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Oticon Opn Own Voice issues?

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Hi everyone,

I am just demoing what will be my first hearing aids. My audiologist had me try the Opns for 2 weeks, and while i was generally very impressed, i had some particular issues with them. Specifically, i was getting a lot of an echo/processed sound of my own voice in certain conditions such as outdoors and in large high ceiling rooms. In addition, sometimes that effect would extend out to other speakers within a few feet of me. My audio said he’d never heard that complaint before and after several attempts to tinker with it, concluded that we’d reached the limit with the technology and i would have to make a call whether i could live with that issue.

I have a lot of questions, but basically is he right? Or is there a tweak that might help? Or should i see a different audiologist? I’m hesitant to put that kind of money into a product that can be distracting/annoying as routinely as this was.

thanks so much for your input!

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I don’t experience any of that with the Opn’s - voices generally sound very natural. On the other hand, first time use is tricky; you end up getting used to a number of things that initially sound peculiar. Having said that, this sounds like something that could be corrected with a proper fitting. Just my 2c.

So far the only times I’ve noticed echo type issues with my OPNs was while using the Live Listening mode using the microphone on the iPhone. It seems to me if the echo can’t be removed the are faulty and need to be replaced.

Edited

He’s actually tried me on 2 different demo pairs as the Oticon rep also suggested it might be a defective model. No noticeable change from that, so unless I got 2 defective models in a row I’m inclined to think it’s something else.

Not sure if this is relevant to the situation, but I’m using an open dome and my numbers are:

Hz 250 - 500 - 750 - 1k - 1.5k – 2k – 3k – 4k – 6k – 8k
R: 15 – 00 – 00 – 00 – 00 — 00 – 25 – 35 – 55 – 45
L: 20 – 10 – 10 – 10 – 10 — 10 – 25 – 30 – 45 – 35

It may be that you haven’t worn them long enough. It can take even months to get use to things. If you have a 30 day trial period and are half way through it, I would ask the clinic if they will extend the trial and note that on your contract.

@GPSgrandpa
I haven’t felt that Live Listen was a help. I don’t consider it a replacement for a Roger Pen. I did think quality was better when I used the accessory with an Android. The quality of devices seems a bit scratchy. I think it might relate to the BTLe standard which is a work-in-process. That said, the iPhone does OK – for me at least.

I have this problem also. Now have trialed for a month. Generally with the processing enabled it is much worse for me. I can also turn down the volume to where it is suddenly pretty good. At this point I hear speech good but not best. At this point to hear best I have to turn up 2 clicks but at this point I have a lot of problems. Like it is too loud. I doubt I will ever ever get used to that. Nor will I ever like that. I will continue to try some more settings as I have some more ideas. I have a setting with low processing. No . with this setting it is better. Generally I am much more happy with the cleaner less processed setting with no binaural and can actually turn down one click and get the same speech recognition. I will head to the booth soon to find out if this is correct but over all the processing does not seem to work all that well for me. The binaural does what they say it should do but it comes at the cost of sound quality and the electronica sound quality in general and to my own voice. This problem is real.

Edit: Long before this I was on the Syncro. Still have it. Clearly not as good when the sound levels go up but it took some fiddling with these OPNs to get the sound to beat the Syncro. also test drove the Alta 2 for 2 months. With this I had some serious problems with the technical sound quality that were never resolved. Audi said that technology was not up to my ability and annoyance of sound quality ( I am a trained sound engineer). I feel it was not set up correctly. If not set up correctly even the latest and greatest can sound quite crappy. My recommendation is to go as clean low process as you can handle. A lot of the games in the hearing aids seem to be aimed at over coming the limitations but these latest are good enough where the clean sound is better for the brain then meddling with fancy process that muddies the sound over all. To be continued with more testing.

In reply to @Dlantz

@Dlantz:

I have my own theory on that kind of effect. I hear it too, but seldomly.

If you have good hearing at some frequencies (which you definitely have) then you hear the direct sound coming in through the open domes and the processed sound at the same time.

But the processed sound comes in a little later. Now if you have a wave at 3 kHz, and the aid takes 3.5 ms to deliver the sound, the processed sound comes 3 and a half waves later. This way, signals can extinguish each other. But at a slightly different frequency, signals will amplify each other.

This gives a kind of “phased” sound, like some guitar-effect.

I hear that with my own voice, especially when it´s a little windy (wind blowing in my face) or when I´m on my bicycle singing a little for myself.

If my theory is right, you will hear that kind of effect with all hearing aids with open domes.

You wont hear that kind of thing when your hearing is worse, because then the processed signal will always be much louder than the un-ampified direct signal.

Also, if my theory is right, you can´t do anything against this.

I have used Starkey Halo, Oticon Epoq and Siemens hearing aids.
I have now have a demo set of Oticon Open miniRITE aids. All hearing aids will demonstrate a behavior that is not as perfect as we may want. Most of the behaviors can be eliminated or reduced through programming. In my case, I asked my audiologist to reduce the gain from 4k up in the programming automatically set by the Oticon system to reduce feedback. it worked. I can say the Minirites are the best hearing aids I have ever used.

@Dlantz said:

Hi everyone,

I am just demoing what will be my first hearing aids. My audiologist had me try the Opns for 2 weeks, and while i was generally very impressed, i had some particular issues with them. Specifically, i was getting a lot of an echo/processed sound of my own voice in certain conditions such as outdoors and in large high ceiling rooms. In addition, sometimes that effect would extend out to other speakers within a few feet of me. My audio said he’d never heard that complaint before and after several attempts to tinker with it, concluded that we’d reached the limit with the technology and i would have to make a call whether i could live with that issue.

I have a lot of questions, but basically is he right? Or is there a tweak that might help? Or should i see a different audiologist? I’m hesitant to put that kind of money into a product that can be distracting/annoying as routinely as this was.

thanks so much for your input!

In reply to @Dlantz

The same happens with me I have my Minirite T on for 1 week and I experienced a echo from my own voice. It is really annoying. Too much money for a little benefit at least some one is very close to deafness and really really need it. Is my experience so far. I forgot, with respect to the tinnitus support it is really not flexible and it is lacks a lot to be or choose a good level and variety of tinnitus sounds that’s can mask my tinnitus situation. It is a too expensive toy for me.

Not had that issue. I have had my OPNs for more than a week now. In some environments, it had sounded odd but then I got used to it and then it sounded normal and natural. It was just my brain getting used to how the sound was processed. But it never echoed.

Hope you manage to get it right eventually. :+1:t2:

Edited

First let me say I have been wearing hearing aids for over 13 years. My first set of aids I never really got use to, but they did help me a little bit. There were a lot of reasons that first set did so poorly, first off the were in the ear aids that just were poorly molded to my ears, second they were not correctly vented and third even two different Audis and two different factory representatives could not tune them to my cookie bite hearing loss. And I never liked the sound of my own voice. Luckily I was excepted in to the US Veterans System and was found to have service related hearing loss, and the aids I was given were well fitted to my needs and were also aids. I wore the aids for about four years with very little issues. My third set of aids were aids using dooms, I had lots of issues with these aids failing due to sweat, and breaking the wires, and I never felt they were secured in my ears, they lasted almost four years, then I got new ITE aids they Oticon Alta Pros, I am wearing them at this time and they have been great and until the last half year I never had an issue but now my hearing is changing and I cannot seem to hear voices good enough to know what people are saying, so I will be getting new aids, again they are ITE aids. I guess what I am saying is that it takes time to get us to hearing aids, the fit is very important and there are many things that effect that fit. Then next thing is the accepting the fact you need them. Then you have to find an Audi that becomes like a family member. Also, you have to educate yourself to understand your hearing loss, and in a way you have to educate the Audi to get the Audi to understand your needs. Then you have to learn as much as possible about the aids.

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