hi i have hearing aids phonak for
a mild loss …
I am fine …
courage
Yeah, that’s hard, I’m sorry.
Let them know at your follow-up that you don’t feel like they are helping you and you cannot in good conscience KEEP them given that at this point they are not helping you and bring up your concerns about the trial period. They will probably recommend either extending the trial period or swapping them for something else.
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I think I’ve decided in my plan. I have a follow-up now. If they can’t fix the white noise I’m going to return them. I’m also going to post my new audiogram (hopefully I’ll get one,) and if you all think it still looks problematic I’ll return them.
I’m done with my follow-up. The audiologist said she thought the white noise was floor noise, and the reason it went away when I changed the setting is that changing the settings dropped the gain. They were originally set at 90%, so she moved them up to 100%. She thinks my hearing loss is so mild that they have to be turned up to get any benefit, so the floor noise us inevitable.
She did switch it to Pure Sound, but didn’t recommend that because it wouldn’t help in noisy rooms.
She said I could return them and order a pair of Oticons, but music wouldn’t sound as good.
Welp.
Well the first thing that comes to mind, is if it really was floor noise, then your going to experience this on any other HA as well, honestly there’s no way the noise could be so so loud that it was getting in way of your hearing, but anyways as for her advice on Oticon HAs not having a very good music program that’s something only you will know after a trial, Oticonians on here will tell you the More has a very good music program,but definitely you’ll need to switch to another brand to know for sure which suits you best.
Good luck
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I’ve been told by an audiologist of 30 years that Phonak are good for not producing floor noise.
Not sure if that depends on type of hearing loss tho.
He says Phonak cope better with very mild losses.
I have more severe hearing loss, and originally had an audiologist fit new top of range model Phonak audeo which were woeful for me, no voice recognition, could just hear motorbikes Buses and dogs way louder. i sent them back. Researched more myself. my research choice led me to Widex moments 440, I fit them myself use a P receiver and can now hear conversations, TV without weird connections and even Movies at the cinema. The whole range of notes on a grand piano, with only one or two notes seeming out of tune. However, I could not have achieved this by going back and forth to an audiologist as I would be bankrupt by now. It must be down to individual preference, because for me the widex worked better than i even expected to achieve
Calvino
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I’m sorry. I’m frustrated on your behalf. It’s not true that the noise floor is inevitable. Did you return them?
The oticons might do a better job of hitting your targets on first fit. Who knows. Music will sound fine.
What are your other provider options in your area?
I’ve learnt that sometimes what you see on screen isn’t how things actually are. It’s very important to be diplomatic and kind as a clinician when you’re reviewing a colleagues work. You don’t know what the client asked for in the appointment and what reasons they might have had for programming things in a certain way. Sometimes the information is incomplete. I would always err on the side of caution.
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Hello threedimen,
Your audiologist gave you part of the answer about the cause of the white noise/floor noise.
It’s maybe because of the dynamic compressor that you have floor noise. There is less nuances than in natural sound. An example would be the differences of nuances between electronic music VS classical music. The electronic music sounds like a wall of sound.
The classical music sounds more like the nuances we can hear in nature between a leaf and a truck.
Same for TV commercials VS movie.
A good way to avoid floor noise/white noise is to adjust the hearing aids more like classical music than electronic music 
Hope it helps a little bit to understand
ps: I don’t know your audiogram neither how HA are adjusted so I’m just giving how it works and is a common issue.
Ok, not much difference what I said before, always CR/CK issues that brings sounds too much for threedimen hearing loss , especially under 1kHz which is not as bad.
threedimen would have more benefit with a frequency algorithm and linear/semi-linear compression and won’t have that “white noise”
So, you don’t look at a lot of those, huh?
What do you mean?
Please enlighten me with the technical solution you have to offer except “go elsewhere”, buy another brand or the REM should be on the target ( you know what I think about it).
I just mean that the gain that is there isn’t that compressed. But also I saw you were in France and my understanding is that real-ear measures aren’t widely used there yet? Talk about opportunity to differentiate your practice.
Are you the guy who doesn’t believe in cochlear tonotopicity? I forget.
Also, the Widex mics have a super low noise floor and the DAC sampling doesn’t happen until the input levels are higher than this, so the bit about ‘hearing the noise floor’ is nonsense too.
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It is not that compressed if you consider the classic method but it is with more understanding of the mechanisms of the inner ear. Dynamic compression is in many cases not necessary. (one of the reason loved the analog HA)
As I said already in previous messages real-ear measurement is just a measurement between the canal entry (or end of earmold) to the ear drum. That’s about it. It’s a good way to check what’s happening but if the method in the first place is flawed (which I think) it won’t make the adjustment any better.
About the “cochlear tonotopicity” is not a question of believing or not. We are not talking about religion. It just doesn’t make sense with the psychoacoustics observations. That’s one of the reason I think this theory is flawed.
Hearing aids products are great ,good tech but it could be used way better than it is. Hope OP found a solution for his issue
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Yes, you’ve linked to the 1986 cochlear sampling theory in the past. Have you read research from that has taken place in the subsequent 36 years? Including piles of studies that directly measure the motion of the basilar membrane which couldn’t be completed in the 80s because of technological limitations. Lots of interesting advancements looking at the non-linear, compressive activity of the intact cochlea, looking at differences in activity at the apex and the base of the basilar membrane, and yet generally consistent with a tonotopic response. You’re right, we’re not talking about religion.
But it doesn’t even matter what the cochlea is doing if you can provide data supporting your new (unknown, proprietary) method as providing better outcomes for patients. So do that. Do the work before you make the claims. How are you objectively measuring outcomes? What are you control groups?
But yeah, I can see how confirming the output of the hearing aids at the eardrum isn’t useful if you don’t have a consistent idea of what you want the hearing aids to be DOING at the eardrum.
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Please can you put the studies you talk about in the post or send me a private message? So I can read it.
What bugs me it’s how the hearing aids are usually adjusted.
One frequency band is “broken” the first move is to put more volume at that frequency band.
If the analog-digital converters (= hair cells) are broken at that frequency band, why would someone put more volume at that frequency band? Will the extra gain will be transmitted to the auditory chain and then to the brain?
Thank god now hearing aids have frequency compressor & transposer 