Care to offer an opinion on which brands these are? I realize you might not since you omitted to do so in what I’m quoting but it never hurts (too much) to ask!
That can only be an anecdotal opinion. I am not aware of any research supporting that.
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That was one of the tests for my OPN1s. I went to a noisy pub for dinner with 6 people and was able to hear and understand almost everything people were saying, even the soft spoken person to my left (loss in my left ear is worse than in my right). The speech rescue and noise cancellation features are great for my type of high frequency loss.
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I also have a challenge hearing in noisy places, despite my Phonak Audeo B-Direct aids having a setting dedicated to restaurants/noisy places. I wonder if there is any kind of setting refinement I could make, or Roger pen device to lay on the table or WHAT-all could be used to enhance my comprehension of speech in noisy places?
It appears that the newly-released Phonak Marvel model may do a better job … but I’d have to try it to find that out.
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Yes, you can adjust the features of each program. There is a slider for noise manager and it helps a lot to bump it up. It also works better than the automatic environment. I assume you are talking about the manually selected programs and not the Autosense environments.
I think you must have seen a reference to Dr. Cliff’s latest YouTube review on Roger Select but if you haven’t check it out. I like Russ’s observation that Roger devices ain’t cheap - other folks have mentioned getting great deals on Roger Pens on eBay - maybe the Select is too new for that?
Yes - I was thinking about the specific noise management slider. I think mine is set to “NOT” very aggressive, cuz I found when it dampened things down, I not only lost background noise, but also the speech frequencies of folks talking to me.
Well, I may be a foolish optimist, but I am really pinning my hopes on the new Phonak Marvel model to see if it’s noticeably better in discriminating speech in NOISY places.
I just watched the video on the Roger select device. GOD BLESS Dr Cliff for making these videos SO easy to follow and comprehend the benefits & drawbacks of the devices.
But. ACK! I am just underwhelmed with yet again another LAME extraneous device for us hearing-impaired. I don’t know about the rest of you here, but when I join a group of 6 or 8 at a table, the entire center is taken up with STUFF: condiments, spices, big VASE of flowers, lazy Susan (think Chinese family style). Can you imagine plunking your Roger flying saucer down on a lazy Susan and having it spin like a horizontal ferris wheel - the directional mics trying to grasp any thread of a conversation?!!?
On top of which, WHO here sits at a table of 6-8 where only ONE person talks at a time. No my friends. What happens is that due to the DIN inside restaurants, folks turn to their immediate neighbor and spend the evening largely talking to that person. It is rare indeed for a single conversation at a social gathering to be happening across the table at all.
Y’know, I’d save companies a LOT of money if they’d just bounce their latest idea off me. Not saying you can’t maybe use the Roger device in a business setting on a conference table, but again: most folks sit at tables that hold 20 peeps! Should the Roger device be on a pizza paddle that is slid FORWARD, BACKWARD! to reach the intended speaker?
Naw. I’m just going to hunker down and HOPE that some hearing aid company seriously addresses focused, directional listening that more closely imitates human hearing.
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I say, bring back the Cone of Silence! 
^^^ I’m sitting under it NOW. It’s been a long weekend of ASSAULT on my ears with family reunion and everyone talking over everyone else. Even if I DID have a Roger device, he’d have up and QUIT yesterday. 
I’m finding that when I switch to the Loud Noise program it quiets almost everything else and makes all voices audible. My perception is that voices sound louder. Not sure if that’s literally true. But it is very effective.
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Biggest breakthrough will be deep neural network in noise reduction as reported by signia if works perfectly and not Marvell stereo voce stream is available from audio v. More over autosens most folks do not like it .
I have the Oticon Opn 1’s, and the Connect Clip. While the advantages of the Oticon Opn platform are that it gives you a more “open” hearing experience that is supposed to 360 degrees (like natural hearing), and the aids are supposed to switch settings automatically depending on your environment, I use a “speech in noise” program for a boost when I’m in a loud restaurant and I need help hearing discussions. I also have a “comfort” program in case the noise goes in the opposite direction and gets overwhelming loud. In addition, I have the “transient noise setting” set at maximum, as that helps reduce the sounds of clanking dishes, etc in the background. I like the ConnectClip because I can change programs very easily by pushing buttons on it. You will hear audible tones indicating the switch when you change the programs manually. When you wear the ConnectClip, you can also set it to audibly “announce” which program you are in–and that announcement goes directly to your ears, so you don’t have to look at your phone to see which program you switched to unless you want to. I find it’s easier to reach down and discreetly change programs with the Clip, rather than to to fiddle with the buttons on the hearing aids or constantly look at my phone. Just my two cents, for whatever it’s worth. But the “speech in noise” program really helps
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I don’t know whether you’ve watched Dr. Cliff’s video on hearing in background noise but he points out physical reasons why a remote mic can be a far superior solution to a hearing aid because a remote brings what you want to hear that much closer to the mic as compared to the noise(i.e., basic physics is involved, no magic required). And 7-microphone far-field arrays such I’ve remarked on for the Amazon Echo Dot probably haven’t even trickled down to the “high-tech” hearing industry yet, but they might be even better (and in a device priced in the $30 to $50 range, too!).
As to how to handle a remote mic like the ReSound Multi-Mic or the Phonak Roger Select your mention of Lazy Susan’s and dishes slopping gravy gave me I thought. For totally different reasons, I have a self-stickie with a miniature tripod (I got it to try to reach into remote inaccessible regions of my house to take pictures and videos of what was happening when we had a roof leak). I deliberately got a sizeable one with a 5-foot reach. An even smaller version might be better. But you could stick your remote microphone on the mount, on the tripod, and like a good camera tripod mount, you can twist the mount any way you want it, even perfectly horizontal, well above the fray of the restaurant table. Here’s one of the product pictures for the device showing the mount holding a phone in a vertical, rather than in a horizontal orientation - the phone mount in the illustration sticks up so much because it can be extended via nested tubular sections to the five feet that I mentioned above.
As to folks all talking at the same time, even a normal hearing person might not be able to cope. If one had a Roger Pen, you could just point it at whoever was talking that you wanted to hear - it’s highly directional. And also, presumably if one went to dinner with friends who were actually sympathetic and cognizant of your hearing loss, they might take particular pains to help you out, rather than just being a rowdy, uncouth bunch. Perhaps if you let them know you were having trouble hearing, they’d oblige you and ask you what they could do to make things better for you.
BTW, I am not trying to sell anyone on this particular selfie stick. It seemed well-made but a little bulky to get the reach that I wanted. And the mount held my Galaxy Note 8 extremely firmly as I extended it into attic space above a two-story drop that would have smashed the heck out of my $1,000 phone if it came loose. So it ought to hold a multi-mic or anything else quite tightly (there are two adjustable-size clamps, one big/one small on either side of the mount as shown in one of the Amazon illustrations for the device: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0762BMV93/). But if I were going to get one for a restaurant table, I’d look for a smaller device with a smaller tripod.
Example of a smaller size selfie stick with tripod that might hold a remote mic above the fray at a restaurant table. Don’t know if this one rotates to a horizontal plane or clamp is small enough but you could always build a holder for the mic to go into the clamp.
What nobody is really looking yet is utilising the mics and the geometry of TWO Apple Watch-like devices. It is a dynamic system, but the mic array separation would be nearly two feet. It wouldn’t get dominated by the user’s own voice, there’s accelerometers in there to establish orientation, but the commas/battery/packaging stuff is already done.
The right-left head diffraction is going to be mimicked fairly closely and the directionality pattern can be zeroed on 12 when the watch is horizontal or spun to the 3 position/omni when the arm is across the body.
Each watch is on the correct side for the aid it’s feeding too, which ought to help with the Body Area Network stuff. AND more importantly you can wear two watches with no one thinking you’re trying to stick some form of Alien technology up their nose. Even better still - the type of dinner sit downs where people struggle the most - people will have their hands above the table so third and fourth order directional patterns will be possible.
I’ll take $10 per pair sold - thanks GN!
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I’m not sure if you’re serious or you’re just spoofing the idea of plopping a big fat tripod down on the dinner table.
But actually it’s an interesting 22-nd century idea that if everyone wore a SINGLE smartwatch or other wearable microphone and the sound of a gathering were pooled, it might be like a giant far-field array and then you’d need some way of deciding which set of microphones in the group, which conversation you wanted to follow.
This discussion hasn’t looked at the other side of the coin. Why are there noisy restaurants in the first place? I’ve heard that restaurants like the hustle-and-bustle sounds because it makes their places seem busy and thriving. Bare floors are easier to clean, too. Same with hard wood furniture minimally upholstered. Less cost not to have a sound absorbing ceiling and so on. But things come and go in fashion. Maybe it would be nice if there were some sort of cultural revolution that led to people fleeing really noisy restaurants in preference to quieter places that actually have sound-absorbing material all around - guess it’s not in the economics, though.
In the good ol’ days, though, I’ve been to fancy restaurants with a rug on the floor, nicely upholstered furniture, table linen, sound absorbing ceiling, drapes here and there around the room, etc., that were reasonably quiet places - must have cost a fortune to clean everything!
Second big problem for remote mic no body like to wear it or while speaking will concentrate on Roger/direct/remote mic. I tried streamline mic. I given to relative with thick voice but they wearer like left bented arrow and voice diminish that I hardly understood. Outsider people uh they tell you are not able to hear you should wear hearing aid why we should wear mic? This is practical problem
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Widex Evoke 440 work for me very well. And if not, I can optimize settings via their SoundSense Learn. I find conversations in restaurants much easier with these aids.
I do find interesting that most of the issues have a decent solution, but it’s not good enough for many. Streaming to Android has been available for years, but it requires an additonal device. Speech in noise is handled pretty well with a remote microphone. But it’s not good enough for many. They want it all to be handled in a device that weighs a few grams and hides behind the ear (or better yet, hides completely inside the ear) and they want great battery life. I think the solution being satisfied is to temper one’s expectations rather than expecting the next “greatest thing” to solve your problems.
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