What I meant was the opposite. Frequency raising!
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That’s how I understood it, too. I’ve never heard of it being done, but I suppose it could be implemented. Whether it would help or not, or if the software/the aids would allow it is a different matter – I have no idea.
WH
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The article I posted has been around for a while.
I’ve posted it before.
Dr. Neil Bauman wrote it.
A woman was given hearing aids that did exactly what the op wanted.
She said everyone sounded like Micky Mouse, but she was happy she could hear them.
If I remember correctly he addresses the fact that reverse slope is not very common and manufacturers have no real reason to address it.
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Of course I never experience frequency “heightening”, so I wouldn’t know what it sounds like, but it sure would make sense if everyone sounds like Mickey Mouse, or maybe birdie sounding, or maybe tinny sounding like an AM radio, with frequency heightening. That effect would be much, much more unnatural compared to frequency lowering, where mostly just the “s” and “sh” and other speech fricatives just sound like lisping, but it would still sound much more acceptable and more natural because the voices still sound more normal rather than Mickey Mousy, which would not be very acceptable by comparison.
I would shudder to think what music would sound like through frequency heightening, but for sure it most likely would no longer sound pleasant at all. On the other hand, music still sounds quite natural to me with the Oticon frequency lowering using transposition and composition. I don’t have any first hand experience with what music would sound like with the Phonak and other aids’ frequency compression to comment on whether the integrity of the music would still be as preserved or not if the sounds are frequency compressed rather than frequency transposed.
But I think @freezerman404 hits the nail on the head to bring up the fact that the reverse ski slope loss is much less common than the normal ski slope loss to justify the need to address this type of loss more seriously.
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You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention! I looked into this claim from resound, and as it turns out, the 150% value is confusing.
What I can tell you is that the 150% figure is NOT a comparison between Resound Nexia versus their previous platform, ReSound Omnia, so my original point is valid, there’s no real gains in speech performance.
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The 150% claim emerged with the launch of resound Omni (Link here). “ReSound OMNIA offers the only beamforming in the industry to improve hearing in noise without feeling cut off. It’s also the only hearing solution to simultaneously combine narrow beamforming directionality for hearing in noise and omni directional listening. The result? An incredible 150% improvement in speech understanding in noise.”
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Looking at research from Resound in 2022 (link here) the 150% improvement is comparing Resound Omni Front Focus feature to Resound One’s Ultra Focus feature (which it calls a legacy feature). Again, no comparison of Nexia or Omni, rather a comparison of Resound Omni to Resound One.
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However, in the Nexia brochure (link here), the “150% improvement” is against other manufacturers using binaural technology or advanced noise management, as per Groth et al (2023).
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I hunted down Groth et al (2023) link here, which was no easy feat, however it does show evidence that Nexia is 150% (4 dB) better than the competition, but the claim is strange. According to the paper, Resound Nexia does outperform other brands, but only when speech arrives from the back! When speech is from the front, and noise is presented from the back, it does not perform significantly better than other brands:
“When tested in a diffuse noise environment with target speech in front and noise spatially separate in the rear,no significant differences were observed across the hearing aid brands tested. This was an expected result,as each brand’s strongest noise management feature is presumably optimized to perform well in this type of setting.”
Either way, there isn’t a “150%” improvement between Omnia to Nexia (which was the point I was making), it’s the same technology. If anything it may be an improvement from Resound’s One platform (ultrafocus) to Omni (Front Focus), OR Nexia versus the competition (when the person you’re trying to talk to is behind you)!
Hearing aid marketing… ya gotta love it!
- Al
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He he, yeah so we keep telling anyone who’ll listen, they are so good because “we” tell you so!
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Thank you for your research!
When I trial the Resounds next month I guess I’ll see if I hear 150% better than I have been hearing with the Oticon Mores. Somehow I feel like I should temper my optimism a bit. I’d be ecstatic if I could hear even 25% better. I’ll be sure to report on my experience.
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Hi Chuck,
I’m also a long time Oticon fan now using Real 1 about six months in but not as lucky to have the same competent audiologist. Just 5.5 years to get Opn More Real dialed in ? Just in the nick of time before they fail or Oticon launches the next one.
( this isn’t your first rodeo you know when someone is respectfully messing with you ) Good luck with the Intents they’re on my wish list .
Tony
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Hi Ziplock,
I’m a big Oticon fan. Epoq, Alta, Opn, Real about six months in. I found the Opn’s to be poor in noise and rarely used the noise program. The Reals while not perfect were a noticeable improvement in noise. I did trial the Lumity with custom acrylic molds (the mold$ are now in my vast collection in my drawer) I found Lumity to be too directional and closed off to the sides and rear. I really like to be aware of my surroundings. Phonak’s app has way more adjustability than Companion but is not as user friendly and more complex to operate, auto sense does not always seamlessly apply the proper settings and I found it all to be a bit annoying. As others here have mentioned perhaps more tweaking of the Intents would help.
No sound is more confusing than the one you are trying not to hear.
Good luck in your quest ,
Tony
Slightly more gain for low frequency sounds (<500 Hz)
Less gain for highest frequency sounds (~8 kHz)
This is to emphasize the lower tone differences in tonal languages whereby different pronunciation of a speech sound/word can alter the meaning (for eg mandarin, Thai, Vietnamese etc)
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