Hello I am trying my first hearing aids after 28 years old with this hearing loss.
I found technology in Oticon Intent so good (I’m trying intent 2) no feedback noise or wind noise, but I’m here asking if is ok that in the general preset sounds is something a lot “artificial” as my hearing aids want me to leave some noise and decide what I want to hear.
Im here after a full day with mymusic preset active and was wonderful!
What you guys things about? If I use this program maybe I do not need all the technology of Intent 2 and I can downgrade (I am in a 14 days trial mode).
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I also have a patient who wants to be in his MyMusic program all the time. Since most, if not all, the noise reduction is reduced and/or inactive in MyMusic, it would make sense that you would not need to go that high in technology level if your aim is to just use that program. My only concern going down in technology level, particularly from Intent 2 to Intent 3, is the loss of a feature called Clear Dynamics. It is a term Oticon uses to describe increased dynamic range, which is good for music (among other things). It is not a feature that is adjustable in Genie, so it is unclear what role it has, if any, with the MyMusic program.
Without contacting Oticon’s audiology/tech support (which I am inspired to do now), I imagine Clear Dynamics extends to capabilities across the board and, as it is not available in the Intent 3, that device’s MyMusic would suffer because of it.
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You also lose the steerability of the sound field, but I’m guessing that the aids are purely in Omni mode anyway.
Let me tell if you write Oticon price difference between 3 and 2 are not phenomenal but I have have some features that I pay but does not need.
I want my hearing aid to sound as natural as possible cause I have some normal hearing underneath my aid.
What do you mean? I notice that in mymusic aids are less focused on my voice but at least I don’t have that strange compression feeling even when I listen some music at low volume in my car
The directional pattern is ‘steered’ by accelerometers in the 1+2. I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong with the 3, but, personally I’d like the option of using the more advanced features.
If I was programming these, I’d actually not leave them in the music program all the time. I’d leave them in the dynamic program, but actually wind down the dynamic/moresound aspects of it. There’s lots of benefits of leaving some of the AI functionality in there without having it jump all over the response. You might find that the Moresound giving you another 3dB at the edges over the Music is pretty handy: especially in background noise.
Oh, I get where you’re coming from! During my trial periods, any HA I trialed was a dramatic improvement that got me hearing again and seemed like a cure-all. Trialing a few bands helped me develop my preferences as well as like/dislikes. I’ve been using my Widex almost exclusively in Puresound for everything, including music. I love the convenient simplicity as a user and, similar to your preference for the music mode, the minimal processing is preferred.
Now that I’ve been wearing them for a year and my brain’s processing for sounds and speech has improved from wearing a HA, I’ve started using and greatly appreciate the benefit of the processing in dedicated modes. Not quite a 180° on the issue, but a definite change in stance. So much so, while I love the Widex, my appreciation has grown for helpful processing features, especially Stereozoom and 4D.
As tempting as it seems now to save the costs, and they are significant as you drop down the tiers, the decision to give up the advanced features based on a trial would be a rookie mistake. Your hearing will change, adapt to having HAs, and you will be actively listening in different situations than you have been and likely find yourself appreciating the benefits of processing features you gave up.
Do you have an audiogram like me with some ok hearing left?
Right now general settings try to leave me some noise and having normal hearing I can spot it: that is annoying!
I’ve tried widex, wonderful sound but so mouch my feedback whistle with open molds.
My hearing drops off 250Hz and slopes down to -50 at 4kHz. Not as low or steep a drop as yours.
I had occasional feedback with fully open domes, though it had to be triggered by specific external sounds. My audi worked with the fitting software feedback and we switched to a tulip (mostly open) style dome and the feedback has been resolved.
So you amplify almost everything with you hearing aid, maybe is different with a brain like mine that has a hearing half normal, I would like if someone with a hearing similar to mine can join our question.
I contacted our Oticon representative to inquire about this specifically, and he said that Clear Dynamics is applied across all programs on devices in which is it available. So, as Clear Dynamics is a great thing to have for music in particular, your experience with MyMusic in the Intent 3 (which does not have Clear Dynamics) would possibly suffer.
I fully agree that Clear Dynamics is a fundamental foundation for a good live music listening experience because it allows the widest input dynamic range possible through the mics to receive live instrumental musical sounds without having to resort to too much compression if you don’t have it. So for somebody who really wants to be able to get the best experience out of listening to live music, I agree that Clear Dynamics is really almost indispensable to have.
Having said that, the OP didn’t really say that he cares to use the Oticon MyMusic program specifically for live music listening. It seems like he only likes to use MyMusic exclusively for everything day-to-day environmental sounds all day long, that’s all. So if there’s no emphasis on needing to have a good live music listening experience on a day-to-day basis, over the emphasis on saving $ not needed for the fancy features in the Intent 1 and 2, specifically on the noise suppression that he doesn’t care to use, then maybe he can do without the Intent 2 and downgrade to the 3 or 4 if he wants.
My personal opinion is that because he’s using hearing aids for the first time, he might be rushing into making a premature decision when he hasn’t fully given it enough time to explore all the other listening options in his short trial period. For an experienced hearing aids user who knows exactly what they want because they’ve had years of listening through and using hearing aids, that’s a different story. But for a brand new user, I think it’s better to leave yourself with plenty of options to explore further. Otherwise, you might not even know what you’re missing if you had limited yourself in options you can explore. And listening taste can change over time as well. You might find the MyMusic preset to be wonderful at first hand experience in the short trial, maybe when you’re not exposed to much except normally more simple environments. But maybe later when you get exposed to more and more noisy environments more often, the MyMusic program suddenly might start sounding more tiring and overwhelming to put up with.
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OP is definitely talking about general use rather than just music listening, but I’m suggesting that MyMusic certainly benefits from Clear Dynamics, particularly as a program with other features deactivated. Is it possible that OP’s experience with Intent 2’s MyMusic program is largely affected by the inclusion of the Clear Dynamics feature? I think my main point is that MyMusic in Intent 2 is not going to be the same as MyMusic in Intent 3 or Intent 4. Even though MyMusic is offered in lower technology levels, that Clear Dynamics is not included may make those levels’ MyMusic programs less pleasing for the user.
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I listen to music while in the car with a dedicated audio equipment, I have a 9.2.4 home theatre with ton of power and I love play music and film thought it, db level can go beyond 95/100db in some scene of movie.
I love attending concerts even with my genetic hearing loss but usually music is loud and I wear hear protection instead of hearing aid.
That is my first hearing aid after widex that had a very good sound but too much feedback.
As said music is a core part of my routine with and without hearing aid so if this dynamic feature may help my musical listening I would buy the tech level 2 just for that.
I love the no compression sound of my music program and I can leave my aid in music mode all that expect at work where noise is annoying.
General program tend to choose what IA thinks I want to hear or to leave noise in crowded rooms like bar and restaurant and that is annoying and artificial.
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That is definitely a salient point worth pointing out so that people are aware. It’s like Oticon really wants you to downgrade to Tier 2 only because at Tier 3 and below, they start taking away a lot of KEY features.
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Many people (me included) think that the use of the MyMusic program that is based on the Harman curve adds too much coloration to the true and natural gain curve. I actually personally like to use MyMusic to listen to music, but I specifically dislike using the MyMusic program to listen to normal environmental sounds because the added coloration to the mid frequency range by MyMusic is not suitable for a real and authentic experience of what the normal sounding environment sounds like. I specifically like how clean and natural the VAC+ proprietary fitting rationale supplied by Oticon is in the General program sounds.
What you might have not realized and probably incorrectly assumed that you MUST resort to the MyMusic program to get rid of the neural noise suppression and achieve the Omnidirectionality and minimize compression. Before the introduction of the MyMusic program that ties it permanently to the Harman gain curves, the original legacy (simple) Music program (not MyMusic, but just simply Music) in the OPN and OPN S was a much cleaner and natural sound program based on the VAC+ rationale and has the neural noise suppression turned off, the Directionality set to Fixed Omni, and many of the other features disabled as well.
Unfortunately, Oticon did away for good the original legacy Music program and forced people to use MyMusic now if they want a built-in music program. But fortunately, you can try to customize your own Music program that can fairly closely replicate the original legacy Music program yourself. Just ask the HCP to copy the General program that’s VAC+ based, but call it Music, then turn off all Neural Noise Suppression, set Directionality to Fixed Omni, turn off the Sudden Sound Stabilizer, turn off Speech Rescue, turn off everything in the Automatics section like the Feedback Management (unless you want to leave it on because you said this feature on the Oticon is more effective than on the Widex), and turn off the Wind and Handling management (unless again you want it on), turn off the Spatial Noise Management, turn off the Binaural Broadband → and you’ve got yourself something ALMOST like the original legacy Music program, without being tied to the Harman curve like MyMusic is, but now it’s based to the VAC+ Oticon proprietary fitting rationale.
That would be my one suggestion that I think you should try, at least to see if you like it better than using the MyMusic or not. I think that with your hearing loss, you’ll probably like it better than MyMusic because it doesn’t have the baggage of the added coloration in the mid frequency range that MyMusic Harman gain curve has. That is because MyMusic is designed by Oticon specifically for the music listening experience and not for normal everyday vanilla environmental listening. If for some reason you tried this and still prefer MyMusic for ALL SITUATIONS listening experience, then at least you know that you’ve tried something else more conventional.
I just think that using the MyMusic program for all listening environments is a very unconventional choice for most people. That’s not what Oticon designed it for. And you don’t have to be stuck with it in order to still be able turn off most if not all digital processing features that you don’t care to use. This is the inexperience of a first time hearing aids user who didn’t know better and just went on to presume that it’s either MyMusic or else there’s no other choice to turn off any of the digital process options.
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Thank you for that very detailed message.
I know that I need to leave those IA noise suppression or at least lowering and I II wait for an appointment with my audiologist.
It is very interesting that mymusic use this Harmann curve, that explain why I usually normal day sounds sound a lot more harsh, I would definitely ask for a new program following your instruction.
Mymusic seems good with moderate volume but at home theatre with very loud volume sound too pitched up.
My roadmap would look like this:
General setting with IA lowering down but motion sensor on and feedback and wind stabilizer ON
Music setting with everything turned off and dynamics clean mode ON
Confort mode for work with a filter heavy sudden noises and less amplification.
Voice in noise with IA features turned ON for extreme situation where I need to hear clearly (crowded restaurant)
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Would be a downgrade in my situation downgrade from intent to more for the more easy battery replacement without shipping to manufacturers involved?
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I wouldn’t downgrade from the Intent to the More unless the More is significantly cheaper than the Real, and of course unless both of these are significantly cheaper than the Intent. I would downgrade to the Real because the Real is 1 generation later than the More. The main difference between them is that the Real has the Sudden Sound Stabilizer and the Wind & Handling features that are very effective, but they’re not available in the More.
Beside the easier in-office battery replacement on the Real/More, they also use the more universal OEM receiver type that’s not as proprietary as the Intent’s new receivers, so they’d be easier to source outside of the Oticon channel (like on eBay) and probably much cheaper as well if you need to replace them out of warranty. I’d imagine that eventually you can also get the Oticon Intent style receivers on eBay as well (if not already), just a matter of time.
But even if you discard the 4D sensors in the Intent as “gimmicky”, don’t forget that the Intent has the second generation DNN 2.0 which is supposed to be better than the DNN 1.0 in the Real and More, although I haven’t really seen anybody be able to “quantify” or “prove” how much better it really is compared to the DNN 1.0 anyway, except to take Oticon’s words for it.
I recently got a pair of Real 1 all paid for by my insurance (the choice of the Intent wasn’t available), but I’m very happy with the Real 1 nevertheless. The DNN 2.0 and 4D sensors are supposed to be able to eke out another 2 dB of noise suppression out of them compared to the Real (going from 10 dB max on the Real 1 to 12 dB max on the Intent 1). But I’m already very happy with the 8 dB setting myself even in very noise environments, so that’s why I’m still already very happy with the Real 1.
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Just on this, Genie allows the separation of programming adjustments: (the 
can be toggled between the program designations). So if the music program sounds wrong - take your ghetto-blaster with your music of choice into your appointment and ask to get it adjusted to your preference. The default mymusic settings could well be wrong for you: ask for changes. You’ll help your audiologist/yourself better by identifying these issues early on.
I still have a sound samples CD running in my fitting room (with the REM machine) to check the settings by program, as there’s no other realistic way to determine if each program change is helpful (or necessary). It also explains why/how (to the client) program changes might be necessary.
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