Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Phonak Nadia Q90 up...voices sound like a blown speaker

This topic is closed.

22 replies11.7k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic

I’m testing these now. Only one aid in my left ear. With my severe hearing loss my aud told me this was the strongest hearing aid.

Sounds that I hear, other than speech, sound pretty normal…speech sounds like and old blown speaker. Muffled garbled.

My aud says that running other programs, speech in noise, etc, takes more power and they will not be as loud.

He is up front with me, and told me he has never adjusted these specific aids before.

Can you guys offer some suggestions?..anything you think might help that I can pass on to him?

Thanks

10 people in this conversation7 min readJump to latest

I think that an audiologist working with aids that they have not been trained to adjust is a disservice to the customer. Suggest that they get direct support from Phonak!

Guys I didn’t mean to imply he’s winging it.
He’s on the phone and the computer at the same time with Phonak every time I’m there.
Last week we tried something different again…it made background noises a lot clearer
…but made speech less clear…sounds like a blown speaker…or someone talking in a coffee can

Next week I guess we need to go back to where it was…and maybe try adjusting in the opposite direction
That’s just it, it’s hard enough trying to describe something like sounds…and then trying to figure out what to do about it

Edited

With your loss you don’t want someone on the phone with someone from Phonak, you want them in the same room showing your audiologist what needs to be done and getting your ’s set up correctly.

In reply to @Squerly

@Squerly said:

Guys I didn’t mean to imply he’s winging it.
He’s on the phone and the computer at the same time with Phonak every time I’m there.
Last week we tried something different again…it made background noises a lot clearer
…but made speech less clear…sounds like a blown speaker…or someone talking in a coffee can

Next week I guess we need to go back to where it was…and maybe try adjusting in the opposite direction
That’s just it, it’s hard enough trying to describe something like sounds…and then trying to figure out what to do about it

You know the blown speaker sound is your ears’ distortion? Anything really loud for me gets distorted.

I went to a very loud concert one time, the loudest I’ve ever been to, and when there was a break I said to the people I was with, “I wish they would replace that bad speaker”. They didn’t know what I was talking about. I won’t mention the act. OK, it was Willey Nelson.

Thanks Don
That’s the thing that has me the most confused right now.
The amplifier I’ve been using does not distort sounds at all and it has nothing like an equalizer, just a slider for bass and treble.
I use it exactly in the middle.
I had to buy really expensive ear buds to go with it though.

But then hearing aids have an equalizer, sorta…

I’m wondering if we’re maxing out the power on this aid, and that might be making it distorted.

Whole thing is upsetting me right now…and making me nervous.

I doubt if I could get a rep from Phonak down here on this rock…I’ll see what we can do or not do this Friday.

Thanks guys!

Do you think we’re trying to compress too many sounds…and that’s making voices distorted?

Do you think we’re driving the hearing aids with too much volume…and that’s making voices distorted?

Can someone please give me some idea of what to try? I have a little over two more weeks to try and make these work…

Good News!
A representative/trainer from Phonak will here on Monday to train AUD’s.
My aud has set it up so I’m the guinea pig.
She will be using me, and adjusting my aids, to train the other auds on Monday morning.
She will be back every Monday to train for over a month.
I can see her every time.

…and she’s bringing a new proto type aid for me to try out too

In reply to @Squerly

@Squerly said:

Do you think we’re trying to compress too many sounds…and that’s making voices distorted?

Do you think we’re driving the hearing aids with too much volume…and that’s making voices distorted?

Can someone please give me some idea of what to try? I have a little over two more weeks to try and make these work…

It is not the hearing aid putting out distorted sound. It is your damaged ears. It is possible the brain will learn to hear some of those tones clearly and that did happen to me. It took about 6 months when I first got one hearing aid. But, even today, something very loud will sound distorted like a blown speaker.

Here is a brief article about distortion and the possibility hearing aids will reduce it eventually.

http://www.hearingaidlab.net/your-hearing/auditory-distortion.html104

@Don said:

It is not the hearing aid putting out distorted sound. It is your damaged ears.

Don, here’s what’s happening.

When I wear my Bellman amplifier with good ear buds…no sounds are distorted…everyone sounds normal.

When I talk on my amplified phone…no one, male or female, sounds distorted…everyone sounds normal.

When I bluetooth my aids to my cell phone…no one sounds distorted…ever with bluetooth everyone sounds normal.

…when I try to listen to people speak through the hearing aids…everyone sounds like a robot, mechanical, distorted…with a kind of reverberation

We are going to change from the silicon molded ear bud, to hard plastic ear bud…my aud says they can get more volume out of the hard one.

Maybe we’re trying to drive too much volume out of the aids and that’s making everything distorted…I don’t know I’m guessing

In reply to @Squerly

Just an apprentice here, but I’d guess that your profound loss is the biggest culprit for the sound quality issue you are experiencing. Your word recognition score alone gives you a good idea of what your results will be like after amplification. I wouldn’t expect much from your right ear- the left ear will be the one that really carries that load. Compression and high volumes can also cause distortion, and a lot of that is unavoidable, given that you’re looking at compression aids programmed to fit a profound hearing loss. You could try an aid that doesn’t use compression if you want to know if it will help.

Since you asked for suggestions, you could try a Liberty SIE 96 with a custom power receiver. The fitting range goes up through 120 db, like the UP, but it is not a compression aid.

@celticaire said:

Compression and high volumes can also cause distortion,

thank you…that makes sense and just be my problem with these aids.
That could also be the reason they are getting me a hard ear piece. They both said they could get more volume out of the hard ear piece.
Getting more volume, would mean they could turn the volume down…and get less distortion.

Right now, people’s voices sound like a horn.

…and everything else…background noises…sound right

[you could try a Liberty SIE 96 with a custom power receiver]

I looked that up on the internet and found it’s only available at Sam’s Club. Our closest Sam’s is just too far away.

celti, I think you have just hit on something.
Looking at my aud, if you take out the 75 (250) outlier, it’s pretty much a flat line.
That’s why just amplifying, things sound normal.
I might not need any compression at all.

If I can just flat line amplify at 110 or there abouts…I should be able to hear everything.
…and eliminate distortion from compression

Since I have time on my hands I’d like to chime in on a used set of v90 ha’s I got recently that’s an upgrade from Q90’s. I’m pretty sure the Naida’s are a different set from the v90’s that have the . After programing my left side aid, the start up tones sounded distorted as like a torn/blown speaker. I replaced the Recv’r from my old q90 and it fixed the problem. Aside from that I also find that increasing the volume will distort the output some, so now I’m beginning to wonder if the standard power Recv’r is not able to handle the higher output level at these increased volume levels. I wonder if the Standard Power Recv’r at these volume levels are starting to saturate it’s power handling capabilities and possibly the xtra power recv’r could rectify the distortion problem.
I’ll check the compression, thanks

Couple of things to mention, it’s not compression. All aids compress the output, there’s almost no linear product on the market - even alleged Linear AIDS will use a form of Output Limiting Compression. These Aids also compress the frequency spectrum but that’s not necessarily it either.

What’s actually causing the issue is the feedback manager, the fact that the other sources don’t give you a problem pretty much isolates the feedback loop as the culprit. The feedback manager uses some gain reduction, some frequency inversion and some frequency shifting - this combination of effects is really scrambling the output for you.

First things first, get the gain turned down at 3KHz, plus the overall HF. It should be done under , to see what’s happening. reduce the efficacy of the feedback manager if possible and have a play with the output to see what it does under higher drive conditions. Get the audiologist to talk loudly at you etc.

Related discussions