Is it worthwhile to upgrade to Oticon More level 1 instead of 2?

Hearing Aids
#72

I’m afraid that at my point on the learning curve I can’t articulate differences very well, and certainly not approaching the specificity used by others here. I have downloaded Genie2 from which I can infer some things and have read the (weak) manual, but I haven’t got to the Audiology Online courses yet which I hope are more illuminating.

I have read the “More3 vs More1” (very long) thread and everything else I could find here about Oticon. I would agree with the premise that the 3’s are surely fine for many folks. I don’t find that notion controversial, actually I think it’s kinda obvious. But I also agree with the strategy offered by several posters, of choosing the highest level of technology, finances permitting, for capabilities potentially useful later and which allows for tuning needs/opportunities that the user can only identify and reach over a substantial amount of time and Audi adjustments. I went into my selection search with the express intent of finding the “best” hearing instruments (and Audiologist) I could. Probably my engineering background and what I saw in Genie also biased me.

After my hearing evaluation, my Audi discussed my speech-in-noise range and which More level would be a good fit. She indicated that I would fit fine into the More2, but with little room to spare, whereas the More1 gave me much more range and added flexibility. Please don’t query me for more specifics here; while I understood what she was showing me, I struggle with repeating all that w/o sounding ignorant. Oticon mistakenly shipped More3’s, so we said what the hell, let’s trial these as that will give me a starting reference point when we get to the More1’s later; so we did that.

The More3’s were comfortable and generally effective. But in a very noisy environment with many voices, they were overwhelmed even with volume at max and SoundBoost enabled. I also noticed that sound in my vehicle was borderline uncomfortably loud, yet I did not hear the turn-signal click. I could tell that I would definitely need the TV Adapter for film viewing (as I had needed in my previous Signal trial) My general impression was positive, but I felt that I probably wouldn’t mind more (this name makes its own puns).

When I was fitted with the replacement More1’s, the Audi and I agreed to keep the volume the same to avoid that skewing the comparison. We used the defaults and same Genie answers I had given before. I may have noticed her tweaking the additional handles which opened up with the More1’s - which I felt ok to use in a comparison as it is a differentiating feature. She may have also set a couple switches that Genie now provided only available with the 1’s.

I noticed a difference as soon as I drove my car: The sound was definitely more comfortable - and this time I heard the turn-signal. I had the “more open sound environment” experience without speech present that a poster to the More3 vs More1 thread described. I definitely heard more detail in the sounds around me; first in the car, then environmental sounds outside the house, and then more of the little sounds inside in the house. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to do the same loud many voices test, but I have noticed substantially better speech comprehension with voices on broadcast television and in films, with the volume set comfortably for my wife who hears like a bat - I definitely will need using the TV Adapter much less (good thing, they’re on back order forever).

I can’t begin to hypothesize why; I’m waiting to ask her. Probably, based on what my Audi told me, I would be happy enough with More2’s. But to the question of differences relative to the More3’s, IME so far there definitely are and these go beyond noise suppression with speech. Objectively speaking, for some folks these will not matter much and do not justify the added cost. Subjectively though, I’m enjoying those differences and I’ll take everything I can get. After all, this is why I went after the “More” in the first place.

That’s all I got so far.

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#73

actually this is the type of info I was hoping to find. I have Oticon Opn3 minirite & I also find the sound overwhelming when there is a lot of people talking & I’m trying to focus on the person talking to me.

I wear my HA while watching tv and still need to use CC to make sure I understand everything.

My audiologist adjusted the 3’s I have well, the sound is natural, not tinny, but I find some of the sounds too intense & loud (like a battery clock ticking) I look forward to getting the MORE 1’s and hope my experience is as good as yours has been.
I’m going to attempt to put my test results on my profile. Hope it is easy, I don’t have much time to do it today.
thanks again

#74

Setting up your audiogram is very easy. Follow the prompts entering the decibel level (30, 40, 50, 60, etc.) at every matching frequency point from your report (250, 500, 750, 1000, 1500, etc.).

#75

There are a lot of detailed answers to the OPs questions in this thread, too

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#76

I think there are 2 things working against you in your current scenario with the OPN 3. First off is that the OPN 3 does not have as much noise reduction on speech as you would need in a crowded place, so that’s why it’s making it harder for you to focus on the person of interest speaking.

But the other thing that I think is working against you more is that it seems like you don’t wear your OPN 3 often enough (as you have mentioned, only for listening to the TV or when there’s people around). To make it worse, I assume that being in a crowded room of people is not a regular event for you, but probably more likely rare occasions. So you just simply don’t get enough practice for your brain hearing to learn to get used to noisy places in the first place, so your brain hearing is not exercised enough to be able to perform when the noisy moments arise.

Of course there’s nothing you can do about being in a noisy place more often. So because of that, it becomes more important to get more help from the hearing aids. So hopefully going from the OPN 3 to the More 1 will give you the extra help that you need.

If you get exposed to noisy environments often so that your brain hearing gets used to those places more and perform better, then the More 2 would probably suffice. But if you rarely are in those noisy situations, then the More 1 may help give you an edge, as long as audi knows to increase your max Neural Noise Suppression level high enough and not just go with the lesser default value.

This is normal. I prefer watching TV with CC as well even if I could hear OK with my HAs. It becomes a habit, and it’s not necessarily a bad habit as long as you’re able to watch TV contents that have no CC and still be able to understand it for the most part, like the news or commentaries where the CC is either not available, or trailing the speaker so slowly that it’s not worth it to turn on.

This goes back to your choosing not to use your OPN 3 when you don’t have to, and only to use it to watch TV or when there are people around. If you wear it on a regular basis, those sounds that you consider loud like the battery clock ticking will become more normal and less loud to you. You can always adjust the volume down a little bit so it’s not annoying. Doing that is better than taking the OPN 3 off entirely.

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#77

Before I comment on this, I just want to point out this link below to a thread starting with post 364 where I went into the details of the differences between the More 1, 2, and 3, to be used as reference for my discussion below:

The first question I’d have is whether your audi sets the Virtual Outer Ear to Aware or Balanced. The More 2 and 3 only has 1 configuration, which is Balanced. The More 1 has 3 configurations, and if it’s set to Aware, then you’d be able to hear more sounds around you in the situations that you define as Easy Environment. I originally thought it was not much big of a deal, but @JeremyDC in a later post commented that he found Aware much better for his liking than Balanced.

The other thing is the Sound Enhancer. The More 3 has only Comfort, the More 2 has Comfort and Balanced, and the More 1 has both of those plus Detail. Again, if your audi set the Sound Enhancer on your More 1 to Detail, and the More 3 only has Comfort, then that would also help open up the sound field further for you, even with Neural Noise Suppression enabled.

The next thing that may help more is that the More 1 has 4 estimators for the Spatial Sound to help you locate the direction where the sound comes from more accurately than the 2 estimators on the More 2 and 3. This may also give you a clearer sense of sounds if you can tell where they come from better, you may notice them more.

I think those 3 things above is what makes you notice more sounds on the More 1 compared to the More 3. There is another significant difference between the More 1 and 3, the Clear Dynamics feature in the More 1 and 2 where you get 113 dB SPL wide dynamic range input that you don’t get in the More 3. But this should be more noticeable when listening to louder music which would give you better clarity, not necessarily the ability to hear more sounds clearly in more easy environments.

The last main difference is that the More 1 has 64 channel processing while the More 2 and 3 has only 48 channels. I’m not sure if the human ear has the discerning ability to notice this difference or not. But nevertheless, even if it’s not obvious, it may still lend to the overall “je ne sais quoi” quality difference that you can feel but not hear.

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#78

Thx a lot for the detailed reply! Your explanation makes sense and I will interrogate her at my next appt.

Your reference to “a quality that cannot be described easily” is intriguing. Individuals with the same measured hearing do not necessarily hear exactly the same. My wife’s hearing is so inexplicably acute and intelligibly precise that people find her scary. Harry Connick hears subtleties in pitch and tone that few people can. I suspect that the art in hearing aid fittings comes in with tuning the instrument into that place where the patient both hears and also feels intangibly “comfortable”. While some of that can be attributed to acclimation, I wonder if it’s every bit as much a matter of finding just the right combination of the capabilities in an excellent instrument.

Or, as I indicated in my previous post, I may just be ignorant. But it’s a nice rationalization for justifying the best technology and audiologist. I guess I’ll find out.

#79

@mingus: Mine is not a detailed reply. I’ll state only 2 things;

  1. At the risk of being accused of “Oticon fanboyism”, I’m very happy that I upgraded my initial More3s to More1s. I believe, also, that there is a “je ne sais quoi” factor. I’m also happy my audiologist has handles with which to address future changes in my hearing;
  2. I sincerely wish that you enjoy the performance of your More1 hearing instruments as I am enjoying mine. I wear mine, on average, for about 18 hours a day now, and I don’t notice them. All I notice is that I can usually understand what people are saying to me, and I’m enjoying playing my musical instruments very much, just using the default program.

Best of continuing luck to you.

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#80

Are the MORE 1 sound enhancer features mentioned options you can chose in your iphone oticon program and be able to change them depending on which environment you are in?

Or is this something your provider programs into the HA that is on all the time?

#81

They aren’t available in the ON app only by way of the fitting software

#82

Thank you for the kind thoughts. And for affirming that the intangible factor is not just my imagination. :slight_smile:

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#83

Hi Mingus I totally believe it depends on the skill, knowledge, training and care to do the best adjustments they can the person fitting the aids has in programming them to sound “natural”.

The 1st person I ever saw was a hearing aid dispenser back in 2015. The sound was so unnatural that I put them in a drawer when I got them home. She adjusted them twice in office but it didn’t really make it much better.

The 2nd person was an audiologist in 2017. He was amazing, had very impressive equipment to fine tune the settings, but I still didn’t use the aids all that much, as I should have. I think the main reason was having to change the batteries, the HA getting caught in my hair.

The 3d person I saw in 2019 was a dispenser as well when I hoped the ITC would not be as noticeable or catch in my hair. I only went to him because #2 wasn’t available to go to with my plan at the time. I got one In the canal hearing aid but the sound wasn’t set up right it was really unnatural & he didn’t have the same equipment as #2 to fine tune it… I had to wait till 2020 for the 2nd aid.

the 4th I went to was closer to me also a dispenser but a horrible person. His testing equipment the button stuck, he got annoyed at me for it not popping up,(holding it down which I wasn’t doing)
Once the aids arrived he complained it wasn’t really worth his time to fit me, he wouldn’t get paid much for doing the order/fitting.
He had a problem even finding the cable to program the HA. He adjusted the sound twice that day, but when I complained they still sounded tinny his response was “you’ll get used to it” My response was to call Epic and get someone else to help me that cared about people wearing HA comfort.

I found out after getting the HA from guy 4, that I could have seen guy #2 who was back on the plan that year.
It ended up costing me $180 to have Guy #2 fit them properly. They sounded better, but clogged up easily from ear wax, plus had tiny batteries which were difficult to change out, so I went back to wearing the BTE oticons.

#84

I’ll add to what @SpudGunner said that I had a chance to very thoroughly trial the OPN 3 in parallel with when I own the OPN 1, so I had the luxury of even doing on-the-fly A/B comparison between the two, putting on the OPN3 for a while then swapping to the OPN 1 next, back and forth several times in the exact same environment at the same time. I definitely felt that “je ne sais quoi” difference between the two in favor of the OPN 1 like @SpudGunner experienced between the More 1 and 3 , even though I thought that the OPN 3 was still also a very respectable HA that can stand on its own. The OPN 1 was just more open and has better clarity. Not by a mile, but enough to notice a difference clearly.

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#85

Excellent that your Medicare covers the More 2’s. I have the More 1’s and love them! And, for those who have been spending over $6k for any hearing aids, look around - I purchased my More 1’s for $3300 at Best Phonak Starkey Oticon Siemens | Widex & More Hearing Aids Brand

#86

Wow, what a great price from a brick and mortar HCP. Thanks for sharing!

#87

yes I’m happy too, if they actually cover it for what I was quoted by epic their 3d party hearing aid company. It would be lovely to have my understanding of speech improve not just amplify the sound

#88

I’m in the process of a More trial. My Audi suggested using batteries rather than the rechargeable HA’s but he’s given me a choice after the trial. He thinks the benefit of using batteries rather than rechargeable HA’s is the problem of forgetting to charge them overnight. Batteries are always available. I’ve always used batteries and don’t have a problem with them but I’d like to know other’s opinion about rechargeable batteries. What are the major benefits of rechargeable HA’s?

#89

I think this question has been hashed out quite thoroughly already. You can probably find quite a few threads to discuss this if you search the forum. My impression, including my personal experience, is that many people are OK with disposable batteries but when they followed the trend and tried out rechargeable systems, they learn to like it a lot after a while and have no regret with their switch.

I think the key thing is to have a backup charger so you’re not dead in the water in case the main charger is dead. Forgetting to charge overnight is not as big of a deal because even a 15 minute quick charge can get you back on track for a couple of hours to tide you over until the next opportunities for more quick charges.

#90

I’ll say the benefit is not having to carry around batteries. Assuming you don’t sleep with your HAs in, what do you do with your HAs every night when you go to bed? I would suggest just putting your charger in wherever that location is that you put your aids, so when you go to sleep, you drop your HAs in that charger. Voila! Also, there’s a whole thread for this which may be more appropriate:

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#91

I’m tacking this on to this thread because creating a new thread doesn’t seem justified and this appeared to be the best place should someone be searching for More comparison info . . .

I spoke yesterday with my audiologist about my changed experience going from the More 3’s to the More 1’s. From the difference in the listening experience, I thought she may have increased the gain, but she had not. She confirmed that she had intentionally avoided making any changes whatsoever from the defaults, to avoid skewing my comparison.

I felt that the More 1’s were a lot more “open,” to the point that I was even a tad startled. My audiologist explained that this was exactly what had happened: I was literally hearing more at exactly the same level of gain. When Genie prescribes for the More 1, features like the Sound Enhancer, Spatial Enhancer, and Spacial Sound are opened up in MoreSound Intelligence and, as determined from the Listening Preferences, the HA settings will be changed and enhanced, potentially to a substantial degree.

Speech-in-noise is not high on my priority list. My audiologist and I are shooting for effectively handling this within the P1 program, but she said it is likely that I will want a custom speech-in-noise program (the default was not very helpful). She has already set one up to try, it is set to “Full Directional” in MoreSound Intelligence which effectively disables the DNN and turns the More into a beam-forming HA.

For those for whom speech-in-noise is important and the open paradigm not very significant, then the choice between the More levels may come down to simply how much noise suppression and speech clarification (from the DNN) is needed in their environment. For that matter, if speech-in-noise was my topmost priority (like when I worked in a large machine shop) and the open paradigm not particularly of interest, I would probably be looking at a more traditional beam-forming HA.

YMMV and no doubt will.

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