Some time ago I experienced a sudden change in my hearing - voices, especially male voices, started sounding fuzzy/buzzy, and music became quite flat/distorted. Volume is not too much of a problem (I can hear speech at normal volumes, it just sounds distorted).
My ENT has diagnosed sensorineural loss, and I am currently trialling a Phonak Audeo S Smart IX.
My question. My audi has adjusted the HA twice so far, but I still experience buzziness listening to speech. Is it reasonable to expect the HA to be able to “fix” this, as long as it is programmed properly?
Tatters,
If you read much on the Forum about the Phonak HA with the new platform; they seem to have a lot of problems with the HA and the Audiologist and HIS don’t seem to know how to program the new platform. You might want to ask your Audi to have the Phonak rep at your next meeting to hopefully iron things out. Good luck!
I would say, that it sounds like they are not set up right too. Look at my hearing loss below. I have bad hearing (also due to damaged nerves), yet with my HA’s (NHS Oticon Zest Power) I hear about 90% of conversation. Music can sound quite flat (not in 3D) if they are not set up properly too. I bought one of those stethoscopes form Connevans so that my husband could attach my H’A’S and listen (he is a music teacher) and had to go back to the Audio’s twice to get it better sounding. Now when he listens he says it is very natural sound. So it can be done, Audio’s have a fixed idea about settings, but you should insist if it doesn’t sound right to you (especially if like me, you remember what sound, should be like) The only problem I have now is they pick up too much road/background noise (but I am told that with the right adjustments this can be changed too.) I had problems with Phonak Naida (sounded like Daleks talking under water), they didn’t know how to programme them properly at the time.
If I had a penny for every time I thought that too!
It is frustrating because in a sound proof room and listening to a stranger’s voice that gives no real indication, until you return home, and then it’s weeks before another appointments available…
I use an audio cable connected to my laptop and play music through I tunes, using the custom graphic equalizer that’s part of iTunes. I play around with it until it sounds better, then you can tell the Audio which frequencies you have adjusted for the music side of things. I do still have to make a real effort with speech because like you it’s clarity not volume. TV - I still need subtitles even with a loop/telecoil. I call it the small cheap tinny speaker affect (or poorly tuned radio). It would be great if you could have Bose sound from a tiny HA
Great idea about using the graphic equalizer on the computer. I’ve been playing around with the GE on my sound card, listening to speech samples, and I do think by boosting the lower frequencies (250 and below) I get a more natural sound.
I have found that the freq’s I hear best are almost taken off completely by the audi initially (low sounds) and they put loads of high sounds on. This just makes everything sound tinny and awful. It might be what they have done in your case too. I always insist on putting some bass back on. All the high end compression does for me is make forks scratching plates, babies crying etc… sound excruciating. It doesn’t help with speech. More bass does make a richer more natural sound (for speech and music). Good luck with the Audi.
Ask your audiologist to reduce the Soundrecover function and global compression to let the aid do it’s thing. It’s possible that the extra high parts of speech you are getting (which you weren’t before) sound like distortion.
If you google Soundrecover, you’ll see that it squeezes the output of sounds into a narrower band of frequencies than it occurs naturally. For people with a steeply sloping loss, it’s beneficial, for losses that dip in the middle, it’s counter-productive.
You can have extra programs, but get the basic tuning right first unless you have a particular listening situation problem.
Fours years on and I am resurrecting this thread from the dead…I am still using the Phonak Audeo S Smart IX as stated in the first post of this thread, and recently I have realised a lot of the problems I described in this thread have never really gone away, I have just put up with them. Specifically - recently the battery ran out whilst at work and I had to go without the HA for a day. This made me realised that the HA is currently not helping me at all, in fact it makes things worst. I work in a busy, noisy office, and find it hard sometimes to hear people talking to me over the general background noise. With the HA this problem is worst, because the HA creates a constant “sushing” noise, so I have to struggle to hear people over that. Without the HA I sort of manage OK, although sometimes I wish voices were a little louder - perhaps just if the volume was raised a bit at the same level for all frequencies.
Anyway I am pretty despondent about the whole HA experience now, and I am not sure what to do. I have not seen my audi in four years either (but I have had a more recent test at a hospital and my hearing has not changed); I was not impressed with the audi to start with, and I don’t particularly want to go back to him for further adjustments when he couldn’t get it right four years ago despite many visits. I have zero confidence that he would be able to do a better job this time. Also I think he may charge now, as I am out of warranty. Maybe a different audi would be a start (where I live the choice is limited), who no doubt will want to flog me a new aid, at large cost, but I am not hopeful that the end result will be a great improvement over the current situation. Maybe DIY is an option, but it seems quite a challenge. If I could somehow adjust the HA whilst in my office (the place I use it most) so I can get the settings just right, then that would be ideal.
So, how have HA’s improved over the last four years? Are they any easier to customise, particularly for the end-user?
