Yes, great point @e1405 ! Thanks for pointing that out because it’s a salient point that may not be obvious to folks!
No it’s not… only when music is playing which is why i think it’s feedback
I can look more in the programming forum, but while you’re mentioning this about how feedback analyzer works:
When doing this at home, where are these noises output from? Trying to think through logistics on this. Is this something output from the HA’s themselves? or need to have speakers on the laptop running genie? or…?
Genie 2 sends the white noise from the program directly to the hearing aids, which then gets amplified and sends out to the receivers, and you will hear it. This white noise will or will not be picked up by the hearing aids’ mics, depending on your prescribed amplification, the actual amplification performance of the hearing aids, and whether the fitting you use (dome or custom molds or whatever) will cause this white noise to leak out and be picked up by your HAs’ mics to form a feedback loop or not.
So everything is done for you and you don’t need any external speakers or anything. You just need a quiet place to run the Feedback Analyzer. If you run it in a noisy place, it will notice and complain, but it will tolerate a little bit of environmental noise, just not too much.
After the feedback analyzer is done running, it’ll ask you whether you’ll accept the result and enable Feedback Shield or not. But again, the order of use is to use the new Sound Optimizer Feedback Manager first with Normal value. If you can hear the fluttering and it’s frequent enough to bother you, then set the Feedback Manager to LOW. If it still bothers you, then turn it OFF. If it now stops bothering you but you now no longer have any feedback protection, then start running the Feedback Analyzer and enable the Feedback Shield instead.
If you don’t have the fluttering issue with the new Sound Optimizer Feedback Management in Normal, but it’s still not enough to suppress the feedbacks for you because your hearing loss is too heavy and the high levels of amplification gives you feedback despite the Feedback Manager set to Normal, then you can also run the Feedback Analyzer and enable the Feedback Shield ON TOP of running the Sound Optimizer Feedback Manager full scale at Normal value.
Hope this clarifies the feedback strategy that should be carried out with the OPN S, More and Real.
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@Volusiano Thank you, I very much appreciate your detail and patience in replying. It’s so helpful!
In this particular case for headphones, I’m assuming I run the sound optimizer while wearing the headphones right while tweaking a specific profile?
The Sound Optimizer Feedback Management is set for all situations in your programs, so the idea is that in a program (like the default General P1 program for example), you just turn it on and set it to Normal one time only in the beginning for that program and it’s always on, regarding whether you have or don’t have your headphones on. You don’t “run” anything with the Sound Optimizer Feedback Manager, you just set it (to Normal) and forget it and it should work seamlessly from then on for you in all situations.
If the Sound Optimizer Feedback Manager works fine for you in normal listening without the headphones on, but as soon as you put headphones on, you start hearing feedbacks, then I would still leave everything the same, but now add the built-in Tcoil program to the More and going forward, every time I use the headphones, I switch to the Tcoil program, feedback problem solved, no change in anything else.
The only thing you need to “run” for feedback control is IF AND ONLY IF you decide that the Sound Optimizer Feeback Management is not working out for you, and you need to either replace it or supplement it with the old Feedback Shield. That’s when you have to “run” the Feedback Analyzer to have the HAs generate the white noise test and determine how to set the feedback gain margin control for our HAs. This Feedback Analyzer “run” is basically the prerequisite “setup” step in order to tell the Feedback Shield how to work when you enable it after the Feedback Analyzer is “run”.
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@Volusiano I couldn’t seem to find anything called “Sound Optimizer Feedback Management” in the app. I do see “Feedback Analyzer” and in the advanced settings I did see this:
Is this what you are talking about? If so, it appears to be on already. I’ll try the telecoil program suggested earlier.
@Volusiano Ok I added the “T-Coil” program to P4 slot and left my other 3 intact. As soon as I flip to the program, I get an awful buzzing sounds in both hearing aids. Oddly as i tilt my head around, the level of buzzing changes. It’s the weirdest thing.
I did some google searches and people say that this is due to interference in the room I’m in. However no matter where I go in my house the buzzing is still present.
I’m not sure what I did wrong.
Yes, the Feedback Management with Off, Low and Normal IS the Sound Optimizer Feedback Management feature. They don’t say Sound Optimizer in there because they don’t want to confuse people and want people to think that this is now their mainstream feedback management program. The name Sound Optimizer came from Oticon’s marketing brochure. It was introduced as the key upgrade in the OPN S from the OPN, and Oticon called it the OpenSound Optimizer. Then when the More was released, Oticon naturally renamed it to the MoreSound Optimizer. And of course with the Real release, it became the RealSound Optimizer. They’re all the same thing, so I just call it the Sound Optimizer Feedback Management (to differentiate it from the old Feedback Shield, which is what the Feedback Analyzer function is for), although Genie 2 only says Feedback Management.
I don’t know why you have the buzzing. The fact that the level of the buzzing changes when you tilt your head around implies that there’s a magnetic field of some sort around your house. Are you wearing a pacemaker or some kind of medical device that is battery run? Or maybe there’s some kind of appliance or device in your house that’s generating this electromagnetic field. Or maybe a very strong transformer somewhere near your house or neighborhood. You should try it outside your house, maybe at a park in wide open space away from interference, or maybe at work, to see if the buzzing goes away.
But if you ignore the buzzing for a minute and put your headphones on and play some music, do you hear the tcoil picking up the music from the headphones nevertheless?
It’s hard to tell since the buzzing is so loud. I’m could hear some music playing when I played it through my headphones and was wearing it.
Trying the Tcoil program somewhere outdoors in the open where there’s supposed to be no electromagnetic interference is just an exercise in curiosity. The reality is that it still has to work inside your house, or else it’s no good for you anyway.
I would at this point try something else. I would create a new customized “headphones” program that’s a copy of the default General P1 program, and in there you can start making adjustment to eliminate the feedback. If you already have the Feedback Management setting to Normal and it’s causing feedback, chances are you will also hear it if it’s switched to Low, but it doesn’t hurt to try. If Low doesn’t help either, you can try to put it back to Normal, then run the Feedback Analyzer WITH YOUR HEADPHONES on. This will ensure that the condition of wearing your headphones will be taken into account automatically by the Feedback Analyzer when it determines the gain reduction after the white noise scan, in order to guarantee no feedback with the headphones worn on your head.
Your gain margin will probably be reduced significantly (you’ll see a greyed out area on top of your gain curve in the Fine Tuning section (see example screenshot below), but it’s probably OK as long as you only enable this Feedback Shield functionality in your customized Heaphones program and not in the other programs. You can also experiment with either leaving the newer (Sound Optimizer) Feedback Management setting to Normal, or change it to Low or OFF to see if it makes any difference, but whatever you set for this, apply it only to your customized Headphones program, and leave it to Normal (or whatever it currently is set to) in the other programs if that’s how you have it right now.
Nice to have the DIY equipment, huh? You can experiment with lots of things very quickly at home, very convenient!
I tried this today while completely outside, 1 mile away from my house. I could still hear a little buzzing sound in both ears. I live in Seattle, so it’s not rural but it’s also not hyper dense like new york city.
thanks will give this a shot and report back. One initial question is how do I copy a profile in Genie?
You can export it, save it, and import that profile again, which creates a new ID in Genie 2.
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@e1405 gave you the tip on copying a profile so I don’t need to answer it here. But in case you meant “How do you copy a program (not a profile)” in Genie 2, then you simply go to Fitting → Program Manager, make sure you have 1 of the 4 programs clear and available. Then just click on the program you want to copy so that it’s highlighted, then click the Copy button just below the 4 programs and it’ll copy the highlighted program to the first empty program spot. Then you can rename any of the 4 programs at the bottom to differentiate them.
It’s interesting that you could still hear a little buzzing, but apparently you’re implying that it’s not as loud as before when you were in the house. If it’s truly electromagnetic interference and not due to bad hearing aids, then I can only guess it’s something you wear on your body. I wonder if it’s from your phone? But it shouldn’t be because of the fact that the buzzing sound is not as loud when you’re out of the house. If it were your phone, it would be just as loud anywhere you have the phone with you.
I don’t suppose you took the headphones with you and tried it out there if the buzzing is not as loud as before huh? Just wondering if you might be able to get the tcoil to work with the headphones better in that case or not.
Anyway, it’s also possible that there’s an issue with your hearing aids’ tcoils, although the fact that both of them behave the same way is rather weird. If your Mores are still under warranty, I would visit your HCP and see if the issue can be duplicated there or not. If you can duplicate it there, I would ask for a warranty repair or replacement. It may be operator error somehow, too, although I can’t think of how. But if it’s operator error, your HCP should be able to figure it out for you as well.
Why do it this way? Wouldn’t it be better, easier, to transmit the sound to your hearing aids?
Sound through hearing aids will never be better than dedicated headphones esp over the ear ones. Eg. HAs have no bass
Your hearing aids may be set to have 0 gain on the low end. Your audiologist could set up a test program to play with, for music, that had some gain down to the lowest frequency. Sometimes the pros forget that the transmitted programs are not getting any natural bass sound and cant be set up like air conduction programs. They cant just copy another program unless they manually add the low frequencies.
Wait, are you disputing that full size over the ear headphones will not always have better audio quality compared to streaming audio through hearing aids?