Oticon More - my first experience

@tenkan said:

Have you heard of the “cocktail effect” a known issue for so many people. This is where you should look for the solution for your problem.

https://www.widex.com/en/blog/global/hearing-facts-what-is-the-cocktail-party-effect/

This Widex article’s text looks like it focuses singularly on the spatial acoustic enabled by wearing 2 hearing aids to help knowing where the voices come from, in order to help separate and single out and focus on one sound and ignore the others.

The video enclosed with the article isn’t really saying much of anything except displaying the sources of a noisy environment and simply saying that “the Widex continues the conversation. Even in extremely noisy environments”.

@happymach 's OPN 1 should have a very good Spatial Sound LX feature that comes with 4 estimators already. Yet, it doesn’t seem to singularly solve his issue with speech in noise.

I think spatial acoustic (to provide directionality on the voices) is not the only thing that can help or will help with the cocktail party effect. People also rely on other differentiations to help them single out and tune in on a single voice. I remember watching a presentation by Donald Schum (from Oticon at the time) from Audiology Online, and he offered another point of view that it’s better to get more speech cues from the surrounding environment that are different from the target speech cue, which can also help the listener be able to differentiate in order to isolate and focus better on the targeted speech cue.

I think what he was saying is that front focus beam forming helps with isolation toward the front only, but if the front has the babbles of voices (from around) diffused in with the targeted speech in the front, it can still be a challenge to separate out the diffused babbles from the targeted voice. But if the surrounding voices are made more clear to the listener right up front (not meaning toward the front, but in the first place), instead of getting blocked out by beam forming and reduced to a mix of babbles diffused with the targeted speech in front, then maybe the addition of the surrounding voices (that has better clarity and not reduced to diffused babbles up front) can help the brain hearing differentiate and single out more easily the targeted voice to focus in on.

What I got out of that presentation from Donald Schum was that it’s better to have more acoustical information to present to the brain for it to discern from and separate out, than to hide the acoustical information and starve the brain of the info it needs to sort things out.

@Neville: Thanks for your instruction: I stand corrected. In deference to a member’s private admonition about letting false information stand in the Forum, I’ve deleted what I feel are the most egregious of my fallacious posts.

I’ve found this audiologyonline course, which I shall take in the next day or two:

What are Some Common Misconceptions of Mild Hearing Loss?10

What are some common misconceptions associated with mild hearing losses?

Thanks for your input …

I know you guys like to geek out about features, but a reasonable number of people with Happy’s sort of mild high frequency loss don’t need much in the way of features. The ear is still relatively intact. They just need the sounds that they are missing back and then they do pretty well once all their /s/, /f/, /p/, and /t/s aren’t all being clipped off.

@happymach said:

I don’t really have time to search. But the semi-open domes are called “bass domes,” and will still allow sounds falling in the lower end of the spectrum (below 4-6 KHz) to be heard properly by the ear itself?

The vent(s) (either 1 or 2) in the bass dome is more about letting some sound in to minimize occlusion, than it is about letting low frequency sounds in. But of course some of the sounds (lows and mids and highs) still get in through the bass dome’s vent(s) nevertheless, albeit at a lower level because it’s not wide-open like the open dome.

So letting sounds in is not a priority of the bass dome like that of the open dome. The bass dome will rely on the hearing aid to give you the amplified sounds you need to hear instead. The priority of the bass dome with vent(s) in my opinion are

1. To keep more sounds out (although some amount still goes into the vent(s)) which helps with the natural noise attenuation and makes the hearing aid noise reduction more effective.

2. To help keep the amplified sound in more, not as well as completed closed domes or molds, but still… it prevents sound leakage → this helps contain the low frequency sound leaks and streaming content, especially music, sounds less tinny.

The small vent(s) is a effective trade-off to help reduce occlusion, yet still be able to achieve 1 and 2 above, although not as well as closed domes. Usually with a vent or two, occlusion only remains significant when you have mouth movement like when chewing foods. Maybe also when you talk but then you’re too busy talking to notice any occlusion while you talk anyway. But if you don’t have mouth movement, the occlusion is minimized because the vent(s) connects the inside world with the outside world.

Kinda depends on your definition of noise.

Speech in speech noise; more HF and directional assistance.

Speech over traffic noise; more occlusion so the lower channels can be managed down while maintaining the HF and directionality.

Listening to TV; speech/background noise from same source + HF speech enhancement (directionality is redundant) with slightly more occlusion as the aid will regulate the LF better.

Thanks for that information.
Very helpful.

Yes, I’ve had the OPN 1 for almost 2 years. I really doubt that there’s going to be any more brain training at this point. More likely that the neurological features that help with differentiating speech in noise are not functioning well anymore.

I need hearing aids to do more of this work for me. You and I had previously discussed noise-cancelling headphones that either cover the ear or completely occlude the ear canal in order to cancel noise more effectively; they also offer a “transparency” mode where they reproduce and feed sound from the outside into the ear. You had told me that the “receiver” in hearing aids is too small to do that effectively (at least across the entire audio spectrum), but it does seem like blocking some of the outside noise so that the processed speech isn’t downed out would be a good idea.

How much attenuation can one expect from a “bass dome” with two openings?

@Volusiano said:

Hypothetically speaking, even if I’d told you that bass dome can attenuate 10 dB or 20 dB or 30 compared to open dome, the quantitative numbers still don’t mean much to you anyway.

There’s absolutely no way that the bass dome can even attenuate 10 dB. Headphones with active noise cancellation offer 15-25dB, and that’s with considerable passive isolation, but the domes are made of a flimsy piece of silicone … Imagine less than a 5dB reduction, if that.

I had completely forgotten that the hearing aids would have to be reprogrammed with the different domes. You may remember that I’m able to reprogram my HAs myself (thanks to you!), but different domes would require new REMs?

@Volusiano said:

When I wear my single vent bass domes and listen to music from the speaker system, I can hear the very low bass and thumping sounds just fine, they don’t attenuate much that I can tell. I’m sure I don’t get it from my HA receivers.

Probably through bone conduction?

@happymach said:

There’s absolutely no way that the bass dome can even attenuate 10 dB. Headphones with active noise cancellation offer 15-25dB, and that’s with considerable passive isolation, but the domes are made of a flimsy piece of silicone … Imagine less than a 5dB reduction, if that.

I think you completely missed my point because you’re still hung up on the numbers. I just threw 10, 20, 30 out there to illustrate the point, not to try to be accurate.

Let’s say if I revise it now to 3, 5 and 7, would you be more happy with that? It still goes to the point that your trying to quantify the numbers is futile because it’s easier and more accurate to just try it out, than trying to quantify into numbers, for what? To crunch the numbers through some kind of formula?

@happymach said:

I had completely forgotten that the hearing aids would have to be reprogrammed with the different domes. You may remember that I’m able to reprogram my HAs myself (thanks to you!), but different domes would require new REMs?

Yes, ideally different domes should have new REM done. But if you’re a DIY and don’t have ready access to have REM redone, it still shouldn’t hurt just trying to switch to the bass dome and change Genie 2 to re-prescribe for the bass dome, even without REM, just to see if it makes a big enough difference to you or not. If it does and you want to stick with it, then you can try to get REM done to round it off nicely. Even if you no longer have an HCP resource to get REM done, but find a big enough positive difference, then just do in-situ audiometry on top and re-prescribe to the in-situ result. It would still be better than before, even if not as good as with REM.

@Volusiano said:

When I wear my single vent bass domes and listen to music from the speaker system, I can hear the very low bass and thumping sounds just fine, they don’t attenuate much that I can tell. I’m sure I don’t get it from my HA receivers.

@happymach said:

Probably through bone conduction?

If it’s actually through bone conduction, then it’d still be a non-problem and I could still have a completely closed dome and still not worry about the lows not reaching to my ears now, would I? That is, if your worry is that the bass dome with vent(s) would block out too much of your very lows that would affect your music enjoyment.

Actually, I got your point. I was just musing about how (in)significant the difference between open vs. semi-closed domes must be.

By the way, I saw elsewhere your posting that the More line can be updated wirelessly via Genie 2?

@cvkemp said:

I had seen that too, but when I asked my audiologist, I was told maybe in the future but not at this time.

If we’re talking about firmware update for the More wirelessly via the Noahlink Wireless to the More, then your audi is wrong. It can be done now.

But in deference to your audi being an expert, perhaps his response was in the context of doing firmware update to the More via the RemoteCare feature. Then he’s probably right about that. But these are 2 different things we’re talking about. I believe @happymach was inquiring about firmware update via the Noahlink Wireless interface because he’s a DIY’er.

@Volusiano said:

It’s been reported by many (@flashb1024 being one) that they were able to update the More to firmware 1.1.1 via the Noahlink Wireless just fine.

Exactly, you’ll need to download the latest version of Genie 2 (2021.2), and when you connect your Mores, the new firmware available window opens.
Nice to be able to do wireless f/w updates.

@happymach, just be aware that the update to 1.1.1 removes the legacy Music program, and replaces it with MyMusic, which is to these ears and @SpudGunner’s ears is a total fail!
There is a thread on this subject you may wish to peruse b4 you do the update.

The only workaround I’ve found that is acceptable is to create a Music program yourself.

@flashb1024 said:

The only workaround I’ve found that is acceptable is to create a Music program yourself.

But if - like me - you can’t do DIY by yourself, you are a spirally grooved, solid cylinder.

[Yes, Flash , “do DIY by yourself” is a Gunnerism.]

@Volusiano said:

and he wears open domes, and he’s struggling in noise with it.

Ah, my mistake. I thought it was the OP who was having trouble in noise.