Hello Delta10
Long reply here, hope it’s useful!
Yes, I am grateful to my NHS audiologist and her exploratory mind-set. We were in-clinic 40 minutes following a short Zoom from which it had became apparent that a detailed adjustment wasn’t possible by remote.
The Phonaks are M70 VS P.
What made for success that cheered us both was she was such a good listener. To assist focus, I had drawn up a short list of issues (familiar to so many of us on this forum!): transient clicking, squashing and warbling of music, absence of low frequencies, clogging of high ones, shifted pitch…
Despite being a sound recordist, I promised I wasn’t being unduly fussy!
The excellent Hearing Aids for Music project by Prof Alinka Greasley of Leeds University identified all such issues in a survey of some 1,300 musical people, and came up with really clear fitting suggestions which have filtered through to some UK clinics. Prof Greasley just happens to be a keen musician…
What worked for me, musically, was turning off all the fancy processing apart from simple high-end lift, shaping the compression so it only kicks in on very loud sounds, curtailing the top end response to match my hearing curve (this dealt with whistles that I couldn’t hear but others could!) and… somewhat against tradition… letting bass around 100Hz get through. Also she turned off directional pickup, as this created a phasey sound - as well as being a potential hazard walking in traffic. All this was swiftly done, with the corrective curve visible to me.
To answer your query - yes the M70 can be set up user-selectable between sweet 'n musical or processed and directional for best speech in noise. Worth asking for.
On your point of HA response: with earmould pressed well in, and a very small vent, these little instruments respond down to the bottom E of a five string bass - that’s 30 Hz. True fundamental, not harmonic. Amazing. The lows, around 80 to 150, have been shown to assist speech comprehension as well and I find that to be true. Though we are all different.
Very best of luck to you in doing your own setting up. A great and practical idea, and may your user interface turn out to be friendly!