@Volusiano Really good in-put 
Thank you and much appreciated.
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I don’t think I’d pay more than $200 for it. Maybe a bit more if I had a higher population of non English speakers. But I have other tools to serve the same function.
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I can see how this would work: you’d drive up speech relevant octaves’ gain more for people who were struggling to hear distinct speech in noise. Potential downside would be that acceptance adjustment would be harder and listening/processing fatigue might be an issue.
It’s what your experienced hearing professional should be doing anyway. I like getting into the sliders and having a play. You just have to be a bit careful about the degree of changes especially with the MPO/instability/distortion near the limit.
There’s a secondary issue, which you really have to consider; the amount/proportion of the loss that sits around 70dB+ - it’s dead OHC territory, no matter how much extra welly or sharpness you apply to the signal, the risk is that you’ll overstimulate adjacent portions of the cochlear and ruin your ‘cleaned-up’ sound through masking spread.
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Thanks for this input, @Um_bongo . Sounds like it could be a double-edged sword. I guess if one is leery about having ACT driving changes to the gains, but still wants to know how it would drive the noise-related parameters in the MoreSound Intelligence page, one can just capture how it would set up the parameters in the MoreSound Intelligence page, then turn off the ACT data to disable the changes to the gains, and manually set up the MoreSound Intelligence parameters the same way as how they were captured.
Another thought is that the data derived from the ACT test that gets fed input Genie 2 doesn’t have to be the final data set in stone. It can be a good starting point. If one feels like they’re still not getting enough help, they can kick up this value incrementally until they’re happy with the help. If they feel like they’re getting too much help (like the issue with fatigue due to sharper gains or overstimulation), they can also “ease up” a bit on the ACT value.
Since most DIYer will have 2024.1 Genie updated and have access to ACT right now.
Has anyone tried ACT yet? Whether it’s generating random numbers and trying them out, or actual ACT scores. I’m curious to know if there’s any difference.
I still good without ACT. Just want to hear from you guys.
The first screenshot below is what I get if I set ACT to -4 (the smallest value → need the least help). The second screenshot below is what I get if I set ACT to 16 (the highest value → need the most help).
Interestingly, Easy Neural Noise Suppression is only set to 2 (not 4 or 6 dB) even when I need the most help. And Difficult NNS is only set to 10 for me even when I need the most help. It still doesn’t think that I need 12 dB max suppression. I guess my audiogram must have also been taken into consideration because it’s not straightforward mapping like 6 dB for Normal Contrast Loss and 8 dB for Mild Contrast Loss and 10 dB for Moderate Contrast Loss and 12 dB for Severe Contrast Loss.
On the other hand, with ACT of -4 for the least help needed, I still have 8 dB NNS (but not 6) for Difficult environment.
So it’s very apparent that it’s not simple and straightforward mapping of the 4 Contrast Loss groupings into the corresponding 4 Neural Noise Suppression values. Apparently your audiogram probably is also taken into consideration as well.
The Environmental Classifier still say that Complex and Very Complex environments are Difficult environments for me, even if my ACT value of -4 indicates that I need the least help.
Also as reported earlier, another DIY person also notice the gain values changing and are different for the 2 extreme -4 and 16 ACT values. So apparently ACT values drive the gain curves as well.
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This is where I’ve been playing with the Moresound settings for years. It’s the Oticon SW guys quizzing linked copies of Genie or screening returns to see which settings are being adjusted/tuned by audiologists and which aren’t.
They probably identified fairly early on that people weren’t adjusting the Moresound tuning: implementation of ACT has followed.
I’d go one further, I’d suggest that the reason people aren’t tweaking it is because the page/effect on the output is badly expressed and unnecessarily wordy. Call it something simpler, use easier terms, make the direction of adjustment more obvious.
I might be wrong, but it reads like a design that’s been put together by engineers whose first language isn’t English, and it doesn’t make explicitly clear what the aids are going to do.
Edit: Also I sit with the PC screen visible to the client on my right. Not across a desk, the client needs to look at this while you make changes so they understand how/where the aid is working harder and where they might struggle more anyway.
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I tried it and got a message that ACT is incompatible with my More 1. Did I do something wrong?
Hmm… With ACT -4, I get 3 Easy and 2 Difficult situations, and NRR 0 and 8 dB respectively; with ACT 16, I get 0 Easy and 5 Difficult situations, NRR 4 and 12 dB.
Edit: … and here are my right side 16-band VAC+ insertion gain curves; the first/top one is ACT=-4:
ACT is compatible with Real and above
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Of course, planned obsolescence is a thing. Oh, sorry, sometimes my cynicism gets the best of me 
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That’s quite peculiar, even though Real and More use the same platform, just that Real has the letter “R” appended to it. Technically More should be compatible. If they allowed it via firmware update or something.
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Don’t worry, you won’t miss anything. If you are DIY and keep adjusting MoreSoundIntelligence feature to suits your hearing loss profile.
I have access to ACT but I don’t use it now because I am good with current setup. Just curious to see what it will benefits me.
Excellent! I’ve yet to see an AuD at the VA, or the private Oticon Authorized clinics even open the MSI screen!
I’ll go one further than that, for me it just creates more distortion, and artifacts.
The settings of the MSI, in my case are next to useless, and until I turned off MSI, I was never comfortable with the Mores.
Without MSI I’m enjoying More with my More!
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Some people just prefer them to be ‘less switchy/processed’ - this is often why the Bernafon is a better choice, especially for more experienced hearing aid wearers.
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Perfect description, Stephen, thank you!
Too bad the VA in the USA doesn’t carry Bernafon, but the Mores are very acceptable without the “switchy/processed” MSI applied.
When the time comes, I have every Intention of applying the same settings to the Intent to get More Real joy!!
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So you finally upgraded from the OPN 1 to the Intent 1, @Volusiano?
I do see that the maximum Neural Noise Suppression on Intent 1 is 12 dB, whereas it is 10 dB on Real 1 (also, I don’t think there’s a “very complex” sound environment option).
I’m still confused about one thing: the ACT settings only work with the Intent 1, right?
I think I might be able to finally get the Intent 1 this year with my new health insurance after all, since I have a very reasonable max out of pocket amount of $1275 for individual in this new plan that allows me to buy hearing aids. I’d have to start looking for in-network HCPs to find out more what they offer first.
Yes, it looks like Oticon has been able to eke out another 2 dB more of Neural Noise Suppression on the Intent compared to the Real, so now it can go up to as high as 12 dB. It looks like the 5 environments haven’t changed from the Real to the Intent. They are Very Simple, Simple, Moderate, Complex and Very Complex. The MoreSound IntellAigence interface for the Intent is graphically a little more fancy for the Intent, but they really still just have the same parameters, with the Sensor Technology option being the only new item for the Intent.
But the Real 3 of course is subjected to crippled limitations on the capabilities, for example, it only has 3 level of resolution for environments: Simple, Moderate, and Complex, while the Real 1 has 5 environments as mentioned above. Of course, the Real 3 is also limited to 0 dB Neural Noise Suppression for Easy, and only 4 and 6 dB for Difficult (vs up to 10 dB in the Real 3 for Difficult). And no adjustment options for the Virtual Outer Ear and Sound Enhancer.
Nevertheless, as far as ACT goes, both the Real (any tier) and the Intent (any tier) settings seem to be driven by the ACT value. But note that the lower the Tier you go, the less available capabilities and options you have available that can be set or driven by ACT. Do note that the Intent now comes with 4 tier levels, unlike the OPN, OPN S, More and Real, which come in 3 tier levels. The Intent 4 is so limited in its capabilities that there’s really no option available to be driven by the ACT value anyway.
Other than the Intent and the Real, the other older models like More, OPN S, OPN, etc, don’t seem to be driven by ACT from the MoreSound (or OpenSound) Intelligence settings, even though ACT is still allowed to be set and chosen as an option for these models. I don’t really know if their gains are affected by ACT at all either.
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Excuse me if my question is impolite. Don’t Americans make enough money to buy hearing aids without insurance?
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That’s an interesting observation. Simply put, no. For the average blue collar worker trying to raise a family and all associated costs a $7000 pair of hearing aids is a lot. Thanks to this forum we have options that help tremendously to make them affordable.
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