[This is a pretty frank explanation of what More does, and an indication of why the Oticon concept isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea.]
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Something else goes into this that May get me in trouble with some, and that is the willingness to put the needed effort into getting use to the OPN/OPNS/More concept. What I am saying it isn’t always easy to get use to the surround sound of these aids for someone coming from the aids that are directional and they have been wearing them for a long time. Even for me at first all of the extra sounds was nerve racking and made me uneasy, but I wanted more than just speech, and I live in a quieter environment than the ones that live in a big city or even smaller towns. I was able to adapt, it was the sounds of my home that caught me off guard at first, not so much the road noise of my vehicle. But kept me wanting to hear it all was the sounds of good old Mother Nature. The songs of the birds that are around here in the spring and summer, and the sounds of the nights in the forest. It is worth it. Now if I had to live in a large city I might just want to hear speech and conversations and not hear the noisy city environment.
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Perhaps I’m misunderstanding people, but I get the impression from the comments from others that hearing aids other than Oticon do not provide omnidirectional sound. That is not my impression from my experience with KS7 (Rexton) and KS9 (Sonova) Both of these allowed me to hear lots of sounds of nature and allowed me to have a sense of where the sound was coming from. Although both of these aids are “directional,” they’re directional in the sense of IF there’s speech going on in loud noise, the microphones will focus in a fairly narrow direction in front of the hearing aid wearer.
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Yes you are right but do they allow you to hear the conversation even if it isn’t in front of you, and at the same time hear the other sounds around you at a lower volume. When someone ask me a question while I am setting in a seat in front of the person I no longer have to turn around and face the person to carry on the conversation, the same for someone on either side of me. He More1 aids have given me feeling that I am almost normal again. Sure I still have struggles with certain words, and with people that wear mask, but I know friends that have “Normal” hearing that struggle with others with mask on. I am no longer worried about noisy restaurants, or being in a vehicle and someone behind me talking to me. I enjoy meeting and social gathering at church and at the American Legion. I can even care on a conversation with my neighbor across the street without crossing the road. These are things I could not completely do before the More1 aids. I could do to a lesser extent with the OPNS1, and even lesser with the OPN1 aids.
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I haven’t done listening tests in various situations, but my impression is that if I am not in loud noise, the microphones function omnidirectionally and I can hear somebody talking behind me (that I’m confident of as I can definitely hear my wife walking behind me on the trail)
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Hear is my example for you, my wife has the TV on with the volume set for her to hear it from the kitchen. She is about 30 feet away from TV we are only using the speakers in the TV, I am about a half way between the TV and her, I can understand the TV she says something and the TV volume lowers and I can talk to her with my back to her, no program on my part and no volume change to the physical TV. After she is finished the TV volume goes back to what it was and I am concentrating on the TV. I am sure I have managed to be able to concentrate on my wife’s conversation also and more than likely the aids didn’t lower the volume, but that is what it sounds like to me.
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Please cite something to substantiate this. Nobody I’ve read has ever implied anything like what you’re alleging.
You’re just prodding, IMO.
Oticon has beam forming capabilities, just as other makes offer omnidirectional capabilities. But beam forming is not Oticon’s niche, just as open sound is not the others’ driving design philosophy.
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I wasn’t trying to start an argument and your comment feels like prodding. However, I don’t know what else to make of this quote from you. You specifically list several nature sounds that other hearing aids choose to minimize. I prefaced my comment with perhaps I’m misunderstanding people, so rather than attack me, here’s your opportunity to explain your quote.
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I have always been able to hear some sound all around me with aids before the OPEN paradigm but never great enough to fully localize the sound or to carry a conversation. With my earlier aids I would use a music program that helped when I was in the woods on the trails but wasn’t fully able to locate where sounds were coming from. And to be honest before the OPN1 aids my conversations sucked. I also have to say that I have now had 5 different pairs of Oticon aids, and 2 pairs of other aids from other companies and it has been a steady improvement each time. And as I keep saying hearing aids are a very personal thing and each person has to find what works for themselves. I have had the advantage in that going to the VA the Audiologist have no incentive to go with one company over another other that their knowledge of the aids.
I’m not going to explain anything, because anyone who reads my comments in context will understand that I’ve never accused other makers of being incapable. I’ve only commented on their different emphases or inclinations.
I find your parsing of the minutiae of my posts hair-splitting and irritating, so I’m checking out.
This thread tickles me.
All these described characteristics of the deep neural network put a smile on my face.
Any of the big five hearing aid manufacturers can be tuned to do the same thing. They are all good aids when programmed properly.
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True but I haven’t heard the clarity that the More1 aids brings to the party. I haven’t been able to set in a restaurant with all of the normal sounds around me and clearly hear not only the ones at my table but other tables in the area. I have even told my wife felt like I was easy dropping or spying on other people. There is a real difference with the More1 aids that I am sure that not everyone will ever understand.
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I remember you saying that. Hearing that well is great. Your posts are always good reading.
Most fitters don’t get into the depths and possibilities of hearing aid tuning. It just doesn’t pay. So the manufacturers proprietary programming is used. It is fast and easy and works well for most hearing losses.
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My hearing loss has never been fast and easy to fit, I have had a couple really caring and patient Audiologist that have cared enough to train me and do their dead level best to help me hear the best possible. I have had others say that they couldn’t do any better with the aids I was fitted with. My Audiologist now has gone over the top to get to the point I am now. I also agree that the right Audiologist makes all the difference.
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Not really. There’s a big difference in the open paradigm that can’t be done with other HAs that don’t use the open paradigm. The difference is that Oticon doesn’t have to beam form (unless you force it to) in a noisy environment, so it allows you to hear everything around you, yet still be able to help clarify speech in front whenever there’s speech going on. The other HAs that don’t subscribe to the open paradigm like Oticon do NOT allow you to hear everything around you in a noisy environment. The only way they can help with speech in noise in front is to beam form and block out the surrounding noise to focus on the speech in front only. Yes, this is comforting and effective for speech, but you lose out on other sounds around you. Not everything else around you in a noisy environment is noise. A waiter talking while standing behind you is not noise, for example. Perhaps announcement on the speakers behind you is desired to be heard. Or maybe you want to hear the music going on in the background to put you in a nice mood.
Now I’m not saying that the other brands ALWAYS beam form and block out the surrounding sounds. They do have automatic sensing capability to sense simple environments where they don’t beam form and open up to the surrounding sounds, and they only beam form automatically when their autosense detects noisy environments.
But the difference is that if you’re in a noisy environment, the autosense of the traditional HAs automatically puts blinders on you through the automatic beam forming the whole time you’re in that noisy environment. It is a static thing and they don’t open up in noisy environments when there’s no speech, then beam form when there’s speech. They just beam form and block out surrounding noise the whole time you’re in that environment, until you leave that environment, or until you override the HAs and open it up (like manually switching to the Music program yourself, for example).
Meanwhile, the Oticon HAs dynamically beam form (in a sense) when there’s speech in a noisy environment, but the moment that speech stops, they stop beam forming. And it happens fast enough that you feel as if the noise is always around you, yet you still get help understanding speech well enough despite the noise still always being around you.
When I say dynamically beam form in a sense above, I mean the OPN and the OPN S does create a noise model of the back and side noise scene and subtract in from speech in front. So that’s “kinda” beam forming in a sense, but just in a different way. If there’s speech on the side and back, the OPN and OPN S voice detection activity will preserve this speech that’s not in the front, although it won’t be as cleaned up as speech in the front beside the noise model can’t be applied to it.
With the More, however, it seems like via the DNN, they’re able to isolate the sound components of a sound scene much more discretely so they’re able to rebalance them more easily and effectively, so I think that the More can make speech on the sides or in the back just as clear as speech in front, even though the OPN and OPN S can’t do this and can only clean up speech in front using the noise model.
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AH for a test-drive of any/all aids out there! The DNN concept is intriguing, but you KNOW me: I just had a deuce of a time with the OPNs a few years back. I think it comes down to my brain/ear connection. Also perhaps my age of 66? I would even go so far as to say that if I had AI in my aids that literally turned off ALL ambient sound except for speech when in a noisy environment, I’d be SO happy. I just don’t want to WORK at comprehension. In my dreams, the AI would be able to zero in on the speech range (and it must be a narrower band than all the other noises out there?) and then boost them 10-15% for added oomph.
I find that my Speech in LOUD Noise program not only dampens down ambient noise, but I swear, it’s like the people talking to me are talking from BEHIND ME. Like some kind of backwards-pointing mic is doing the dampening. If that’s what’s going on in reality, it would be incredibly LAME. I tested it out the other day: listening to LOUD music in my living room, everything seemed a lower volume - even my husband sitting right across from me is now sounding muffled and softer. That’s why - to this day - my Phonak Marvel aids are NOT the best in the world, nor do they address the Holy Grail: comprehension in noisy places.
In any case, I am beyond delighted to learn all these facts and share the insights with so many people here who may share a common challenge: how to HEAR in noisy places. On top of which, our individual brains and listening preferences will bias us to one technology/capability or another.
And still: in 2021 there is NO ONE ANSWER. NO MIRACLE. So we continue to dream of one, LOL! 
I am 73 going on 74, but since getting the OPN1/OPNS1/ More1 aids I feel like I have turned back the clock. I would go crazy now if I couldn’t hear all of the possible sounds around me.
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Bingo! What we need here is a Geek Squad for HA fitters. My own aud-guy is WUNERFUL, and has gone the extra mile a dozen times in the years I’ve gone to him. But he is NOT technically savvy or curious to know how these aids work or more important: how to OPTIMIZE the performance of a brand given their capabilities.
If I had to re-invent myself professionally, I would want to do that job. I’d want to be trained in the nuances of each manufacturer’s aids. I wouldn’t need to work with a single audi, but rather be my own business: Optimal Hearing! Just as there are software packages to help companies do everything from bookkeeping to the entire supply chain of sales-marketing-production-distribution, we who wear aids need someone to help us get the MOST out of our investment.
Inevitably, like 100% of the time, when I get a new pair of aids the program they’re delivered with is UTTERLY and COMPLETELY unacceptable to me. Just 10-15 min of tweaking with the channels, program setup and options gets me about 85% there. And that’s where I sit. Speech in NOISE is still not perfect; bluetooth stability simply NOT there.
Well, I sure wish we had a profession for hearing aid GEEKS. I shy away from downloading pirate software and learning it myself for fear I’ll void the warranty or something.
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WOW. To have your brain! I am 66 and for some reason, just get stressed and overwhelmed with TOO much sound overload. Hey, do you do Sudoku? You must have a secret here. 
I retired from being an IT Professional at the age of 67, or I should say forced to retire due my hearing loss. If I had my More1 aids back then I might still be doing my job. But since retiring I have reverted back to my second love and that is color pencil art, really I just find coloring books and dream up different ways to use different colors on the same drawings. I never color on the original in the book I make copies and experiment with different color concepts. And now while I am doing that I am listening to audiobooks. And sometimes I read along with the audiobooks just depends on my mood. My TV time is documentaries. And I start my day with my morning devotionals and a hike on one of the trails around here. Well unless I have other appointments or meetings. I am an officer in the local American Legion post, and I lead a Bible study class weekly along with 4 hours of volunteer work at the local VA clinic. I have to stay busy or I would get into trouble.
I have to note I have always be a multitasker, my brain has never been happy doing one thing at a time, and that is really the reason I have had so much trouble with my hearing loss. I had to only concentrate on one task with my hearing loss if I wanted to truly understand what was said to me, and that is what forced me to have to retire, as a IT Professional I had to be able to multitask.
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