The following kinda summarizes stuff I’ve already posted here and there around the forum.
The ReSound Multi Mic is a remote microphone that only works with ReSound HA’s, I believe, because it uses ReSound’s proprietary Bluetooth Low Energy streaming protocol to send the digitized sound picked up by the mic(s) to the HA’s. It’s a small Li-ion battery powered device designed to be either hung around the neck of a specific person that you want to hear better, in which configuration it works in “unidirectional mode” like a lavier microphone, or to be placed horizontally on a table, in which configuration it works in omidirectional mode. I have also found informally that it can still be pretty unidirectional if you hold it at a 45 degree angle to vertical and point it at the person you want to hear if they are just a few feet away - or prop it up on a table with a keycase or folded napkin also ~achieves the same.
It works pretty well. I can hear my soft-spoken wife very well when she’s sitting in the front passenger seat and we’re driving at high speed on an Interstate highway (although if she rustles her clothes it can sound like thunder and lightening! - and be a little startling while driving). It can also be a definite improvement in restaurants but in very bare-surface restaurants it can still be challenging because in spite of the mic’s directionality, in a very noisy restaurant, the noise is still being reflected off many surfaces right into the microphone. Picking a good restaurant location to sit is pretty helpful - I’ve had the best results in a far corner of a restaurant with the wife sitting against a wall and me facing towards her with my back to the rest of the restaurant or sitting next to her in a booth setting with us both facing towards the main part of the restaurant and the remote mic between us propped up and pointing up towards our mouths. Not spilling food on an expensive mic is a consideration. One advantage of the ReSound system is that it’s quite a bit cheaper than the Roger Pen (although the Roger Pen is supposed to be the best there is). I think that I got my Multi Mic by special order at a Costco Hearing Center for $206. But again, it only works with a ReSound HA, AFAIK.
I think MDB’s description hits the nail on the head. It is helpful when using such a remote mic to have an occlusive fitting and to turn down your external on-the-HA mics quite a bit relative to the remote mic. The best combination, although incredibly dorky, is to wear over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones over your HA’s while using the remote mic - OK as a passenger in a car, not so cool when dining out in a restaurant although with the surge in “hearables” popularity with the young 'uns, no telling where we’re heading there. Just the other day, I was watching a YouTube video of Colin Cowherd interviewing Urban Meyer and Meyer was wearing Apple Air Pods during the whole interview with a perfectly straight face - so stuff hanging out of your ears, on your ears, these days must be cool (a quaint '60’s expression, no doubt!).
BTW, I haven’t abandoned the forum. With all the busyness of the holiday season, I’m struggling to finish an online course for which I paid $100 that has a 12/31/19 deadline, after which it goes away forever (Microsoft is cancelling its edX.org MPP course tracks and offering only free Azure-related online courses on its own sites). Still have 2 course sections to go and only 3 weeks left. Happy New Year!
P.S. I actually think the input from the Multi Mic sounds better than the sound as picked up by my external HA mics - maybe that’s because my mics are nestled behind my ears half-hidden by hair, etc. This decided improvement in listening quality is most noticeable, ironically, in using the Multi Mic in a quiet situation, but from reading Dillon’s Hearing Aids book, 2nd ed., the quality of perceived sound goes down with increasing distance from the source just because the relative volume of direct sound as compared to reverberations (with possible time delays) is decreasing with increasing distance from the source - so having a Multi Mic nearer the source or holding it a couple feet nearer the source might be a good part of the improved sound equation, perhaps it’s just more signal to noise ratio, even in very quiet situations, too, from mic directionality. But none of us wants to run around always shoving a mic towards someone or always holding it out towards them.
