I have been self-programming my HAs for the past 5 years. After hundreds of hours and many frustrating programs along the way, I think I nailed it! This is me listening to a podcast in a quiet room today:
The sound of the podcast is so clear and crisp, and I comprehend everything with either ear at 1/4 of full volume. For so long, my default was 3/4+ of full volume.
This is my main program against the target gain suggested by Genie/NAL-NL2.
My music program based on P1 sounds great too. I haven’t tried this new program in a more challeging situation yet, but I am pretty happy with what I have so far.
DIY works, folks! Don’t give up Of course, if I had had the chance to go to a top-notch professional, she or he would have nailed it in just a couple of sessions… but it would have not been so much fun lol.
Edit: Initially I was mostly doing trial and error, but I got to a point where I have a “method” to rely on. I was only able to get there because I have in hands a reliable and thorough audiometry (doubled checked by in-situ audiometry), custom molds, and a good sense of sound intensity. I also know and understand my hearing very well, acknowledging that my left ear is very different from my right one.
Excellent and well done you. Good to hear (sorry about pun).
Can you share your general methodology? My HADs are simply choosing the default settings. I have tried programming with some success, but suspect I am limited by bad mold fitting. Any directions would be very much appreciated.
Sure! As I mentioned, you will need your latest audiogram, custom molds, and a good sense of sound intensity. I must warn you that I am not an audiologist, and this “method” is a QUALITATIVE tool. It helped me greatly, but it may be completely useless to you. Here it goes:
Input your audiogram and choose the fitting formula you are most comfortable with. I tried all of them and at this point I am using NAL-NL2.
Let the software prescribe your gains. I wear Oticon More, so Genie 2 prescribes gains in 24 bands for me.
Make a copy of that program (Test Program). In this copy, adjust the soft and loud curves to match exactly the moderate curve. Hence, you are going to have a program with linear compression.
Now that you have a program with linear compression, disable all the digital features in this program (feedback management, noise suppression, etc.). You don’t have to do anything to the original program yet.
Save the session, get your phone, choose the program you made in steps 3 & 4 (Test Program), and stream pure tones to your hearing aid (you may want to use a good audio monitor instead if you own one). I use this webpage. Go through all the bands of your hearing aid. In my case, all 24 of them. You want to check whether each of these frequencies is at the same intensity in your right and left ears. Take note of any perceived differences so you can adjust them in the software later.
Go back to the software and the Test Program and adjust accordingly so you have the perfect balance between your right and left ears. You may need to do steps 5 & 6 a few times until you get it right.
When you are done, make a copy of the Test Program. Now you are going to have 3 programs: P1 (the initial one), P2 (Test Program), and P3 (copy of Test Program). Adjust the left and right ears separately. For each frequency, proceed this way:
a. Go to P1 and note the compression ratio between moderate-loud and soft-moderate.
b. Adjust the gains in P3 for the soft and loud curves so you have the same compression ratio as P1.
c. Do step a & b for all frequencies and both ears. Do not adjust the gain of the moderate curve.
That would probably yield a reasonable program for you. However, if you are still not happy with it, you may tweak it here and there accordingly. I take another step, which you may find useful or not.
Stream a “normalized” audio file with pure tones to your P2 (Test Program). I use this one. This audio takes into consideration the “equal-loudness contour standard” (read here). Since at this point you probably have a good balance between your right and left ears, now you want to check whether there are any quiet or loud frequencies. Just listen to the audio and take note of the frequencies that need to be adjusted. Go back to the software and adjust them on P2. When you are done with step 8, go back to step 7 and do it again.
When you are done tweaking your P3, just enable back all the digital features you need to and make it your P1. From this P1, you can tweak programs for speech in noise, music, etc.
Thank you so much for the detailed response. I have so far struggled to get good fitting custom molds as I have wide canals. I have bookmarked your post for future use.
Great read. I plan to follow your roadmap for my first try at DIY fitting tomorrow. Two questions.
In step 4 you disable all digital features and list some examples. What is the full list of digital features?
Step 7 involves P1 and P3. Step 8 begins with adjustments to P2 and then takes us back to step 7 which does not involve P2 at all? Why adjust P2 in step 7 if we never go back to it in step 8?
I wear Oticon More. In the MoreSound Intelligence tab, I disable “neural noise suppression” and select the mic to “fixed omni”. In the tab “Automatics” I disable “feedback manager”, “transient noise management”, and “spatial noise management”. Those are Oticon names for some of the digital features.
I only test with pure tones in a program with linear compression and all possible digital features disabled. Otherwise, your hearing aids may mess things up a little bit! That is why I suggest doing it on P2, and then you can adjust P3 as needed.
Of course, if I had had the chance to go to a top-notch professional, she or he would have nailed it in just a couple of sessions… but it would have not been so much fun lol.