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Tubes, venting, domes/earmolds?

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Edited

According to my hearing loss, what tubes and venting should I use to avoid losing any speech comprehension? Currently I use Oticon Opn Play 2 hearing aids with standard tubes and skeleton earmolds with pressure vents and my hearing is just barely acceptable in very good conditions (e.g. sitting close to a teacher that doesn’t mumble) and almost completely useless in presence of noise. Moderate sounds are amplified to around/over 100 , otherwise I hear even less. I didn’t have performed and it’ll cost me to do it so I don’t want to waste money when these aren’t correct.

Should I have pressure vents or go for unvented earmolds?

Skeleton earmolds were never comfortable for me, if they didn’t wound my ears after adjustments, that was it. When I return home, I remove my hearing aids for a while, just because I hate earmolds pressing against my ears. Are canal earmolds an option?

Power domes sealed my ears with way more sense of pressure than earmolds when I trialed Oticon Real 3 (I teared when I first tried them), but I still thought my speech comprehension was worse, though the sound was beautiful and it felt so good not to have my ears all plugged, finally exposed to air. Maybe the gains were set wrong. Would domes be bad? Are they even an option with thick tubes? Are thin 1.3 tubes really so bad? Oticon Genie shows 2.5 dB smaller “reserve gain” with thin tubes.

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You have asked some great questions.

Looking at your from a basic view I don’t see the need for thick walled tubes, standard tubes should be fine. Venting set by the software. If your molds fit properly and the aids are reaching prescribed gain without feedback you should be doing pretty good. Can you say that you are getting prescribed gain? Are you getting feedback?

You could ask if they have a test box to verify the aids gain. is best to verify.

Edited

Oticon Genie 2 suggests 3 mm vents somehow. During louder parts of speech (especially female), I hear a brief flutter which doesn’t occur with older hearing aids (that squeal outside of ears) at all no matter how loud is the sound.

2008-03_02-05

1

@secondarytrefoil said:

During louder parts of speech (especially female), I hear a brief flutter which doesn’t occur with older hearing aids (that squeal outside of ears) at all no matter how loud is the sound.

Flutter when loud sounds happen sounds like noise reduction but not sure at all.

Squeal typically is feedback. This leads me to think the molds are not fitting properly or the vent is too large. I doubt the vent is the issue.

Getting the aids properly fit is key to hearing better. That includes properly fitting molds that keep the sound inside the ears. Programming and fine tuning depend on proper acoustics.

Have you tried pushing the mold in a little tighter with your finger and holding it? Does the sound improve when you do this?

Edited

Flutter when loud sounds happen sounds like noise reduction but not sure at all.

It happens with noise reduction turned off. A lot of unbearably loud noises don’t trigger any distortion.

The squeal was with old hearing aids outside of ears, the current ones only squeal when I have them in my hands outside.

What are “standard tubes”? Tubes listed in Oticon Genie as 2 mm tubes? But what about Corda miniFit 1.3 mm tubes?

There doesn’t appear to be much of a difference in a simulation?

thin tubes

Have you tried pushing the mold in a little tighter with your finger and holding it? Does the sound improve when you do this?

The sound doesn’t improve. If I listen to a recording that always triggers the voice distortion, pushing on earmolds or sealing the vents with my fingers does nothing to it. The sound becomes overly bassy, that’s all.

In reply to @secondarytrefoil

@secondarytrefoil said:

Oticon Genie 2 suggests 3 mm vents somehow. During louder parts of speech (especially female), I hear a brief flutter which doesn’t occur with older hearing aids (that squeal outside of ears) at all no matter how loud is the sound.

2008-03_02-05

1

I would be VERY careful for software suggestion. In my case it is related to very poor outcomes (2-3 mm of venting, M receiver).

I have 0.9mm vent, I would prefer 0.6. I have UP receiver despite it is theoretically overshoot looking on fitting range. Works like dream.

In reply to @secondarytrefoil

@secondarytrefoil said:

The sound doesn’t improve. If I listen to a recording that always triggers the voice distortion, pushing on earmolds or sealing the vents with my fingers does nothing to it. The sound becomes overly bassy, that’s all.

Overly bassy when domes are pushed in tells you there is low frequency sound leakage. Correcting your acoustics would improve the performance of your aids.

In reply to @secondarytrefoil

@secondarytrefoil said:

What are “standard tubes”? Tubes listed in Oticon Genie as 2 mm tubes? But what about Corda miniFit 1.3 mm tubes?

There are two standard type sound tubes. A standard thickness tube wall and a thick walled sound tube. Both of these are basically the same size that most aids use.

Taking a guess about the Oticon 1.3 mm tubes. These are probably comparable to Phonaks slim tubes. They do well with ski slope type losses that have not so severe low frequency hearing loss. I used them with great results until my low frequency hearing went down hill

In reply to @Raudrive

Now that I had looked at the frequency leaking graph, I made 300-800 Hz louder and I think my speech comprehension has improved. I also don’t have to adjust loudness so much during listening to music to avoid discomfort. The sound is quite weird though, I like it tinnier, maybe it’s the lack of habituation or I went overboard.

Edited

By the way, anyone knows why hearing aids amplify train door beeping so unbearably? I don’t hear it at all without hearing aids so I’d assume the sound arrives to me at below 70 and should be amplified to be perceived similarly loud to speech?

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