Hearing well in noise (with and without assistive technologies)

Hearing Loss
#8

Thank you! I’m in Sweden, with a general health care system that covers hearing aids (similar to the NHS). This means I don’t pay out of pocket for my hearing aids and am entitled to new aids every four years (or when a change in hearing requires a new type of hearing aids). I have another two years before I can get new hearing aids through the general health care system, but could of course buy my own hearing aids if I felt that the difference in performance would motivate it. It may also be possible to get a new and more advanced technology if I can make a good argument about how it’s necessary for my professional needs.

Hadn’t heard about Orsana, this seems interesting! I’m also in Cambridge on a regular basis, so might be possible for me to try it out.

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#9

Yet another thing I hadn’t heard about - looks super interesting! Seems reasonable that AI at some point should be able to make a real difference to how hearing aids handle speech (there are some research studies about this, but I haven’t dug deep into it). However, there’s not that much information on the Whisper web-page regarding fitting range (apart from that it’s not suitable for profound losses) or availability outside of the US. What’s your personal experience of Whisper like?

#10

I’ve made an effort to use sound recover, but after several adjustments I just had to give up. I couldn’t get used to the way it sounded (wasn’t able to get rid of the lisping s-sounds, for example). My own (very non-professional) guess is that because I’ve with all likelihood never been able to hear very high frequency sounds my brain just couldn’t make out what was going on. I would be prepared to give it another go when I get new hearing aids, but I don’t really see how more could be done with the hearing aids I’ve currently got.

My speech understanding in non-challenging listening situations is excellent (I even listen to the radio without hearing aids in bed). I think this is what make the contrast to challenging listening situation so stark - it doesn’t take much in terms of noise, bad acoustics or distance for my speech understanding to deteriorate very quickly.

I’ve had an earmold on my worse ear before (I had Oticons then and the feedback control on those weren’t as good as it is on my current hearing aids). Power domes (or any kind of more occluding domes) drive me nuts.

#11

Oh, interesting technological development! I do really, really like my open domes, so active vent receivers sounds like something for me.

#12

Yes. I have just come back from my Italian class. We had to switch college a couple of weeks ago because of a funding issue with the original college and the new class had high ceilings and very bad acoustics. This week I decided to take my Roger On iN. I wasn’t really expecting much, just some help with hearing the teacher - but the difference was night and day! It was the first time I had used it in a classroom scenario and it did a brilliant job at homing in on my Italian teacher and also - as it has the intelligence, to be able to switch around the class - we were all sitting in a upside down U formation. And that was without even giving the Roger device to the teacher which I could have done. So yeah - you might find that useful in a classroom setting.

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#13

Thank you for your long and thoughtful reply! I’m also completely deaf in the highest frequencies (there is a response at 6/8000 Hz, but I just hear a buzzing sound, not pure tones). Therefore we’ve turned off amplification at those frequencies. Tried Sound recover when I got my current hearing aids, could not get it to work, despite several rounds of adjustments. Long story short: hate it.

I’ve experimented a bit with speech-to-text-apps, but they seem to be coping with speech in noise just as badly as I do (and when it’s quiet I don’t need them). Also, they’re not as far developed in Swedish (my first language) as in English yet, and in English they seem to be doing the best with native speakers (I’m often around second language speakers of English). I expect there to be a rapid development in these technologies, though, with an increased use of AI - so would imagine this to become increasingly more useful.

I haven’t made any effort to have my hearing loss diagnosed and I’m not sure how useful it would be to know exactly which genes that are involved (I assume my hearing loss is genetic, as there isn’t really any other explanation). I can totally see how other people would be interested in getting a definite answer to what causes their hearing loss, but at least at this point I don’t see much practical implications for myself. If (when?) my hearing loss progress to a point where hearing aids aren’t helpful anymore I guess it can be useful to have an indication of how much low frequency hearing I’m likely to retain over time (and genetic testing might be the answer to that).

#14

Yep, my Roger pen and my three Roger table mics are must when I’m teaching. Incredible for overcoming issues related to distance and to some extent also bad acoustics. I also find that the Roger pen does help in noise, but maybe not as much as I would like it to. But, then, my good speech understanding in quiet circumstances makes me a picky customer :slight_smile:

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#15

This comment tells us the sound recover settings are a little too aggressive. It needs to be backed off until the S sound does not lisp. It’s also a good idea to try and test only one ear at a time doing this. Sometimes it’s very hard to differentiate which ear is causing an issue.

I can see not needing earmolds. Your audiogram is borderline for molds with some people, not everyone. The local pros would probably say you do not need molds.

With your audiogram it’s hard for me to understand that you can listen to a radio and understand it without hearing aids.

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#16

Well, here is a high frequency loss much worse than yours. I use Phonak Naida Paradise with ear molds with a slight vent. Sound recover works. I hear birds pretty well. No doubt you need to back off the upper limits or your wife will definitley come with a lisp that seems like she is drunk. I fine tune my own aids, but a good audi should be good with sound recover.

Noisy restaurants will never be good, but Roger can help.

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#17

Raudrive, regarding your last comment in your post, it has puzzled me too. I can listen to very soft radio or lectures in a quiet room without hearing aids and understand them well. I’m the same as Tea in that regard. But I struggle in meetings and in noise even with hearing aids.

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#18

The audiologist started our aggressive with sound recover and then dialed it back. One problem, though, was that we were never able to find a sweet spot where I could hear s-sound from more high-pitched voices, while at the same time the s-sound from more low-pitched voices didn’t sound like a lisp. Eventually we (or, I, more like it) gave up. I did have high motivation to make it work and also find the technology interesting as such, but from what I’ve read frequency shifting techniques are a bit hit and miss, where some people don’t really tolerate it.

#19

Having read about other people’s experiences on this website I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve probably got pretty well-functioning hearing for someone with my audiogram. There are obviously lots of sounds I don’t hear (without or with hearing aids) and I do benefit a lot from my hearing aids, but at least under very good listening conditions my speech understanding is still excellent.

#20

Many people are very good at listening to the whole context and whatever they can’t hear, they can still make up for it by analyzing and guessing the rest of what they can’t hear, as long as the context is there. That’s why one may do poorly on the WRT (word recognition test) that comprises of just single words and has no context behind the words, but nevertheless can still function OK in a one on one but quiet environment.

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#21

This is an interesting thread to me. I am trying out semi-linear amplification, and will also try the Phonak Adaptive Digital Contrast prescription. But @cohen, can you tell me what ‘temporal fine structure’ means? I know what the words mean, but unsure of the context.
Thanks

Mike.

#22

I’m grateful you posted and others have responded so well.

I shall follow to see if I can enhance my ability to listen and hear with the hearing aids I have.

DaveL
Toronto

#23

Google is your friend concerning TFS.
Phonak Digital Contrast slows processing down so the sounds are not so complex. This makes speech understanding easier for those with severe/profound hearing loss.

This is my understanding. Barb might explain it better or correct me.

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#24

Hi Mike,
Raudrive is right as far as I understand it. Some folks whose ears don’t process well enough to understand the fine structure of speech and its fast variation use more of the speech cues in the envelope to understand meaning. Such folks are usually more hard of hearing. Think of a fast-oscillating (that is, high frequency) sine wave (temporal fine structure). Then draw a line connecting the sine wave tops to each other and bottoms to each other (envelope). That is my crude concept. What I have heard is that when hearing aids process sound, you usually can keep the integrity of one of those signals but it’s at the expense of the other. But there are lots of engineers here who can explain far better than I can. I started experimenting with it because research with animals carrying the kind of cochlear gene mutation I have show abnormally slow response to sounds. I thought, since I do DIY programming of my hearing aids, why not try a prescription Phonak specifically made for more severe loss? Who knows what parts of speech I am using to understand people in groups or in noise? All I know is I don’t do that well, so trying different approaches to hearing better appealed to me.

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#25

As others have said keeping the open domes and wanting a better signal to noise ratio in noise does not add up. It can help to have a speech in noise test done to determine at what level can you understand complete sentences with background noise present. This can be very helpful when comparing open dome results to closed dome results.

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#26

One thing that can be important is to ensure that the MPO on the hearing aids is set fairly high. Also many times the Phonak loud noise program is far too aggressive with removing noise and can be set to activate at a higher level or turned off completely from being part of the automatic settings.

There are different targets for hearing loss such as dsl 5 which would procide more amplification in the upper mid frequencies which could improve things for you. Feedback would be a roadblock. A deep fitted mold is probably the best option if you were to try it.

Frequency shifting is good. Its best to measure the narrow band s and sh to determine if the sounds are properly separated. Also measuring the maximum audible output frequency and ensuring that it hasn’t been changed too much by the shifting. Purdue has great resources about this. Google maof maximum audible output and it should come up. Or add purdue to the search.

These are just some tools and they still might not improve things unfortunately. But there is potential for them to improve things. Anyone is free to dispute what I’ve said or give me further insights as always.

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#27

Tea,

i have the same hardware as you - Phonic Audio Marvel and a Roger One in. When I go to the gym, the music being piped in is not to my liking. So I play my iTunes on the phone via bluetooth to my HA’s. But if I don’t adjust the Bluetooth setting in my Phone app (the Bluetooth setting only appears in the app when bluetooth is being used) I will hear my music faintly and still hear the gym noise. So I go to ‘Adjust Program’ and lower the background noise almost halfway to the right. Then hit ‘Close’. Immediately the gym music and voices around me disappear and I can work out to my own music. The one negative is that it blocks out anyone trying to talk to me but I am in the gym to workout not talk.

I use the same method with my Roger On in a noisy restaurant. I turn on the Roger and it shows up in my Phone app. Don’t lay it on the table as you don’t want to pick up 360 degrees around you. I again go to background noise and adjust it to block out whatever I need to block yet still allow me to hear my wife, even though her voice will be quieter. It is a trade-off but some restaurants are SO loud I need to do something. I let my wife know that I have adjusted the program and ask her to make sure she faces me and talks a bit louder. It is the only way I can go out to eat comfortably. It takes a few tries to figure out the optimal adjustment on the Phone app but eventually I got it right.

Mike

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