A bit disappointed. I really had my heart set on Marvels and a Roger Select, but after trying out OPN 1 and Marvel 90, I realized that neither would really fix anything. My KS7s do fine for everyday. I just don’t like noisy situations. I realize I don’t avoid them because I can’t understand people, but because I don’t like the noise. With my good low frequency hearing, there’s really not much hearing aids can do to lower noise. I guess I could do as Jim Lewis suggested (jokingly I think) that one could wear noise cancelling headphones over the hearing aids and use a remote microphone, but that seems a tad extreme. Both the OPN and the Marvel were nice hearing aids and I would say nicer than my KS7, but not dramatically. The Marvel worked well with my Android phone, but I didn’t use it much. I can understand the popularity of the OPN. It just seems to work without a lot of tinkering. Guess I should revise my answer to the Poll on how often I upgrade–looks like it will be more like 4-5 years.
I don’t like noisy situations either. If I’m in one and don’t need to understand speech, I just turn the volume down. In this way, you can reduce noise with any hearing aids, don’t need fancy ones for it.
The only test that differentiate hearing aids is not really in how well they help reduce the noise, especially with your kind of hearing loss where the low frequency hearing is still good, but how well you cope in noise. If your hearing loss is not so bad and a less premium hearing aid suffice for your loss, you’re right, the premium HA’s edge would be very marginal. But I’d imagine that for folks with a lot more challenging hearing loss, the premium aids may make a more significant difference for them, especially in coping with speech in noise.
I’ve forgotten how open your fit is. Going to a more occlusive fit for me really made a difference in the noise department. With open domes, no matter what my HA’s were doing to help the situation, noise was bypassing my whole HA setup and going straight to my eardrums through the big dome vents and since I have pretty good low frequency hearing, the noise was coming through loud and clear. Your low frequency hearing is pretty decent, too. So maybe you should experiment with a more occlusive fit if your current fit is pretty open?
I don’t use a particularly open fit. The Marvels had vented domes (two very small vents) and in my KS7s I use Vented Click Sleeves which have somewhat bigger vents. However, in the situation I was in, I tried plugging my ears with my fingers (with hearing aids in). Noise was still too loud.
So for me, it was the realization that it didn’t make much sense to spend money on trying to solve a problem that wasn’t a problem if I just avoided the situation. I’m a fan of analogies. Imagine somebody who hated going into water. Getting cold was one of the issues, but in general he didn’t like going into water. Getting a wetsuit could solve the cold issue, but it wouldn’t solve the dislike of getting into water.
Can you tell me the Roger Select will work with the Oticon Opn 1 hearing aids? I’ve heard the Select will work with several brands of hearing aids but I don’t know any of the specifics. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
It won’t work directly with any Oticon hearing aid. I think you can attach Roger X receiver to a special shoe on some of their BTE hearing aids. There also might be a way to use Roger X receivers with some of their streaming devices. I think your best source of information would be somebody at Oticon’s educational division, or an audiologist that works with kids.
The only hearing aids I know of other than Phonaks that work easily with Roger Select would be Resounds that are compatible with the MultiMic. The Roger X receiver can be plugged into the MultiMic.
Have you tried the Oticon Connect Clip?
Thank you for your quick response. What you told me is what I expected but never heard if from anyone directly. Thanks again.
Right now I’m not trying anything but that’s a good suggestion. I may look into that. Thanks!
Oticon will be coming out with a new “edumic” soon, which is like their connect clip but with a port to plug a Roger X into so that it can connect to Roger devices. Will be more expensive then it would be for Phonak as you will need a educational receiver. I don’t know that the price point on the EduMic will be. Sounds a bit like the Resound MultiMic.
You can use Roger Select with Oticons that have a telecoil if you use a Roger MyLink, which is a receiver with an induction neckloop that sends the audio wirelessly to your Oticons set to t coil.
I think noise and audibility are related yet somewhat two separate issues for hearing loss. Some people just need things louder and do well with hearing aids. Other people have perfect audiograms and struggle terribly in noise. Most of us need things louder and struggle terribly in noise, so we need both hearing aids and remote mics, captions, or other hearing assistive technology. If noise bothers me I just mute the mics on my hearing aids and can still hear with my remote mic.
Thanks for all the people responding to my question asking if Roger Select would work with Oticon Opn 1. I probably should have been more specific in my quest for answers and say in my original post that a week ago I was implanted with a CI on my right side. The reason for my question is I’ve been told I can continue to use my Oticon Opn on my left side but it would not connect with my Advanced Bionics Implant. My dilemma now is to decide if I want to try to get a device, like a Roger Select that will allow my CI and Oticon HA connect (talk) to each other or if I should get a Phonak HA that I know will connect to my CI and work with Roger devices. Probably all of this additional information changes the responses I may be getting from my original post and for that, I’m sorry to create this confusion. Anyway, all of the comments made so far I do appreciate it. I have never been made aware of the Oticon Connect Clip and wonder if I had known about it would I have taken this route with a CI!! Kind of late for that! But it may be something to consider for my left ear. As far as the EduMic is concerned that is something else to consider but I don’t want to get into so many devices that I won’t be able to figure out how to use them all!! I think the best solution for me is to talk with my cochlear audiologist and see what she recommends. I may be the Phonak is the easiest to use but probably the most costly. I think I need to cool my investigation for now and talk with my Audi. Thanks to everyone who has responded.
My thoughts with your loss would be to try the closed click sleeves, unless you have already tried it and dismissed it. For comfort, I did not feel much difference between the closed and vented click sleeve. The molds were a big degrade in comfort for me, and I have pretty much eliminated them as a choice. What receiver are you on? If not on a P receiver, I wonder if you could gain something by trying that instead of new aids. Here is what I see for you loss with a P receiver, and closed sleeves. I recall however you have the same software and this will not be new info for you. The software is suggesting frequency compression that I recall you are using.
As far as a new aid being a big improvement, I have a friend that switched from the KS7 to KS8 and he noted an improvement in sound quality, and appreciates the streaming with an iPhone. I warned him about 13.2 killing the alerts, so he is currently avoiding it.
The KS8 is one generation newer in technology, but it is hard to say how much of the technology would help. I find loud restaurants to be the most challenging situation with the KS8’s, but I don’t have any others to compare it to. I do manage in that situation by using the noise/party program and backing off the volume a bit. I noted that one other poster here claims they can still get KS8’s from Costco, so it could be worth a phone around to see if anyone has stock they want to still sell.
Thanks for all the work. I have the tried the equivalent of a KS8 in the Signia NX and didn’t find it much different. I have tried the closed click sleeves and found the noisiness during chewing annoying and didn’t see any upside to it. We take completely different approaches to the high frequency sounds. Your approach is to give them as much gain as you tolerate–mine is to use frequency lowering. I actually get by just fine with the S Receiver in that I’m not trying to amplify anything above about 4000hz.
Thanks again.
I’m also finding that newer technology is not always better.
I hear very well with my 2016 Phonak Brio 1s. I’ve tried the Phonak Sky V70 and the Phonak Marvel50 and I just couldn’t hear as well.
I’m sticking with my Phonak Brio’s! I’m glad I’ve got 2 sets!
I would say both the Marvel and OPN were both better than my KS7, but not that much better. I had bad timing however and sent my KS7 back to factory for a tuneup while on trial hearing aids. However I have nothing for a few days and miss my old ones–so does my wife!
The Marvels claim to have some percussive noise softening but it will depend on the mode the OS 3 is in at the time it happens.
Having tried both the M90R and the Resound Quattro Pro 9R I found that the Quattro’s do have a feature to soften percussive sounds but my audiologist did not know how to adjust it and dicked with the frequencies and volumes a lot. Only after the trial expired did she get instructions from the Resound Tech dept about how to correctly engage and adjust the impact sound softener.
Having said that, the program in process at the time will have to have it set properly for you and it might be that in Music program mode where all digital processing is turned off, it might not be engaged at all. Just something to think about.
The upside of the closed sleeves is that it gives your hearing aids more control of noise reduction. Can help some in noisy environments.
This is what I do for my right ear. Even tho the software suggests open as the best fitting, I wear an ear mould with a 1mm vent as I couldn’t understand anything when I was in high background noise.
I can see why it makes sense for your hearing loss to use frequency compression. Both your ears have loss that is not really aidable at the high frequencies. I think frequency compression is both ears or none. In my case my right ear is still aidable and I think for me it makes no sense to do frequency compression in both ears. I can see that if you do frequency compression that a more powerful receiver is not necessary.
Another thought is that it might be worth trying different sizes of the closed sleeves. I have used small from the beginning, but got some medium and extra small sleeves to try for an extended time to see if small is really the best for me. Have not tried the XS yet, but have nearly a day in with the mediums. So far they seem better than the smalls I have been using When I compare the sleeves to my custom molds for size and shape, the mediums are the closest match. The XS will probably be worse, but I will try them anyway to see.
My basic plan now is to go back to the sleeves at my next fit in a week or so, return the molds if possible, and get the REM done to suit the sleeves I will have settled on by then. I really hope that is the end of the road for me, as I am getting a bit tired of trying all the different combinations, and I have not even tried different aids. Hopefully they will be better in 4 years or so when I need new ones.