are not very useful in determining the status of OPN batteries. The best way is to notice the 3 beep warning. You’ll probably get a couple more hours on that battery before it finally dies with the 4 beep warning from the OPN, though.

@1Bluejay said:

I also moved the position of my TV streamer unit to make sure nothing is blocking the signal from that to my aids.

Because the direct streaming is 2.4GHz RF and not infrared, you don’t really need to worry about having a clear line of sight between your TV streamer and where you sit to watch TV. The range of the TV streamer is pretty good so you can probably go to the next room in the house and still be able to hear everything even through the walls.

In reply to @corona

@corona said:

With respect, it’s so much more complicated than this.

audiologyonline.com is always a good place to start! Registration is free, and super-simple. Here’s what a search turns up:

Course Search
Oticon opn
"========~··
27949: Oticon Opn - Part 1 (rec-modules)
Z7959: Oticon Opn - Part 3 (rec-modules)
27944: Oticon Opn - Part 1 (rec-modules)
27790: An Introduction to Otic1on Opn (video)

There’s also Navigating the Genie Software: Programming Tips and Tricks for the OPN Products
Course: #28328 Level: Intermediate 1 Hour

I haven’t watched these Oticon ones because I don’t have Oticon aids, but I’ve watched a bunch of others, and trust me they are not rocket science. Some of the more technical, hard-core audiology ones, maybe, but not this genre. They’re designed as lowest-common-denominator basic training for fitting personnel. They’re interesting, too!

Thanks for these references, Corona. I’ve gone through them and the most interesting section I found was the presentation video Part 2 where they talk about noise reduction management.

One thing new I learned there that I kind of suspected before but didn’t know for sure until confirmed here is how the OPN handles noise reduction.

They explain that in the traditional noise reduction approach, there’s simply no way to tell the difference between noise and speech ON A MOMENT TO MOMENT basis (say within 10ms intervals) just because traditional are simply way too slow. They say that traditional HAs can only take a look of the signal to see if it’s modulated (speech) or unmodulated (noise) by taking a long term average before doing any long term filtering. BUT the long term average between noise and speech looks almost exactly the same usually, so you can’t do the filtering of noise without also filtering out speech. So the fall back approach is to use traditional directional filtering, blocking out all sounds around you except for sound in front of you. But if sound in front of you also contains noise, I guess you’ll hear both noise and speech. It’s not like noise in front of you is filtered out from speech in front of you.

With the OPN, it’s fast enough that they can look at speech and noise signals not by long term average anymore, but on a moment to moment basis (at 10ms intervals), where they still look different enough compared to looking the same on the long term average. OPN also differentiate between sounds in your rear half (your backward facing view of the sound environment) and define it on a moment to moment basis as noise that they don’t want the patient to have to listen to, while defining sound on your front half as sounds that you want to hear. Then on a moment to moment basis (10ms intervals), they compare these 2 sound signals and find differences between them and suppress the frequency domains of the rear half sounds (which they define as noise) and preserve the characteristics of the front half sounds (via preserving and not suppressing the frequency domains where they stand out).

The overall effect is that speech is preserved and cleaned up and noise around speech is removed, but only on a moment to moment basis (they use this term a lot in their presentation, “on a moment by moment basis”, because this is the KEY difference they want to emphasize). Where there’s no speech present, you’ll hear noise just the same. I think this is why many of us has the perception that the OPN doesn’t do noise reduction like we expect it to. Because it really doesn’t do any NR long term (and even half a second here can be considered long term). It only does noise reduction short term (as short as 10ms), and also ONLY when speech is present.

The bottom line is that on the average, you’ll hear speech and you’ll also hear noise, but when speech comes on, noise is cleaned up from speech to make speech more intelligible. But as soon as speech goes away, noise resumes almost instantly. So that’s why in a noisy environment, you can hear everything (noise included), but you can still supposedly understand speech better.

So I also finally understand now why I can’t hear speech from behind me in a moving car on the very noisy freeway when I sit in the front seat. That’s because any sound from the rear is considered by OPN as noise so they don’t try to clean it up when speech is present in my rear.

I haven’t looked at these myself – just thought I’d dig them up and pass them along. I’d agree that there’s no important way to tell signal from noise at any given moment, except perhaps for level (because that’s all the information you’d have). But that’s pretty crude, in as dynamic a system as speech-in-noise.

As for for not being able to filter out speech from noise in a single input – like that from a directional microphone pointing in front of you – I do think there are several possibilities, including expansion (to effectively lower noise that’s beneath the range of useable signal) and bandpass filtering (to eliminate frequencies outside the range of speech). These have been around for a long time.

As for subtracting noise from, say, a rear-facing microphone from that of a front-facing microphone, well that is pretty standard, too. I would also assume that hearing aids do some further filtering work based on phase differences between the microphones on either side of the head. The basic idea for this sort of reduction has also been around for a while (if maybe not the technological means to do it in hearing aids).

I’ve probably said more than I ought to without having looked at the videos. But as for the moment-to-moment thing – besides my point above that for frequency information, you need some signal over time – it does seem to me that the final product isn’t going to sound all that good if the noise reduction isn’t integrated over some period of time. How could this be done without the noise “pumping” up and down in relationship to the presence or absence of speech? Or even between individual words, which they also put forward as a marketing point? Maybe that’s what people are talking about.

I appreciate your digging into this, and my guess is there are others here who do, too. When I get time, I’ll also have a look.

In reply to @Um_bongo

The thing I most wish for from a new pair of aids is the ability to leave the feedback manager on without it generating a horrible warbling effect any time I whistle or sing or even hear a pure tone. Can anyone report on whether the new Velox platform solves this issue?

In reply to @The_Latinist

Lot of great technical insights in these posts about noise management. Since my very first pair of Phonaks back in the '90s, I’ve just wanted noise reduction OFF. Yes, the occasional fire truck, fire alarm, night at a disco, etc., may require that I utterly mute my aids, but I just find noise management like a dumb ox forcing its block-headed definition of “sounds” on me. My earliest noise management experience was standing at the stove, cooking with the exhaust fans on full bore, my mother-in-law muttering non-stop conversation at my side at about 20db!

The fact that Oticon’s Opns now sample sound at a faster rate and maybe make adjustments “on a moment-by-moment basis” has zero value for me if it doesn’t somehow apply some kind of bandpass filtering to zero in on the human speech frequencies (which are but a band in the spectrum) - no matter where that speech is coming from: front, back, sides, across the room.

Directional mics are just a way of helping the brain focus on what is likely to be the most important sound we’re taking in “moment-by-moment”. But as an active person, I’m often in a single line on a trail for HOURS, trying to hear folks 3 people ahead or 2 people behind me - EASILY - like everyone with normal hearing seems to be able to do. I find it ironic that the Oticon website pictures this “old fashioned” sound processing like it is dinosaur era; but their own noise management processing signals “moment-by-moment” just does NOT make listening 20% easier at all. Which user tested that functionality out and gave them that line?

If Oticon (and other manufacturers) would just have folks like us in the field testing these devices in a range of surroundings: carpool, large meeting with speakerphones, restaurant, outside on a busy street, on a trail, in the wind, on a plane, etc., they’d get the truth as to real value or functionality of the HA they are marketing. I find a total disconnect between what I read in marketing literature every couple of years and the actual performance of these state-of-the-art aids that makes me wonder if lab rats aren’t producing devices that sound good on paper, but have some fatal flaws in actuality for those who rely on the device in “moment-by-moment” life.

I recall reading one audiologist’s review of the Widex Unique back in Sept., (which prompted me to try them out) - so glowing! The aids were perfect in any setting, even on his sailboat as he tacked on the wind. His favorite feature of the aids was its “Zen” mode: which offered 4 musical programs to choose from. He was contemplating buying a pair just to deploy that in his office. So I turned the Zen option on my trial aids, too! But, um, I already have tinnitus, and the music in my own ears was just as monotonous and hypnotically tonal as the Zen programs. When it came to listening to hi-end audio systems at home, the Widex was trash: thin, distorted, very disappointing. The audiologist admitted his hearing is perfect, and I admire him for even trying the aids out. But I felt like he was speaking about features from a different perspective altogether than my own.

At the end of the day, I want aids with beautiful, rich, clear sound - no distortion, and no maddening noise management that takes all levels down, leaving me straining to hear anyone in any direction. Zen option in a HA is about as useful to me as playing a triangle with a spoon. Augh.

In reply to @1Bluejay

@1Bluejay said:

LOL! You and Corona save my sanity! I’ve used this goofy battery tester for years, and have found that once it measures 50-60% power, I probably have a few hours left on my batts. But here I sit, about 6 hours later with my size 312s in my aids … just waiting for them to conk out. I expressly want to keep them IN and make sure they give me the warning beeps before they go down.

Zinc-air batteries – i.e. the hearing aid kind – have a very flat discharge curve. In other words, when they go, they go fast.

Tangent. Do you find the battery tester on the KS7 of much use? It seems like it can be at “full” (3 beeps) and very soon be signalling that it’s time to replace them. As you mention, when they go, they go fast!

Edited

I’m not disciplined enough to use it very consistently. I did have the impression once or twice that it has to try pretty hard to distinguish between the voltage “steps.” I know that a couple of times it’s said 2 beeps, but this has been after I’ve been in the noisy world. Then when I’m home for a bit it will say 3 again. Maybe because the batteries have recovered slightly with less load? I just wait until they die and put in a new one – if I’ve remembered to bring one along – or catch them at home.

Oh woops sorry I see this is the OPN/Velox thread. Sorry :confused:

In reply to @1Bluejay

@1Bluejay said:

Lot of great technical insights in these posts about noise management. Since my very first pair of Phonaks back in the '90s, I’ve just wanted noise reduction OFF. Yes, the occasional fire truck, fire alarm, night at a disco, etc., may require that I utterly mute my aids, but I just find noise management like a dumb ox forcing its block-headed definition of “sounds” on me. My earliest noise management experience was standing at the stove, cooking with the exhaust fans on full bore, my mother-in-law muttering non-stop conversation at my side at about 20db!

The fact that Oticon’s Opns now sample sound at a faster rate and maybe make adjustments “on a moment-by-moment basis” has zero value for me if it doesn’t somehow apply some kind of bandpass filtering to zero in on the human speech frequencies (which are but a band in the spectrum) - no matter where that speech is coming from: front, back, sides, across the room.

Directional mics are just a way of helping the brain focus on what is likely to be the most important sound we’re taking in “moment-by-moment”. But as an active person, I’m often in a single line on a trail for HOURS, trying to hear folks 3 people ahead or 2 people behind me - EASILY - like everyone with normal hearing seems to be able to do. I find it ironic that the Oticon website pictures this “old fashioned” sound processing like it is dinosaur era; but their own noise management processing signals “moment-by-moment” just does NOT make listening 20% easier at all. Which user tested that functionality out and gave them that line?

If Oticon (and other HA manufacturers) would just have folks like us in the field testing these devices in a range of surroundings: carpool, large meeting with speakerphones, restaurant, outside on a busy street, on a trail, in the wind, on a plane, etc., they’d get the truth as to real value or functionality of the HA they are marketing. I find a total disconnect between what I read in marketing literature every couple of years and the actual performance of these state-of-the-art aids that makes me wonder if lab rats aren’t producing devices that sound good on paper, but have some fatal flaws in actuality for those who rely on the device in “moment-by-moment” life.

I recall reading one audiologist’s review of the Widex Unique back in Sept., (which prompted my to try them out) - so glowing! The aids were perfect in any setting, even on his sailboat as he tacked on the wind. His favorite feature of the aids was its “Zen” mode: which offered 4 musical programs to choose from. He was contemplating buying a pair just to deploy that in his office. So I turned the Zen option on my trial aids, too! But, um, I already have tinnitus, and the music in my own ears was just as monotonous and hypnotically tonal as the Zen programs. When it came to listening to hi-end audio systems at home, the Widex was trash: thin, distorted, very disappointing. The audiologist admitted his hearing is perfect, and I admire him for even trying the aids out. But I felt like he was speaking about features from a different perspective altogether than my own.

At the end of the day, I want aids with beautiful, rich, clear sound - no distortion, and no maddening noise management that takes all levels down, leaving me straining to hear anyone in any direction. Zen option in a HA is about as useful to me as playing a triangle with a spoon. Augh.

I share a lot of your sentiments. I feel that in last 10 years or so we didn’t really have any major breakthrough in a basic function- improve speech recognition regardless of speaker(s) position. We just had marketing and convenience breakthroughs (streaming, apps to control etc.).
Based on white papers they publish, it seems that major manufacturers use test subjects, usually through questionnaires distributed via audiologists. The problem here is how to get apples to apples comparisons between different generations of HAs- you can’t achieve this just be sending the same number of questionnaires each time, and counting positive responses. This does not guarantee the same distributions of hearing loss, first time users vs experienced HAs users, age, listening environments… In my mind it makes more sense to concentrate testing on a smaller pool of experienced and motivated users, like most of the members of this forum. I know I’m preaching to the choir…

In reply to @corona

@corona said:

But as for the moment-to-moment thing – besides my point above that for frequency information, you need some signal over time – it does seem to me that the final product isn’t going to sound all that good if the noise reduction isn’t integrated over some period of time. How could this be done without the noise “pumping” up and down in relationship to the presence or absence of speech? Or even between individual words, which they also put forward as a marketing point? Maybe that’s what people are talking about.

You don’t have to listen through the whole session. The meat is in the Part 2 starting at around 20 minutes into the video presentation. I think it’s worth about 5 minutes to review that part only.

But they gave this example: a speech signal combined with a background noise signal. The speech signal says: “On the news this morning, they talked about the difference between sunscreen protections.”

Then they show a long term average of the 2 signals where the 2 looks almost identical, in proving their points that the long term average is not going to help separate speech from noise.

Then they focus on just the vowel “a” in the word “talked”, and show the speech signal of the vowel “a” and the noise signal around “a”, and how they’re different enough that they can differentiate and suppress the noise and preserve the speech. They then used another example of the “sh” sound in the pronunciation of “protection” (where the “ct” sounds like “sh”) and again show the speech and noise signals and how they look different.

So this should give you an idea of how short and quick of an interval their noise reduction is being put into work, down to a single vowel or consonant.

From what I can tell, the noise reduction isn’t integrated over some period of time like what you said. That is why I’ve been trying to listen for it but could never detect it, because it happens way too fast. The question is by doing these minute tiny interval cleaning of the noise, is the sum of all the parts good enough to really make speech more intelligible or not? They seem to think so. But I know many of us still struggle in noisy environment with the OPN just the same. I know I do.

What I really wish is that they would use the example sentence above and play the “AFTER” result so I can see how the OPN actually cleans up the speech sentence. But they DIDN’T have the “after” result to show. I was flabbergasted and terribly disappointed that they went through all this 40 minute long presentation to make a big deal about how revolutionary their noise reduction is, but in the end they had NOTHING, NONE, ZIP, NADA to show any “after” example so we can see for ourselves how well they really clean up the sound like they bragged about. It felt like a scam in the end and I felt cheated of the time I invested to listen in to their big rave in the first place.

Oticon, where’s the proof in the pudding? Actually where’s the pudding even???

I think that all this fascination and focus on suppressing background noise around a nano-second particle of actual human speech is comical! Instead of showing us wavelengths and blips of data that try to prove a point, how about I sit in a room, my back to someone speaking over a jazz quartet in a night club. That person asks me a series of 20 questions, as the sax, trumpet, vocalist and even the ambient noise in the jazz club crescendo and fall like a beautiful jam session. These questions are delivered to the back of my head, cuz after all, noise management is supposed to work “moment-by-moment” to make listening and understanding speech way easier.

IF I correctly answer the questions (indicating that my speech recognition was actually aided with whatever razzle-dazzle software/chip set is in the aids), then we can deem the enhancement a success. But if, instead of requiring 20% less effort to hear over such a din turns into 20 missed questions, a lot of stress, and utter exasperation on my part, the lab rats go back to the drawing board and try, try again.

It’s the “living laboratory” that is completely missing in all this development! manufacturers seem to struggle to find a marketing message to justify the next generation product. Unlike computers, cars, hi fi systems, artificial limbs, or other technological devices, the benefits offered by HA manufacturers are largely soothing words to lull us into trials and wishful thinking. I’d like to for once say, “WOWIE!!! I have bionic ears!”

It seems that we stumble from pillar to post, grabbing a fraction of improvement in sound quality even as streaming devices are still “not out there” yet, or noise management programs are doing something only an electron could detect, or someone is insisting we need the “Internet of Things” to give us one more clunky device to carry around in our hands (like Bob Dole’s pen). What would it take to just develop bionic ears? How much would it cost? I think there would be a market for such a device beyond the hearing impaired. Ah well, I’ve digressed from noise management to the perfect hearing instrument - something I still pine away for.

In reply to @corona

That is good to know! I did notice that my 312 batts die hard in about 20 min after the first warning beep, vs my 13 batts (in my Agil Pro ) that give me a full hour till they go dead, with warning beeps every 15 min. So perhaps battery size may also impact the longevity then?

@corona said:

Zinc-air batteries – i.e. the hearing aid kind – have a very flat discharge curve. In other words, when they go, they go fast.

In reply to @corona

@corona said:

I have the feedback management on on my (crappy Costco KS7) aids. I don’t hear this.

That’s really irrelevant to the question of whether the Velox platform has solved this problem that is most definitely present in my Alta2’s. That said, there are many people who tell me that they don’t hear it in in the Alta2, either; but there’s no doubt it’s there. I believe it’s caused by the frequency-shift of a few cents that is used to try to break the feedback cycle. Perhaps whether one notices or is bothered by it depends on the sensitivity of his sense of pitch. As a musician and singer, it is horrible. It’s like the beat that’s created when listening to two identical notes played, one on a slightly out of tune instrument.

@The_Latinist said:

That’s really irrelevant to the question of whether the Velox platform has solved this problem that is most definitely present in my Alta2’s. That said, there are many people who tell me that they don’t hear it in in the Alta2, either; but there’s no doubt it’s there. I believe it’s caused by the frequency-shift of a few cents that is used to try to break the feedback cycle. Perhaps whether one notices or is bothered by it depends on the sensitivity of his sense of pitch. As a musician and singer, it is horrible. It’s like the beat that’s created when listening to two identical notes played, one on a slightly out of tune instrument.

I listened through the Genie2 programming presentation from that audiologyonline course list for the OPN, and on the feedback programming section, the following are what they’re saying:

  1. They strongly recommend to the audis not to run the feedback analyzer test as part of the protocol if they don’t have to, although the Genie2 program has a feedback analyzer that can be used. They say that there’s no reason to limit the headroom if the fit is good and there’s no feedback (implying that the feedback analyzer will probably impose headroom limitations if it’s ran). If the fit is not good and you have feedback, they want the audis to go back to hearing 101 first and check for basic physical causes of feedback that can be resolved before attempting to run the feedback test, like trying close dome if open dome is causing feedback, etc.

They said one of the differences that they have made in the feedback analyzer for the OPN is that the sound source that you hear is according to the patient’s , so it’s not quite as loud as it used to be.

  1. They say that the Feedback Shield LX, which is the feedback algorithm run in the OPN, runs on all of the channels independently and on both microphones simultaneously, and has 3 components:

    a. Phase inversion/cancellation - done by most mfgs at this time.

    b. Frequency shifting: If phase cancellation is not enough, they’ll do a frequency shift of 10 Hz above 1.6 KHz, and it’s always on. They think that the 10Hz shift is just enough to de-correlate the feedback spike from the output signal, but not enough where it’s perceivable by the patient, so they shouldn’t be hearing and complaining of fluttering and artifacts because of the frequency shift. They say that other mfgs may do this shift too aggressively which can cause audible distortion that patients can notice.

    c. Automatically temporary gain reduction if there’s a problematic area (like if you put on a hat or give someone a hug). But it’s not a permanent notch filter set, it’s just a temporary adjustment at the moment when you’re doing something that may trigger a feedback.

Anyway, it sounds like you’re been having trouble with the frequency shifting of the Alta 2. It may be worthwhile to ask your audi or do some research online to see by how much Oticon does the frequency shifting on the Alta2, and above what frequency. If it happens to be the same as on the OPN, then maybe there’s a potential for you to also notice it audibly on the OPN as well.

Another thing they’re saying is that the frequency shifting (or the whole feedback control thing actually) is run on all of the channels independently and on both microphones simultaneously to have very efficient and effective feedback control. I don’t know if they’re implying here that perhaps other mfgs or don’t do this on all channels? Or maybe because the OPN has more channels, their feedback control can be more effective??? I don’t know exactly what’s being implied here, but they did say it a couple of times about feedback control being run on all channels independently.

For my personal case, my audi did run the feedback analyzer on my OPNs in the first fitting because there were very unpleasant feedbacks right away from the get-go with just putting on/off the HAs or putting on/off headphones. But after the feedback analyzer test was run, all feedback issues went away. But that’s with a with only 1 vent. If I use a closed dome with 2 vents, I can get feedback with headphones on me.

I don’t notice any fluttering due to the frequency shifting, but then I’m not a professional musician or singer. But I don’t consider myself tone deaf either, because I do play music as a hobby.

I reviewed Part 3 of the OPN presentation on audiology.com3 today and want to share some interesting notes on with forum members here

  1. They’ve used about 300-400 people on the OPN project, with more than 250 people working in parallel on it at the peak of their project. They spent about roughly 750 man-years on the project.

  2. They invested roughly about $100M to bring it to market. They filed about 50 patents for this particular launch.

  3. The first idea of Velox and the OpenSound Navigator was around 2010. The actual development has been in the last 3 to 4 years.

  4. In the beginning before they had the chip/Velox platform built, they developed the OpenSound Navigator on a test system on laptops, and their testers actually carried laptops in backpacks with them walking around to test out the system.

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