Problem with my N8

Just a guess as to why your processor is automatically changing to your music program.

It senses music to do this. Have you cleaned or replaced your mic filters? Could it be a humidity in the processor issue. Have you dried your processor lately?

I would either contact Cochlear or your audiologist about this. They should have some ideas what to do. The processor might have a problem?

Good luck with this Sheryl.

@Bimodal_user said:

Music program has a “Whisper” feature, which increases a lot of stimulation of soft sounds.

I don’t see how they can call it “whisper” feature, It’s more like being in a hurricane. It’s a lot worse than when you turn on telecoil.

@Raudrive said:

Have you cleaned or replaced your mic filters?

Yes I placed a clean one on 3 weeks ago.

@Raudrive said:

Could it be a humidity in the processor issue. Have you dried your proces

My processor along with my HA both go in my dryer overnight every night. I do have a problem with moisture in my HA’s so I’m assuming that I would with my processor as well.

The only reason I had the music program installed is I’m going to the Military Tattoo in February. It’s being held in an open football stadium. The last time I went to the Tattoo in 2020 the brass section of the tattoo sounded fabulous. But the pipe bands sounded absolutely horrendous. I was hoping the music program would help the pipe bands sound half reasonable. But the “noise” from this program would outweigh any benefits.

I took a look at Cochlear Australia.

At the Contact Us page there is check box to select how you want to contact them. The chat is there too.

I don’t know if you have to sign in or not. It looked I could chat if I wanted without signing in but not sure. Might be worth a try. It’s really easy once you do it. Like riding a bicycle.

@Deaf_piper said:

I don’t see how they can call it “whisper” feature, It’s more like being in a hurricane. It’s a lot worse than when you turn on telecoil.

The name comes from the fact that it strengthens quiet sounds, such as whispers or the quieter elements of music. There is many quiet sounds in the enviroment, so in noisy conditions like near busy road it is definitely even worse than hurricane.

Getting used to music with Music program is hard. In my case, I understand and differentiate music better in SCAN 2 program than in Music program, but I feel than with the training, the music will be fuller with the latter.

For example, I can better differentiate piano music melodies like Chopin’s in SCAN 2 compared to Music program.

@Raudrive said:

I plan to ask for a music program my next CI appointment. You got me wondering if that’s a good idea.

You can always have the program and never actually switch to it.

I don’t quite understand what you guys are talking about sometimes. It seems that you are going to your audiologist, asking for a particular program, and the audiologist is pulling some sort of preset & activating it for you & explaining how it works.

My audiologists have been the opposite. I take a particular problem to them or describe what I want. And they change some settings to achieve what I want, call that setting something (music, whatever), then save it to my processor. There’s no preset. It’s all manually tweaked.

@Raudrive said:

I am not positive about this either. My understanding there is a preset music program but not sure.

Normally there is “n of m strategy” in ACE sound coding, where sound processor chooses the 8-12 most useful channel stimulus (out of 22 channels/electrodes) to reduce background noise and emphasise the o going speech. That 8 to 12 channels is choosed by CI HIS.

There is also something like expansion (soft noise reduction to sounds like fridge, quiet air conditioning or quiet humming in background) to provide more speech understanding.

In music program, IIRC, there is all channels used concurrently, and Whisper algoritm described above.

I have useful infos in PDF files, but I don’t have much tima today, maybe next days.

@Raudrive said:

It sounds like a program that lets all sounds in which can be overwhelming until learned.

Yes, my “music” program was modelled on my normal scan MAP. The scan MAP was taken & the noise & wind filters were removed. This is probably what @Bimodal_user is talking about, in allowing all channels to be open

However, my sensitivity to soft sounds is the same as the scan MAP. I can manually increase this in the app if needed. I think of the sensitivity setting as a little like an audio gate on mixing desks. Others think of the sensitivity setting as the ability to hear soft sounds from an audio source that if further away. Maybe the Whisper algorithm is the equivalent of increasing the sensitivity setting?

Or maybe… the Whisper algorithm is an allusion to OpenAI’s Whisper transcription technology??? Oh, imagine that. We now have earphones with Live Translation built into them. How long before we get cochlear processors with Live Speech Relay built into them? They can take the mumbled words of someone, even in a noisy environment, & synthesise new speech which is fed into the cochlear device as a clear sentence.

Thank you for this explanation, very helpful.

2 of my 4 programs are not SCAN. Almost 100% of the time I use one of these non SCAN programs. I had asked my audiologist for a program with less filters and processing. These non SCAN programs are his response. He told me all programs are very adjustable, SCAN and non SCAN. My #1&2 programs are essentially the same except SCAN on #2. I really can’t tell much difference in them after giving the SCAN #2 program a good try.

What I see is the CI has the ability to send more sound to you than we typically get because of getting overwhelmed. This is why I want to try a music program. Give me the chance to hear more sounds and learn how to use them.

@bcarp said:

I think of the sensitivity setting as a little like an audio gate on mixing desks. Others think of the sensitivity setting as the ability to hear soft sounds from an audio source that if further away.

@Raudrive said:

That’s an interesting description of the Sensitivity setting.

I personally see it as a sound block/limiter based on a circle around me. As the Sensitivity setting is reduced all sounds further away from me are literally stopped. As the Sensitivity setting is continually reduced the sound field around is made smaller, no sound outside of this field is heard. It’s like an adjustable circle around me sound control.

Thanks for your help, always interesting.

To complement the discussion:

And Autosensitivity:

@Bimodal_user said:

To complement the discussion

I just about blew that attachment off because it’s very small print but am happy I did read it.

That’s a very interesting article. It’s about older processors but probably very much like the newer processors technology.

This article is about much more than the sensitivity control we have been talking about or I didn’t understand it correctly.

I noticed the auto sensitivity control was part of most programs including the music program. This is the control I will ask my audiologist to increase on my next visit. I personally do not like the processor shutting down all sounds when it gets loud around me.

Thanks for sharing this. It is very interesting. I suspect it is part of the CI audiologist training material.

@Raudrive said:

Thanks for sharing this. It is very interesting. I suspect it is part of the CI audiologist training material.

You’re welcome. Yes, this is CI audiologist training material. The newer version can be downloaded from the newest fitting software Custom Sound Pro. I asked my audi about it in PDF, but she denied it.

Maybe your audiologist would be more cooperative?

@ssa, @bcarp, @Deaf_piper, @studio.prawns_0q, @KB4096,@nicmger, @Zebras (sorry if I missed another Cochlear CI user) perhaps you could ask your CI audiologist of that PDF? (see next post).

It’s about “Cochlear implant reference guide” and possibly “Help (printable version)”.