Do any hearing aids work in a restaurant with background noise

[jim_lewis]

jim_lewis:

The wife is not keen on me getting a Multi-Mic or a Roger Select but my feeling is that to handle a restaurant with the noise level of a Chili’s I’m going to need a remote mic to help me out.

I don’t understand this. I’ve encountered this attitude before where for some reason it’s the WIFE who does not want to wear a microphone

I think the two things that affect her are the total bill that I’m running up - I’ve let her know that maybe I’d like a TV streamer, too! - and the fact that she really can’t put on my HA’s and try something like the Multi-Mic or the TV streamer and appreciate directly how helpful it might be. OTH, when we’re both at the same spot in the gym and the treadmills are whining away and the punching bags are being pounded to smithereens and she can barely hear her own podcast in her ears, she appreciates directly the value that gun muffs or noise-canceling headphones might have. She’s been very supportive of getting the HA’s themselves but she questions how far true need goes and where just fun toys begins - and I don’t blame her for the total cost outlay.

The Multi-mic is pretty awesome. With it, you will hear your wife better than she can hear you

Thanks for the tip! Seeing such positive comments on remote mics really reassures me that the extra cost will be worth it.

[jim_lewis]

JIm, I had the same problem when wearing sunglasses the HA would sit up high on my ear with a 2 receiver wire … I had my audi change it out to a 3 receiver wire and the problem went away… HA now sits lower

Thanks for the tip. I’m very happy with the position of the HA’s. I think a longer wire might be better just for being able to take a more contoured, circuitous route to my ear canal.

I was actually suggesting to Noreen that maybe her difficulties were caused in part by the HA’s sitting too far back from the top of the ear (her hearing dislikes) and the domes getting dislodged by not enough tension between the wire in the ear canal and the fitting of the wire around the ear to keep things in place.

The wire and the tip of the HA at the top of my ear essentially point parallel to the line of the glasses frame. I know pressure of the glasses frame on the HA, slightly pressing it against the inside of my ear helps keep it in place because if I take my glasses off and rapidly move my head from side to side, I can hear a slight rustling sound of the HA moving against my hair but I can’t create the same sound wearing my glasses even violently shaking my head left to right or up and down.

The ReSound manual says to position an HA at the top of an ear - but has a lousy, unclear line drawing illustrating placement. Oticon has a pretty nice video of HA placement and removal with the user having a nice curvaceous wire that fits ear contours beautifully (I’ll have to show my audi the video on my first fitting revisit!!!). Looks like the person in the Oticon video, given the length of the wire up at ear level, puts her HA’s just a tad further back behind her ear than I do. But I love the perception of sound and localization so much with my HA placement, I don’t want to start moving things around too much and ruin it.

BTW, I loved the pithy instruction of my audi on which HA goes where. “All you need to remember,” she said, “is RED is RIGHT!”

How to put on and remove RITE and miniRITE hearing aids | Oticon.

[efigalaxie]

It is worth it. You know, you can catch good deals on these accessories on eBay on occasion. The multi-mic can be had for $225 to $400+ Just be SURE that you get the right accessories. The older line will not work with the newer hearing aid and vice versa.

Right now, the only one I see is about $370

[MDB]

Yeah, you’re definitely into the toy area. Much lower cost options were available that would have quite likely met your hearing needs.

[jim_lewis]

The wire and the tip of the HA at the top of my ear essentially point parallel to the line of the glasses frame. I know pressure of the glasses frame on the HA, slightly pressing it against the inside of my ear helps keep it in place

To help Noreen get her placement right, here are two pictures of the Quattro on my left ear, front and back. My ear lobe holds the Quattro in place because if I bend the ear lobe away from my head, a slight tension in the wire makes the HA pop up from my ear and move forward. I wish the wires were longer and didn’t come so straight down but the audi thinks #3’s would be way too long.

[MDB]

Don’t know if it was just for illustrative purposes, but Sports Lock is generally curved within the outer ear opening (if I’ve got my terms right, behind the antitragus)

[jim_lewis]

but Sports Lock is generally curved within the outer ear opening (if I’ve got my terms right, behind the antitragus)

Thanks for the tip. All the Quattro manual says is “Tuck the sports lock in the concha” but it felt if I bent one too far, it was going to break. It took my wife 6 days to say, “What’s that sticking out from your ear?!” so I haven’t been too concerned about it. For a piece of plastic, they are dang expensive - must be military-grade, like the $500 hammers and toilet seats… I will go looking for YouTube videos, etc., on how to do a proper job tucking them in without running up a bill breaking the little buggers.

UPDATE Looking up where the antitragus is, I think my basic problem, if you look at the first picture of my ear from the front (see above), is that I essentially have NO antitragus. I think something like 10% of folks have my “condition.” So, no place to tuck up a sports lock. And actually, this deficit showed up long ago in my life, <<< sob, sob, sob >>>, as because I have no antitragus to speak of, I could never keep earbuds in very well except those like Samsung’s AKG’s, which flare out where the cord attaches and provide friction against the lower ear lobe even though there is no antitragus to tuck them in.

Here’s a decent but not close-up enough YouTube video from an audi demonstrating how to properly insert a RIC HA, sports lock and all (for folks with antitragi or antitraguses!).

Back to noisy restaurants, now that our HA’s are all locked and loaded!

[Ureout]

Jim , I have the tv streamer and it works great… also the multi mic can also be used to stream the tv… when I was vacationing and watching a ball game I tried placing the mic in front of tv speaker and it worked nicely… only negative was that it needs recharging

[MDB]

I would think your audiologist would replace the sportlocks at no cost. Do you think they are doing any good? If not, they are easily removable. It’s my understanding that many people don’t use them.

[teejayess]

is that I essentially have NO antitragus.

Jim, have you tried tucking them toward the back of your ear, toward the antihelix?

Here are my HAs with sport lockes after over two months use, see how they curve back? (note they are reversed, the one on the left is the right ear HA)

Here is an illustration showing them in place. (I can get good pictures of mine, they are too hidden)

In your picture I can see no antitragus, but I see a nice groove for them to lay in toware the antihelix.

[AbramBaileyAuD]

And of course, here’s the relevant Dr Cliff video

[cnicklo]

Have you considered trying another brand of hearing aid? Each manufacturer has a different approach to sound. While the Quattros are no doubt very good, they may just not be the best for you. . .

I wore ReSound Linx2 for several years and never felt they were that great in noisy environments. I’ve recently been testing all the flagship models from the major brands - Widex Evoke 440s, Oticon OPN 1s, ReSound Quattros, etc, and while all are better than the Linx2, my brain tends to prefer the sound of the Widex and Oticon models over those from ReSound.

Your mileage may vary. . .

Chris

[Noreen1009]

Thank you for the input. I tried the Oticon OPN 1, but only for 5 days before I had to return them to the audiologist because her trial period (without a purchase) was 7 days. I had trouble with the app crashing, some trouble with the fit, and she only had 1 other brand, Phonak I think. I am a first time user and it was all so distracting that I don’t think I had much of a sense of how things sounded. I wanted to try the ReSound. I switched to an audiologist I felt I could work with better. She only sells ReSound and Signia. I’m beyond the 30 day return, so I can’t return them now. You have to buy the aids to try them, and you have a 30 day return. I am 2.5 hrs away from a Costco where I’d have had more selection and a much more generous trial period. I wish I lived somewhere where I could have tried a few more. And, where I am, if you don’t buy from the audiologist you get charged a restocking fee when you return a trial pair you bought–I found the restocking fees to be as “low” as $200 for the pair and as high as $500 for the pair. So, I’m committed to ReSound. When these die–and with $6K invested I hope they live a long time, I think you are correct that I need to revisit the brand issue.

[x475aws]

As a ReSound user, not a professional, it’s my understanding that they give the fitter a lot of knobs to tweak while setting up their aids. Maybe it’s worth paying another professional to look at your setup.

[Noreen1009]

I am starting to feel like a real whine-in-the-butt, but I think I do agree that I need to persist. I hadn’t thought of consulting another audiologist, but it may come to that. Thanks.

[jim_lewis]

And of course, here’s the relevant Dr Cliff video

Great video. Reminds me of Starkey’s motto that they want to change HA’s from something people HAVE to wear to something they WANT to wear. Would give folks that wore the “HA of the future” almost superhuman power!

I wonder if the “ultimate” device is something akin to MS’s HoloLens or Magic Leap’s headset? That would provide the visual processing to go along with the audio provided by whatever HA’s work a visual headset. Guess the ultimate problem, beyond whether anyone wants to run around for any part of the day with a 1/2 pound to pound device strapped to their head, is where does one get the processing power and the battery to run such a device?? Perhaps if rooms or buildings beamed electromagnetic energy some Buck Rogers in the 25th Century device could always be gathering its power out of the air and also transmitting and gathering processed data wirelessly, let’s say, from powerful servers in the building. I doubt anything like this will come around in my lifetime at a reasonable price for consumers. I think in a Starkey blurb that I read somewhere that the military is very interested in devices that augment hearing for soldiers battling in incredibly noisy environments and perhaps a headset that gave a soldier superhearing and supervision, just like night vision goggles, would be worth buying at a premium, at least for special forces.

[jim_lewis]

Jim, have you tried tucking them toward the back of your ear, toward the antihelix?

Thanks for the great illustrations, Tim! I will download the outer ear anatomy diagram for future reference. Since my ReSound Quattro receivers seem kinda square in the two dimensions perpendicular to the wire, I’m wondering if the Sports Locks can just be rotated 90, 180, or 270 degrees around the receiver until the audi finds a part of the ear anatomy to lock into. I will bring it up to her the next time I see her. The 2nd RIC/RITE insertion video that I linked to above, the audi also mentioned putting the Sports Lock (Phonak calls them “Concha Locks”) in place before pushing the domes all the way in. I’ll have to try that and see if it helps find a location to lock into without risking breaking the plastic.

It occurs to me that an “What’s Your Ear Anatomy (furnish a picture!)?” thread, maybe with a corollary “So How’s Your Antitragus?!” subtheme could be a new forum topic! Perhaps Abram & Co. would not like the server burden of all the ear pictures that would be uploaded!..

[jim_lewis]

I would think your audiologist would replace the sportlocks at no cost. Do you think they are doing any good?

Thanks for the tips again! Yes, the audi is providing them to me for free. On the TruHearing order form, she checked “NO,” that the HA’s were not to be shipped with Sports Locks (I imagine that, unfortunately, ReSound probably DOES charge for them!). Then she fitted my HA’s with Sport Locks herself because I told her that I led an active life and was worried about the HA’s falling off. I think if @Noreen1009 wore Sports Locks that might solve her dome movement problem. It would be a little bit of extra hassle in that the Sports Locks do get in the way at bit in manipulating the HA’s for cleaning in my limited still-learning newbie experience.

[jim_lewis]

I don’t think I had much of a sense of how things sounded

One thing that I’ve wondered about is how much one’s musical talent, musical perception affects what one expects in HA’s. Many experienced users here have opined that there is not a whole lot of earth-shaking difference between the top major brands but one thing is each HA brand has a bit of its own sound, so try them and find the sound/environment treatments that you like best. So in wondering why @Noreen1009 doesn’t like the sound of her Quattro’s but I think the sound is marvelous and natural, it could be the reason is that I’m a bit tone deaf - I could never carry a tune very well whereas maybe people who are more musically gifted are very much more sensitive to exactly how an HA sounds compared to their remembered past hearing or what they think good hearing should be.

Getting back to the noise in restaurant problem, maybe a similar sort of built-in brain talent makes a difference with noise , too. Maybe it’s not only how an HA can improve your auditory perception of signal vs. noise but how gifted (or trained) your brain is to deal with noise. Whenever anyone offers an opinion of how well any HA deals with restaurant noise, the hidden part of the equation is how well that person’s brain deals with noise to begin with.

Rather than seeking out a noisy restaurant to test one’s HA’s, it would be neat, just as some websites offer a qualitative test of your frequency response, if some websites also offered a qualitative speech-in-noise test. That way everyone could take the very same test here and if one were trialing different HA’s, it would give one a more reproducible way of evaluating brand differences. I guess one could always ask one’s audi to perform a QSIN test with any HA’s one is trialing vs. your QSIN ability unaided, etc.

[teejayess]

I’m wondering if the Sports Locks can just be rotated 90, 180, or 270 degrees around the receiver until the audi finds a part of the ear anatomy to lock into.

From what I can see that appears that you can, though the 180 rotation would be at the same location as the receiver wire and might cause issues… My receivers are square as well, and looking at them under a magnifier, I see no reason why changing to one of the other three planes would not work.

One thing to note, when I first was fitted with my aids, I had some trouble inserting the left side, that canal is angled very different. Not surprising to me since I had a parotid gland removed on that side back in 1998 (benign tumor) and that was the side where my throat cancer drained into my lymph system (my ENT removed a necrotic tissue filled lymph node on that side after radiation and chemo side effects. So two fairly extensive surgeries on that left side at the jaw line.

So when I difficulty with left HA insertion, the HIS at Costco changed the “new style” sport locks for some “old style” sport locks. I’ve searched for good images to find the difference but no luck. So be aware in these photos,those are “old style” ReSound sport locks.