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Phonak Audiogram Direct - good option for DIY?

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Edited

Bought P90s from a provider while I was in states. Due to timing we could not do a fitting. They were programmed for me and shipped to me in Africa. It seems that the provider I chose was not the best. I’ve requested some remote support but haven’t received any.
I am a new user. Mild to moderate high frequency loss. Due to work, I only wear the aids outside of work hours. I am still able to communicate well.
I went ahead and bought a Noahlink Wireless. It should arrive in a week or two. I know very little about the various settings in Target but I’m trying to learn.
I wanted to know if starting off with an Direct insitu test, through my HAs, would be a good starting point to get a baseline adjustment and see how that works? This function does adjust the HAs to your responses, right? Hoping it improves the sound and effect the aids provide.
Thanks.

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Edited

Self-Programmers use three methods for programming their to fit their specific hearing loss;

  1. Professionally fit hearing aids use your paper (or a digital version) to enter your hearing loss into the fitting software, and then use an additional measuring system to achieve REM/Real Ear Measurement. These settings are stored in the hearing aids that you purchased.
  2. Self-Programmers sometimes enter their hearing loss from the paper audiogram only. For example; When you get only a hearing test without purchasing any hearing aids, and then buy used hearing aids from Ebay.
    3. Self-programmers sometimes use the In situ audiogram software feature by listening for tones played in your hearing aids, and use that measurement for entering their hearing loss.
  3. Self-programmers can also use the In situ audiogram software feature. This is accomplished by adjusting the loudness of a tone (played from your hearing aid into your ear) until that tone becomes audible. After measuring the audible tone for each frequency (and for both ears), then the new settings (based on audible tones) can be saved into your hearing aids and database to replace your previous hearing aid settings.

You can read more about that by by clicking one of the links in this thread;
Hearing Aid Fitting DIY School and Fitting Software.

Real ear measurement vs. in-situ audiometry
I had a discussion with my acoustician. I wanted to have a real ear measurement and she said that the Signia 7x can do an Insitogram via software. Are the 2 techniques compareable? Theoretically, the structure of the ear is also taken into account with the Insitogram via the hearing aids.

Thank you. But does the Direct actually adjust programmed levels or is it strictly a hearing test? I know some aids have an ‘auto fitting’ self programming option using the insitu test…

Edited

Currently, your hearing aids settings are set to whatever was programmed before they were sent to you. The first thing you should do is save those settings to your database without making any changes.

Then you can start another fitting session using in-situ and when you save that next fitting session it will be your in situ settings. So yes, it will be new settings at levels you specified while listening for the in situ tones.

In reply to @richardsondc

@richardsondc said:

I wanted to know if starting off with an Audiogram Direct insitu test, through my HAs, would be a good starting point

Sure why not can’t be any worse than what you have now.

@richardsondc said:

But does the Audiogram Direct actually adjust programmed levels

Yes, you can use direct ( in-situ fitting ) and also you can just enter your audiogram manually (so yes, target automatically makes the necessary adjustments to the ) you could if you wanted to, make up 2 clients and program them individually, to see which one you prefer, as they are never exactly the same.
To start with, you could just use Phonaks proprietary fitting formula or whatever fitting formula you are familiar with (NAL-1, NAL-2 etc)
just be sure to enter the correct acoustics (domes, open, closed etc) let target do the fittings for you to begin with, you can always make adjustments at a later date. Have fun, it’s super easy to do, target is very easy to work with.
Whenever you need some help, just ask on the forum, plenty of people from right here on hearingtracker to help you along.

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the support.
We’ll see, maybe the audiologist will respond with a remote fitting this week. Either way when the Noahlink Wireless arrives I will begin my journey. First saving my current. Then trying some options. I’ll appreciate having the ability to program - just to change default volume levels on the streaming programs is huge. Changing the names of the devices, etc.

Edited

I’ve done pretty much what you’re starting to do - self fitting with the Direct and Target.

You’ll find it does adjust pretty well with all the programs and is a good starting point, then you can adjust as you find more situations that don’t work well enough (I struggled when boiling the kettle and my wife talking ‘very dull speech’ so adjusted the ‘party-noise’). You will also be able to use the Phonak Media and Sounds to emulate situations and adjust settings.

The great thing is if you mess things up - go back a saved session to re-set. I’ve even got things so messed I started again from from scratch (which is working much better now as I’ve learned more).

Its actually quite fun to play with the settings, and you’ll get a better result as you have ages to tweak settings, where an audiologist only has a limited amount of time to translate what you’re actually saying to settings adjustments on your .

I have run direct tests a number of times on my phonak marvel 90r aids and guess what. Every single time the audiogram direct produced IDENTICAL results compared to an in clinic audiologist’s conventionally produced hearing test audiogram.

When I go to do an initial setup target recognizes that I have both a conventional audiogram and a phonak audiogram direct in data storage. I then select the programming algorithm I want to program with and target then asks WHICH audiogram I wish to use to complete initial setup. All proceeds nicely with an automatic setup using my selected algorithm and my choice of audiogram direct.

@richardsondc

I’ve been using Direct since 2011.

I find I hear much better with Audiogram Direct as it gives me better low frequency hearing by 5 to 10 dB, compared to my Audiogram done by the standard means, means I hear less background noise.

I just connected the NoahLink Wireless and did my first download of my aids. Saved the config. Curiously if I read the programming guide right, I did not get the ‘mismatch’ error on my first connection…???

But now I have it saved. I am finally able to look around all the various settings. it is a LOT to comprehend. Even just the basic graph displays and what they mean are tough to decipher.

But finally I could see that they setup my aids with an acclimitazation period and I have 8 days remaining before I reach 100% gain. Right now I’m at 95%. So that explains why these things didnt sound like much to me when I got them.

One question that I couldn’t find- on the various streaming programs, is there a way to set the default volume level that the BT starts off with? When I connect my TVConnector or my watch for music (BT + MIC2) they are both way too loud to start with and I have to crank the volume down. I’d like to set the start volume to something lower.

Thanks again.

Edited

Regarding not getting a data mismatch on your very first comparison of hearing aid settings vs database settings; The “programming guide” tries to cover ALL brands of hearing aids and sometimes they behave differently. So I changed the guide to say you “may” get a mismatch warning on your first connection. Thanks for your Phonak contribution.

The Phonak TV Connector has Volume +/- controls on the TV Connector device itself. I don’t think it has fitting software adjustments (like Oticon). But I don’t know for sure.

ETA: From the TV Connector User Guide;

c1

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