I received my Intent 1 yesterday. 24h later, here’s where I am:
I really like the “Wind suppression”. That’s the very first thing I noticed when I got out of the audiologist office.
Pairing with my iPhone and TV Adapters worked as expected. For people that don’t want to keep their charger handy to put them in pairing mode…just hold on each HA the button for 3 seconds to turn them off and then press each button 2 seconds to turn them on.
Being able to connect them to my Mac without a Connectclip is just awesome!
I haven’t tried enough to speak on my phone through the hearing aids, but I’ll come back to give some feedback on this (and try the double tap on the ear to answer the phone)
I’ve been wearing them for 14hours so far today and battery is at 48%
As far as hearing wise…I’ll need to go back and see the audiologist for adjustments. I wasn’t impressed today with my initial adjustments. I feel like the left HA doesn’t give me enough sound in noisy environment. I’ll report back on this once adjusted.
Thanks for sharing your Intent 1 experience. Please keep sharing more as you spend more time with it.
I notice that your hearing loss is just lightly moderate. I wish I had just a light hearing loss like you do. Do you have a big issue with speech in noise at all to begin with?
Just to clarify, you can connect the Intent with your Mac because your Mac does support MFI just like the iOS devices do, right? It’s not through the new BT LE Audio protocol, right? Then how is it different than with your old OPN S1? Couldn’t you connect your S1 with the Mac as well?
You are correct, I can connect them to my Mac through MFI. The OPN S didn’t support that with a Mac, I had to go through a Connectclip for this to work.
I had a lot of difficulty with speech in noise. When I got my OPN S, that was night and day! But I remember that I had to go back to the audiologist 5-6 times for adjustments before I was satisfied.
I think what’s strange maybe is that my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) and iPhone 15 Pro Max both come with Bluetooth 5.3 (Bluetooth has had LE Audio since Bluetooth 5.2). But Apple doesn’t seem to officially support BT LE Audio even though it uses chipsets that have that capability. I hope they eventually do.
I have been trialing the Lumity 90 for about a week and the Intent 1 for a couple of days now. First time user.
Lumity 90 - Pros: I really like AutoSense 5.0 it seems to accurately classify the environment and intuitively make sense. Such as the ability to adjust setting based on the environment and particularly because several of the settings can be adjusted and updated with the app for future use.
Cons: It seems to me that the sound quality is slightly off. At first, I thought this was due to my lack of high frequency hearing but after using the Intent I believe it’s more than that. Difficult to quantify but sounds just seem off slightly and not natural. Limited experience but any change in my ability to understand speech seems to be small. This could be due to the fact that I’m only at 90% of target to allow for adjustment. With 100% target my audiologist’s voice sounded more like Mickey Mouse and very unnatural so we reduced the gain slightly.
Intent 1: Pros: I really love the sound quality it seems much more natural to me. When listening to TV last night it also seemed like the voices just jumped out of the TV. To be fair I could understand speech on the TV better with the Lumity also but more subtle difference.
Cons: I find that the Intent 1 has a low-level noise “noise floor” that is perceptible under quite conditions. Any low level input, such as tapping on wood or hair scratch mics causes the noise. If totally quite it will go away. I also found that by switching to “Comfort Program” it will also go away. My initial take is that this is due to the slightly lower insertion gains (approximately 12-14 dB) as compared to insertion gains of approximately 18-20 dB for General Program. Part of my logic for this is due to the fact that floor noise is also present in “MyMusic Program” which has most program setting turned off but has a high level of insertion gain upto 35 dB at higher frequencies.
I also have a problem with hair scratching noise for both Lumity and Intent HAs but it is worse with the Intent. On a couple of occasions, I heard popping and crackling noise with the Intent. It seems that my hair is cut at the perfect length to enter the mic holes. The best solution I have found for reducing this noise is with eyeglasses such that they push the HA out slightly from my head.
In closing I really like the Intent 1 for their sound quality but would love to hear any suggestions or input from others regarding the low-level noise and ways to reduce if possible. If this is not possible is there another brand of HA that has a similar sound quality?
Otherwise, I may just have to adjust to switching to Comfort mode when I’m in quiet situations.
My understanding about the issue with floor noise is that if the hearing aids are put in a directional beam forming mode, this manipulation of the mics to achieve beam forming cause a natural roll-off in the low frequency end, meaning the volume in the low end is reduced, just as a natural phenomenon of microphones directionality manipulation. The hearing aids is designed to compensate for this natural roll-off by boosting up the volume in the low frequency region where the roll-off occurs. But by doing so, it raises the floor noise level as a byproduct of this action.
Normally in a noisy situation where it’s typical to engage directional beam forming to focus on speech and block out noise, it’s noisy enough that this volume compensation act which results in a louder floor noise is not noticeable because the noisy environment tends to drown out the floor noise anyway. But in a more quiet setting where there is no other noise to drown it out, the floor noise becomes noticeable. Usually, many folks with hearing losses in the high frequency range still have good enough hearing in the low frequency range, so these folks tend to notice this floor noise in a quiet setting.
I suspect that if it’s totally quiet, the aid switches to omni mode, so there is no directional beam forming going on, and therefore no natural low frequency roll-off, hence no compensated action on the low frequency volume that would boost this floor noise along with it. As to what triggers the aids to switch over to directional beam forming in the first place, I don’t know. You mentioned a tap on wood or a hair scratch on the mics. I just don’t see how those things would force the aids to go into directional beam forming mode. One experiment you can try if you want, is to have your HCP change the Directionality Setting in the MoreSound Intelligence in Genie 2 from Neural Automatic to Fixed Omni. This way, you don’t allow the aids to decide when to go into Full Directional under any circumstances. If this solves the issue for you, at least you will have confirmed that the culprit is the Full Directional value that Neural Automatic might resort to Full Directional sometimes, and Fixed Omni other times, or maybe even something in between.
I don’t necessarily suggest that you use Fixed Omni as a permanent solution, because you will then lose out the benefit of Neural Automatic which can pick and choose the appropriate directionality setting for you depending on the environment you’re in. The suggestion to try Fixed Omni is just a mean to debug and confirm that it’s the Full Directional value that is causing the noise floor. So that’s another way to verify it, change it to Full Directional to see if you can observe the floor noise, then change to Fixed Omni to see if you can observe the floor noise go away. Once you have verified this, then you can make a better informed decision of what you want to do to workaround the issue.
The use of the Comfort program would be another good workaround. Apparently the Comfort program reduces the gain compared to what’s in the General program, thereby negates again the floor noise that might have been boosted due to the directional beam forming low frequency roll-off phenomena.
As for the MyMusic program making the floor noise more audible, it’s set to Fixed Omni in the first place, so what you hear is not the floor noise artificially boosted to compensate for the low frequency roll-off in the directional beam forming mode. It’s more like because gain is boosted to a higher level in the first place for MyMusic that is also raising this floor noise. But usually people listen to music in the MyMusic program, people don’t use MyMusic in a quiet environment anyway, so this audible floor noise in MyMusic should be drowned out by the music most of the times anyway.
By the way, the hair brushing the mics causing popping and crackling is a surprise to hear. That’s because starting with the Real and rolled over to the Intent, the Wind and Handling Noise Prevention feature should have taken care of this. The handling part is when you use touch the aids with your hand or finger(s) or hair or whatever else. I’ve heard many people saying that the Wind Noise Prevention works great. I never heard anybody say anything about how well or badly the “Handling” Noise Prevention works until now. Apparently it’s not a success like the Wind noise prevention part.
@TimMac, I’m interested in your comment about the sound quality of the Phonak Lumity being off. I experienced the same thing when I trialed them for 2 months. That didn’t change during my trial period.
I noticed on the Hear Advisor test results, which were just posted, that the Own Voice dimension of the testing scored 1.0 on a scale of 1-5. That is incredibly low. No other brand scored anywhere close to that. I’m thinking that this may be what’s affecting the sound quality.
I created a Table of Intent Fitting Parameters to help keep track of adjustments and better understand how they impact aid performance. Regarding the low-level noise under “quiet conditions” i.e. in office with no sound inputs I have the following additional information: Similar to “Comfort Program” with lower amplification: Using “General Program” I lowered the volume level 2 clicks and while I can still hear the low-level noise when I tap on desk, etc. it is significantly lower in volume. To me this would seem to indicate that the miniRite(60) are having to provide so much gain that the amplification can be detected.
Since I’m new to HA I have a couple of additional questions. What is reserve gain? and why does my fitting report indicate 5 dB when everything else I have seen shows 10 dB?
Secondly, based on my audiogram I would think that I should have miniRite(85) receivers. Could that be the reason for the low-level noise the 60s are having to work too hard to provide the amount of required gain?
Thanks to everyone for your input - I have really learned a lot from this forum.
This table is for the Oticon Intent. I’m still working on one for the Phonak Lumity.
Regarding the hair scratching I still have a problem with both the Lumity and Intent. I have not had any more issues regarding popping and crackling noises with the Intent. So far, my best solution has been to wear eyeglasses to push the HA out slightly from my head when I’m using the General Program. I also find that with the “Comfort Program” where sudden sound stabilizer is set at Very High the hair scratching noise is greatly reduced and much more tolerable.
Below is an explanation of reserve gain. It looks like you have access to the Oticon Genie 2 software, no? Since you’re compiling a very detailed list here, so it seems like you must have access to it. Or maybe you had your HCP print out this fitting report for you?
So if you do have access to Genie 2, you can go to the Help → Open Help File option to get to the Oticon online help where you can look up what reserve gain is. I did this and snip out a screenshot of the online help explanation for you here. VC means Volume Control. If you look at the second screenshot of my hearing loss on Genie 2, you can see that my left ear has a full reserve gain of 10 dB, but my right ear only has a reserve gain of 7.5 dB. That’s because I have worse hearing on my right ear, so much of the amplification is already spent on compensating for my worse right ear hearing loss, and as a result I don’t get the whole 10 dB reserve gain anymore, but now only have 7.5 dB reserve gain. If I keep increasing the volume control up and up, I will hear the “maxed out” beep first on my right aid, and if I keep increasing the volume control button further, there is no more volume increase left on the right ear, but the left ear can go up another notch (2.5 dB step). In other words, I get 3 clicks of volume increase from my default volume level before I max out on my right aid, but I get 4 clicks of volume increase before my left aid volume is maxed out.
I have no idea why your fitting report shows 5 dB volume control only. Based on your hearing loss, you should be able to get a full 10 dB reserve gain.
As for the receiver size, I agree that the loss on your right ear should have been fitted with an 85 dB receiver, although the loss on your left ear can be handled by the 60 dB receiver. But for symmetry, it would have been nicer to have 85 dB receivers for both ears instead of 60 dB receivers for both ears. This would be a valid question to ask your HCP on why he/she is underfitting your right ear with a weaker receiver.
Intent receivers are the new self calibrating type receivers that probably cost a lot more than the old passive ones. So I think it’s important to get the right size receivers for your aids.
I went back twice to have my aids adjusted. First time, we realized that the “adaptation” level was set to 1 instead of 3 (oops). The audiologist apologized and that explained why everything was so “low”.
Second time, we played with the cable length, the form of them are different.
My real test will be tomorrow where I’m at a networking event all day! That’s where I hope to experience the “full” Intent experience and see how it goes.
The event well on the second day. I changed a bit the mids for the second day and another settings for complex situation.
Tonight I was in a gymnasium with my young daughter with about 50 kids screaming and I had to use the noise program but I saw that it worked much better when I upped the volume by 1. I clearly experienced the directionality with the sensors tonight. Quite impressive!!
@Volusiano , let say I want to make this change permanently in my program using Genie2, do I only up the gain by 1? Do you know if it correspond? Thanks!!
It can be done in the Fine Tuning section in Genie 2. Each click up or click down to change the gain corresponds to 1 dB change in gain. For example, in the screenshot below, if you want to increase the gain by 1 dB for everything, you would click on Soft so that it’s highlighted across the board for both left and right aids, the click on + once and you will see the value of all the highlighted slots go up by 1 dB. Then you repeat for Moderate and Loud. Of course you want to make sure that the appropriate program number is selected in the upper left corner (just below the big word Oticon) first.
You will also see 2 Reserve Gain vertical bars on the top left and top right. It’ll show at least 10 dB, but in this example, because my right ear has worse hearing, I only have 7.5 dB left on the right ear. Reserve gain is the gain you have in reserve to increase the volume from the default level until it’s maxed out. Each unit corresponds to 2.5 dB, and I think it also corresponds to each click on your volume up/down button. For example, in my case here, if I go up in volume 1 click from the default volume level, I will have increased 2.5 dB in volume for both aids. But my right aid can only go up 3 clicks before it’s maxed out. But my left aid can go another click (totaling 4) before it’s maxed out.
