I’ve been using an Oticon Opn S 1 mRITE hearing aid. The Default Program works absolutely great in quiter environments. But I’m struggling to hear speech in noisy environments. The Speech in Noise program accentuates all the speech around me (typical situation found in a restaurant) and the cacophony becomes quite deafening. The Comfort program seems to suppress all the sound, including the speech. What are my other options?
Strangely enough, when I stream from my TV directly to my HA, I hear the speech very clearly even with loud music playing on the TV program. But when I try listening to TV directly through HA (no streaming), the same speech seems to get lost in the loud music.
Any suggestions on what settings I should request from my audi? Thanks in advance.
do you have an audiogram that you can please put in your profile?
Speech in Noise, while maximizing the noise reduction settings, also increase the overall volume a little more, supposedly to help you hear better. But depending on your hearing loss (which we have no idea what it looks like because you don’t post your audiogram in your profile), the increase in volume may not be a welcome change for you. Have you tried turning down the volume of your OPN a click or two in the Speech in Noise program?
The Comfort program, on the other hand, reduces the overall volume a little bit, on top of not giving you maximum values in the noise reduction setting.
So like I said above, try something in between, like be in Speech in Noise, but decrease your overall volume (just use your volume button on your OPN), to see if it helps.
This may or may not help depending on your hearing loss (which we don’t know what it’s like without you posting your audiogram up). There may be other ideas (like using Speech Rescue), but that depends on knowing your hearing loss (again) to see if it’s suitable or not.
@Real_Soul, you might ask your audiologist to add a “Full Directional” program to your hearing aids instead of using the standard “Open Automatic” directionality. In theory, this cuts the soundscape down a bit to focus more on speech in front of you, rather than all around you. It kind of goes against the benefit of “Opn”–hearing all around you–but for some people it does help focus more on speech in noise. It can’t hurt to try it. Not sure how long you’ve been wearing the Opn hearing aids, but your brain might get used to the background noise after awhile too. The Comfort program doesn’t do much except reduce volume overall. You can get the same benefit by just turning down the volume on the hearing aids, so you really don’t need a dedicated program for Comfort unless you’re in loud noise frequently. It sounds like you might still need some adjustments in certain frequencies as well. Tell your audiologist about your specific speech-in-noise problems and get some adjustments made. Good luck.
For the OPN S by the way, what Richnfamus1 suggested can also be achieved by turning on the OpenSound Booster feature on the ON app. Some folks don’t seem to notice much difference using OSB, but maybe you can. It’s worth a try at least. It’s probably even more aggressive than the “Full Directional” setting.
And Richnfamus1 is right, the volume control is your friend. Beside being in the correct program, if you’re uncomfortable, turn down the volume. If you need more help, turn up the volume. Using the right volume in the Default program for the OPN is probably more helpful than using the wrong volume in a dedicated program. After all, the OPN is designed such that the Default program should work most of the times for you without having to flip around to different various dedicated programs every time you transition to a different environment.
On my KS8’s I find the Noise/Party program to be an improvement, but I only get the most out of it if I also turn the volume down some. Even with the main default program it seems to help to turn the volume down some too. It also helps to sit with your back to the source of the competing noise. I have had mixed success with narrowing in with the microphone focus. Sometimes helps, and sometimes not.
I just uploaded my audiogram to my profile.
Thank you, I’m new to hearing aids, and my first day here on this forum. I just uploaded my audiogram to my profile. I have, indeed, noticed that the volume control is my friend. How long does it generally take to get accustomed to the surrounding sound that seems to drown out the person you’re trying to listen to. Is it possible that one never gets adjusted to it?
I agree with richnfamus1. In general, speech in noise programs work better at blocking out hum. If there are many, close, competing voices a narrow directional program can help a lot. I try to sit with my back to the competing voices and aim my directional program at who I want to hear, in front of me. In that situation I can hear about as well as those with me.
A directional mic might be of some benefit, too, for very difficult situations. Phonak Roger devices, which can work with other brands thru FM transmission, are super-expensive but said to be the best. My ReSound Multi Mic works well for me with droning noise but same point as Don with sharp, sudden sounds. Reflections/reverberations can sometimes defeat directionality.
Boy, you have a very challenging loss on your left ear. And the fact that the hearing loss is asymmetrical poses yet another challenge.
Your right hearing is suitable enough to adjust to the OPN open paradigm, but your left hearing may never adjust and may always find the open paradigm too overwhelming for you in noisy places.
And how to program it so that you have some kind of binaural balance is another challenge in itself.
I’ve come across some forum members on here who have challenging low frequency loss like with your left hearing, and they tried the OPN but could never get used to the cacophony in noisy places. One member, @1Bluejay switched from the OPN to the Phonak Audeo B Direct, then later to the Phonak Marvel, and she had much better success with those than with the OPN. But I don’t remember her hearing loss being as asymmetrical as yours, however. So maybe your right ear can get used to the OPN even though your left ear may not. I don’t know how your brain would process the difference, though.
What kind of fitting do you use in your right better ear? If it is an open fitting it might be contributing to the background noise issues. The more closed the fitting is, the more direction capability the hearing aids have. Your right ear is hearing a lot of the low frequency stuff which can contain a lot of the noise. If you are using an open fitting, a more closed one could help.
In Genie 1 for my Alta2 Pro Ti, there were options in fitting to adjust from Exact, down to Balanced down to Comfort to tone down on perceived cacophony in each of the programs independently. You just need such a tweak in your speech in noise program. I suspect they are the same or similar in naming convention in Genie 2 for OPN.
Thanks for all your ideas. I’ll be visiting my audi this coming week, and see if he can incorporate your ideas.
BTW, I have a BICROS for the severe loss in my left ear.
Prior to this current trial of the Oticon OPN S, I trialed a Widex Evoke Fusion 2. Unfortunately, Evoke doesn’t come with a BICROS, but it does have the very important feature that you can make adjustments yourself in real time on their app. And with this, I was able to come up with a program that worked quite well in noisy environments. But the limitation with the Evoke was of course that I wasn’t capturing any sound from my left ear, because no BICROS.
With Oticon, the BICROS works exceptionally well (with the default program) in small groups of about 6 people when there’s minimal background noise.
In noisy environments, I’ve tried shutting off my left-ear BICROS. And this does make it slightly better.
But so far, in noisy environments, the Oticon doesn’t even begin to compare to the clarity I get with the Widex Evoke program that I created on the app.
My hope is that if we can replicate the noisy-environment clarity of the Evoke onto the Oticon, I’ll have the best of everything. But right now, it’s a huge struggle.
Keep all your ideas coming so I can get a productive visit with my audi. Thanks a lot.
(PS: I liked being able to make adjustments in real time with the Evoke. It is now particularly challenging with the Oticon, because for each tweak, I have to return to the audi a few days later, and there’s no way to test that tweak in the real world until a few days later again when I’m back again in a noisy environment. It’s exceedingly frustrating.)
Ah, it makes sense that you’re wearing BICROSS. I don’t know how receptive you are to the idea of do-it-yourself programming. Many forum members are DIY’ers, me included. It does require some investment in hardware interface (to the tune of a couple of hundred bucks), but compared to the inconvenience with having to go to the audi for every single tweak you want done, it was very worth it. The software is free, and the hardware can be used with most brands, so even if you don’t stick with the OPN, you can still use it with Widex or whichever other brand you end up with.
There’s a DIY section in the forum with excellent instruction on where/how to obtain the hardwares that you can explore if you want.
Did your Audi do a real ear measurement? I just watched the Dr Cliff AudD UTube. He said without real ear measurement, you are likely to have a poor adjustment, especially for speech in noise.
Yup. My loss is pretty symmetrical - if that’s any comfort to me, given the degree of loss! 
I’m still SUPER happy with the Marvel aids, and VERY glad to have just gotten some fine-tuning to boost the speech frequencies as well as set up a “Speech in LOUD Noise” program on these aids.
Yes, indeed, my audi did a REM. And it does, indeed, make all the difference in the world!
The big difference between the Widex Evoke that I had trialed previously (and worked much better in noisy situations) and the Oticon Opn S (which didn’t work so well in noisy situations) were (1) with the Widex, I had a double dome fitting in the right ear and (2) the Oticon philosophy is Open, and let the brain acclimate to hearing all sounds and then ignore the background noise, while the Widex philosophy is to let the user fine-tune in real time on the app.
So, here’s what I did, with the help of my audi:
(1) I use the double dome on my Oticon in noisy situations (I don’t like the double dome much as it makes me feel clogged and congested, but switching domes just before I enter a noisy environment is not much of a hassle especially since I hear so much better)
and
(2) I used the Widex to set up a profile that I fine-tuned in a noisy situation and then, my audi replicated that as a separate program on my Oticon.
These two changes really made a huge difference. I think the double dome made 85% of the difference, while replicating the profile I created on Widex Evoke in real time onto the Oticon made it even better.
Yeah, there’s still some work to do in fine-tuning but I finally feel we’re headed in the right direction.
I’ll keep you posted as I progress.
In the meanwhile, thank you everyone for your gracious input.
Hi
I have the same minirite aids
There’s a way to mute the surrounding cacophony when in Speech in Noise:
- swipe the volume icon in the app, diagonally, from 2pm to 7pm.
You’ll see a diagonal line appear in the volume circle.
It may take a couple of goes to get the finger action right
This kills the room noise, and seems to focus on the people immediately around you
I only found this by accident - if it’s in the manual, it’s well-hidden!
I hope that helps
Will