New Oticon More 1 hearing aids

Hearing Aids
1

I’m about 6 hours in on wearing new Oticon More 1 HAs, coming from Phonak Marvel 70s. I’ve had my Phonaks since November 2019.

After a remote session last Wednesday with my audiologist he told me there wasn’t more he could do to reduce background noise. I’ve also struggled to hear the cashier at point of sale (food counter, grocery/retsil store cashier. Restaurants are horrible however having the Phonak Roger Select iN microphone did help in a restaurant.

My audiologist encouraged me to try the Oticon More HAs and was willing to ship a pair for me to try for the next month. I agreed.

The HAs came pre programmed so all I had to do was pair with my phone and wear.

Some improvements I’ve already noticed in this short time

** Voices & music sound more natural - not so tinny
** Word recognition seems to be a bit clearer
** I went to a restaurant for lunch - I didn’t struggle to communicate as I did with the Phonaks. Still too much background noise but the audiologist says that can be corrected with a remote session.

If you are a Phonak user, no doubt you have the myPhonak app in your phone. Here are some pluses/minuses I’ve noticed with the Oticon On app.

** I have always hated how agonizing slow it took the the Phonak app to connect to the HAs to make a program change or alter a program. The Oticon app STAYS connected, and if I pull the menu down ffom the top of my android phone, there is a mini Oticon menu there that allows me to increase/decrease volume or change programs.

** Unlike myPhonak the Oticon On app does not allow you to customize an existing program and save it as a custom program.

** In my phone’s bluetooth menu, with Phonak I had the ability to turn on/off calls and audio to the HAs, that option does not appear to be there for Oticon. What this means is when there is an audible notification for new email, text, news, weather - I hesr it in my ears. That can get annoying after a few hours.

Just some feedback on my short term use of Oticon More 1 HAs. So far there is an improvement over the Phonak Marvel 70s.

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@orgullodemexico: Don’t you think it’s a bit premature to be offering opinions on such a brief trial? After all, your opinions may prejudice another reader who is not reading your posts in a discerning way.

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I have been wearing More1 aids since June of 2021, and Oticon aids since about this time of year of 2010. And every time I get new aids it takes me at least a month to get used to them. And that has been true for every time I have gotten aids for the over 18 years I have been wearing aids. The More1 aids have been my best aids yet, but they aren’t for everyone, I have friends that just can’t get use to what I call the surround sound that the More aids. Give yourself at least a month and go to every possible environment that you can before you make your decision.

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At first, I thought the remote session you talked about above was for the More. But then it seems like it was for the Marvel.

It’s surprising to hear, however, that the Marvel couldn’t be adjusted to reduce more background noise to you, within the context that you didn’t find the same background noise to be a particularly worse issue for you on the More, on account that the More embraces the open paradigm and lets you hear more background noise, the same background noise that you were trying to get rid of on the Marvel.

So did you have less background noise on the Marvel compared to the More, but even with less background noise, the speech clarity is still not as good on the Marvel compared to speech clarity on the More, despite more background noise on the More?

So perhaps your real issue with the Marvel is not so much about reducing background noise, but more about increasing speech clarity, which you found to be better with the More but not as good with the Marvel.

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I believe the Phonaks are a lower technology level. Could that have restricted their noise reduction capabilities?

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@prodigyplace: Exactly, Bruce … Exactly!, but BEWARE! I have been gutted like a trout for saying as much in the open Forum, before!

:fishing_pole_and_fish:

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Yes. That is correct. The level 70 loses the automatic in speech in loud noise feature. It is possible to switch it to a manual program, from memory - called “speech in loud noise”, but it is something the wearer has to do themselves. The top of the range M90 would do this automatically.

However the M70 should still activate the speech in noise program. The difference is that the speech in loud noise has a higher threshold for activation. I think it’s 67db.

I would be more worried about why he isn’t getting results from the More1. The More1 is a much newer aid than the Marvel - being a generation or 2 ahead. I believe the audiologist can’t have set them optimally.

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@orgullodemexico: It may be that your first fitting is not optimal. Because it was done by an “off-shore” fitter going by your audiogram, that is a strong possibility. But, even so, you haven’t been wearing the Mores for enough time to allow your brain to decode the new sounds being presented to it.

It’s just too early … all judgement should be suspended for at least a month, IMO.

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I must be missing something. I even re-read the OP.

The only negatives for the Oticon I noticed was not being able to customize existing programs in the app and not being able to turn off individual sounds in the OS.

Neither of those are a result of getting used to the aids.

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@prodigyplace: This “background noise” may be inherent to Oticon’s OpenSound approach. And it definitely can take some getting used to, coming from the Phonak environment, so I must beg to differ with your assertion.

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Ok. I just focused on the positive part and missed that.

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Yes definitely there is some background noise when ever you wear the Oticon aids with the open sound paradigm. Oticon aids are designed to give you what I call surround sound, but they still bring speech to the forefront, but I have to admit before I completely got use to them, they seemed to lock on the wrong person talking at times. But I learned to choose who I wanted to hear.

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13

I assume, when streaming, you can lower tge sound from the ha microphones? A little more than a week before I get mine.

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Yes, the volume can be changed on the aids, the remote control, which I have, the iPhone control panel, and the connect clip, which I also have. If your aids are rechargeable then you will need the remote, the iPhone control panel, the connect clip, or the app to mute the aids.

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15

Thanks for sharing your early thoughts on your new hearing aids. Contrary to some, I think first impressions are extremely valuable. I’ll also be interested to hear your thoughts after you’ve used them for a while

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I just press the volume button down and it mutes as it turns the mic off/ lowest setting.

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That doesn’t work with rechargeable battery aids only with disposable batteries aids.

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Ah interesting to know! Glad I’m getting the T version of the More 1 miniRITEs tomorrow then… The loss of that feature would annoy me as I stream a lot and it’s so handy just being able to mute them and then turn back on with a touch of a button.

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I haven’t lost the ability, I have the remote control 3, and the connect clip and also the iPhone control panel has that capability. To be honest I learned to hard way that it is best not to use the rocker buttons on my aids no more that possible. They go bad if over used.

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The long press function can be enabled from the Buttons and Indicators screen in Genie 2.

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