Day three, Signia Pure Charge&Go 7 IX, with Specsavers simplified app

Initial impressions are that the world is now full of high-frequency sounds that are experienced as loud, relative to other sounds. I have not reduced the volume from the default setting of eight, though, per the audio’s suggestion. In the face of very loud sounds (as experienced, I mean), like my young nephew pouring ice from the ice maker into an ice container, I simply relaxed as much as I could and I’m trying to accommodate this new spectrum completely.

The Specsavers app is a simplified version of Signia’s. It allows Volume, Balance, and Direction. There are Programs, too, but I have not played with these. I did try shifting from Automatic to (i) Focus 360°, but changing back to Automatic, the app simply hangs. If I can get it to shift back to Automatic, I will leave it there. Done, but took ~2’. I prefer a Direction setting of 140° to the front; it’s raining here on the boat now, and the 360° setting means that the rain is unnaturally loud. The 140° setting feels more natural.

The other aspect I want to report is that when driving the boat, the wind rushing past the ears is very loud too. Around boats, there is always wind and sometimes very strong wind. I don’t think anything can be done about that so I will simply learn to relax into it. I will also take care to try to stay out of the wind as much as possible, but sometimes it’s not possible. Finally, the HAs are not waterproof; I had to go outside into the rain a moment ago, and I forgot I was weearing the HAs… Luckily, no water ingress. I think the headband solution @MDB recommended on another thread will be effective, if a loose weave, and will not affect the sound too much, and (if I’m lucky) might act like a microphone “wind sock” to reduce wind noise. I will try and report back.

Otherwise, there is no doubt that I can hear voices significantly more clearly than before, particularly my partner’s. I have been wearing the hearing aids from first thing in the morning to last thing at night, or until I use the AirPods Pro 2s to listen to music or watch a film, again at the audio’s suggestion. As well, yesterday I came up to the boat on public transport all the way (while the railway workers were striking, so a 3-hour journey took 6) – and there were a large number of different soundscapes experienced in the process.

Re. listening to phone calls: routing the phone audio to the HAs via Bluetooth is hopeles—the audio is so tinny and high-frequency oriented as to render the other person’s speech unintelligible. Far better, I found, was to route the audio to the iPhone’s speaker, and listen to that output using the HAs. This works perfectly.

So far, so good.

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Jan. 17, here.

I took the boat from Lovett Bay, Pittwater, to Fenwick’s Marina, about 11nm, wind gusting to 25kn, and moderate seas. I can now report that wearing a relatively loose fine weave beanie over my hearing aids works perfectly to reduce wind noise and to keep them dry. I drive our boat from the bridge, and when you let the front clears down, whatever wind is around is going to blow on you if you’re heading into it, and your speed is added to this. We made about 7kn. I’m very happy to say that the trip was pleasant, and the wind noise was reduced. I would estimate by 80%. I was really surprised how well the beanie worked.

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