@gkumar : I’d suggest you move this post to this thread DIY - Self Programming the Oticon Opn – How To (“DIY - Self Programming the Oticon OPN - How To”) just because that thread is probably a better place for this kind of discussion specific to OPN programming. If you move your post to the other thread, I’ll also move my answers below to the other thread as well.
To answer your question 4, I want to have P2 which is a copy of P1 because in P2 I turn off Speech Rescue while I have it turned on in P1, just so that I can tell which sounds I hear are a result of Speech Rescue by doing A/B comparison between P1 and P2. Also, sometimes when I’m outdoors playing tennis, I don’t want too many distracting noises of crickets and bird chirping, so P2 without Speech Rescue will not have these sounds being heard by me. I also set the Transient Noise Management to Low in P2 (I have it on Medium in P1) so that I can hear the tennis ball pop more fully without being muted. Finally I set the Transition help in P2 to Low while I have it on Medium in P1 because I don’t want the max noise reduction to kick in too soon while I use P2 when I play tennis.
On your question 1, I’m happy with the default volume levels and balance of both my HAs so I don’t mess around with it. Hopefully somebody else who plays around with it more can help answer this question.
On your question 2, did you buy the OPN 1 with T-coil version? If not, then the Tcoil setting won’t work/be applicable for your OPN 1. If your phone has T-coil, be aware that it’s only effective if you have one of those traditional handset phones where the handset has a magnetic-type speaker to carry out the electromagnetic induction process. You need this magnetic type speaker because it creates an electromagnetic field when the speaker is energized/exercised with a sound signal, and this electromagnetic field that represents the sound signal in turn is induced into the nearby Telecoil of the hearing aid, which in turn, from this induction process, reproduces the original sound signal that was sent to the handset speaker back onto the hearing aid end.
But note that the speaker from most smart phones nowaday doesn’t use a strong magnet like the traditional telephone handset speaker. So most smart phones nowaday cannot induce an electromagnetic field from the phone to the HA’s telecoil. Most headphones, on the other hand, still use magnet type speakers, so the headphones may induce the magnetic field to the telecoil better.
You can tell whether a speaker you use (either from a phone handset or a pair of headphones) has a strong magnet or not because you’ll hear a two tone chime from your OPN when you apply that speaker right up against the OPN, denoting that it detects a magnetic field from that speaker and therefore automatically switches the OPN into the Autophone mode. How the non-tcoil version of the OPN picks up the magnetic sound wave better in the Autophone mode compared to the regular mode without a telecoil is beyond me, however. I just know that it sounds pretty good.
In my personal experience, every time I apply a pair of headphones against my OPN (Bose QuietComfort 3 NR), I definitely hear the Autophone chime telling me that my OPN detects the magnetic speakers from the headphones. The same with my Plantronics Voyager Focus phone headset, I hear the Autophone chime. However, when I apply my iPhone or Samsung Note 4 against my OPN, I don’t hear the chime. That’s how I know that the smart phones that I have don’t have a magnetic presence from their phone speakers.
Most people use the Tcoil to pick up the induced magnetic field generated from an induction loop they wear around their neck (connected to a sound source), or to pick up the induced magnetic field generated from an induction loop placed inside a room or a theater. For smart phone usage, people don’t use Tcoil for that as much anymore because direct streaming from the iPhone or Android phones via a neck streamer is the new way to do it now.
On question 3: Genie 2 selects which Speech Rescue configuration you should use for each of your OPN. In my case, because of my asymmetrical loss, it picks a different default configuration for the left ear (config 1) and for the right ear (config 7). You can tell which is the default Genie 2 picked out for you because it has that “power” icon above that configuration. I don’t know exactly what criteria Genie 2 uses to pick out what it thinks is the best configuration. I was surprised to see that it picked configuration 7 for my right ear which has severe to profound loss in the high end. The only reason I can think of is that it sees that my hearing is hopeless in that source band for configuration 7 but the destination band for config 7 is still salvageable (amplifiable), so it selected config 7 for my right ear. And it probably picks config 1 for my right ear because my loss there at 6-8 KHz actually improved compared to at 4KHz, so it probably wants the source band on my left ear to be around the 4KHz area.
While Genie 2 may think that it’s complementary to set Speech Rescue to have different configuration in each ear to cover the most high end range transposition, I, on the other hand, find it distracting to hear the same lowered sounds in different destination bands. Sometimes it feels like Speech Rescue works only on one side for me, so I prefer them to have the same destination band and I override the default Genie setting to do so. I think the configuration selection for Speech Rescue is very subjective and personal, and if what Genie 2 picked out for you sounds good or best, then leave it there. Otherwise, feel free to pick theconfiguration that you like the most. I don’t think there’s a wrong and right configuration in Speech Rescue.
Below is the 10 configuration bands again for reference in this discussion.
Why would Speech in Noise program sound different if you set everything in P1 identical to the Speech in Noise? I’m not sure, but you’re not seeing everything (all the parameters) in Genie 2. One noticeable difference is that P1 is based on the General VAC+ rationale, while it’s not sure which rationale is used for Speech in Noise. Maybe it’s a variation of the VAC+ specifically for Speech in Noise and not the General VAC+ like in P1. Maybe that’s why it still sounds different to you. Have you compared their Compression Ratio tables to see if those are the same or different? That may be another source as to why they sound different.
Is there a benefit in having SR for the Music Program? I really don’t recommend adding anything, let alone Speech Rescue, in the Music Program. This will add a lot of unnecessary colors to the music you’re listening to. Generally you’d want the music to sound as pure and unadulterated as possible, with minimal processing of any kind. You’ll probably notice that the compression ratios for the Music program are also much smaller than the other programs.
Do you really find Speech Rescue helpful for your loss? That’s because your loss is so flat that it’s pointless to lower any sound to the lower frequencies because your loss at the low frequencies is just as bad as the higher frequencies. All SR will do in your case is to unnecessarily add more sounds in the low end that you can already hear just as well in the high end, so it’s kinda like double trouble in this case, you’re hearing a same sounds in 2 different places where you can hear equally well.
Regarding your P3 -> Autophone telecoil, I didn’t see that as an option in my Genie 2 menu, but then my OPN does not have a tcoil in it. Nevertheless, I can still enable Autophone on my OPN, I just don’t need a dedicated program for it. It’s like the TV Box program, it’s there but is an add-on program to the existing 4 programs.
On your item 5 -> I wouldn’t be too gun-ho about adjusting gain levels at various frequencies unless it’s to fix a specific issue you have like overdrive/distortion/saturation at certain frequencies where you may want to pare the gain down in those frequencies. If you start adjusting them for no reason just to see, sometimes you’ll alter the intended purpose of the fitting rationales selected and used for the program it’s designed for, and mess things up for the worse as opposed to improving anything. Gain normalization across frequencies may not be what Oticon wants to do in the first place. There’s still a lot of things unknown programmed by Oticon deep inside of Genie 2 not seen at the surface. So be careful with Genie 2 because it’s like getting a hold of a loaded gun, you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot playing with it.
But either way you are right it should be in Online Sellers category. Okay, I will create a new thread in the Online Sellers category. Give me a little while.