I will add this, I only hear fans, AC, clocks, etc. if I want to hear them. They are always present but not distributing. That hasn’t always been true when I first started wearing aids, that type of sounds would run me nuts. I am not sure if I have just gotten use to them or if hearing aids have gotten that much better. Road noise doesn’t bother me either. Most of this did start improving with the OPN1 aids.
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@JeremyDC: FWIW, I have found that exactly the same settings and implementation method works for me. And I also concur with your and @Volusiano’s conclusion that the actual effect of MSB is not worth the effort of turning it on (EDIT: … except out of curiosity, in a louder environment. It has to be at least as loud as my bathroom fan. My main default program is called VAC+, BTW, not P1.)
(Again, these are my opinions only, FWIW.)
If only they made MSB program agnostic and more available via Apple watch and device buttons
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I have 2 General programs located in P1 & P4 - each has MSB.
Therefore, I believe (and I am not a DIYer) the MSB is available in the named General Program regardless of it’s location, not necessarily only in default P1 program.
I do find MSB helpful, and use it, esp when I am tired. MSB takes the edge off the noise, barely noticeable.
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The specific MoreSound Intelligence environment suppression settings and the particular model of the More, may both be factors determining what, if anything, MSB does. This may explain the variance in MSB experience across various users. Consider:
The documentation (such as it is) describes the MSB as an on-demand back-filling of up to 4db, for a noise suppression setting in the MoreIntelligence - Easy defined environments of less than 4db. So a user with a configuration set at 0db can realize up to an additional 4db, a configuration of 2db can see a 2db increase, while the user with a setting of 4db will according to the Oticon Q&A experience no benefit above the cap. However, the More 3 user is constrained in Genie/the literature to 0db in Easy and the More 2 user is constrained to 2db. Why would the MSB give More 3 users up to 4db of suppression, and More 2 users an additional 2db of suppression, which according to the literature is exclusive to the More 1? Either Oticon is giving More 3 & 2 users this an exception to the caps, or the feature is of no use to More 3 users at all and less use to More 2 users compared to More 1 users.
In a Difficult environment, noise suppression is limited to 10db. It is unlikely that a More 1 user with a setting at 10db would receive any additional suppression from the MSB given that, for sound quality reasons, 10db is an absolute cap. If that user has suppression set at 6db, MSB would provide an increase up to the 10db cap; or if set at 8db, the MSB would provide an additional 2db. With the default at 8db, this 2db would appear to be the typical benefit for More 1 users. However, the More 2 & 3 users are limited to 6db in Genie. So once again, either the MSB is giving those users an additional 4db of suppression that they have not paid for and is supposedly limited to More 1 users, or MSB is not available to them in Difficult environments at all. Not clear. But this would explain why the documentation repeatedly refers to simple and easy environments, making no specific mention of its use in Difficult (although the video illustrations imply such).
In any event, there is a dearth of information and we are left to trial-and-error with this feature.
EDITED
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If it were me, I’d rather just set up a program with General VAC+, put a max of 10 dB for Difficult NNS and max of 4 dB for Easy NNS (or whatever the maxs are available for the More 2 and 3), set Directionality Settings to Full Directional, set the Environment Configuration to be Difficult for Moderate/Complex/Very Complex, turn on Speech Rescue (only if necessary for your hearing loss), and use this setting whenever I feel like I want to enable MSB, and forget all about MSB altogether.
Then I’d change my Virtual Outer Ear to Focus. And my Sound Enhancer to Comfort. All for the purpose of boosting front beam forming/directionality to the max because that’s the whole idea behind the Bullster.
At least this way, I KNOW what I’m getting exactly, instead of having to guess what I MAY be getting or not getting from the wishy washy and confusing description/explanation of what MSB may or may not be from Oticon.
I’d have to give up a program for this, though. And there are only 4 programs available. I may want to combine this with Speech in Noise if I don’t have enough programs to spare.
By the way, my sarcastic remarks above are due to something new I learned in the thread below, starting at post 99 onward, in case somebody reading this thread is not aware of the backdrop from which @mingus and I are drawing from for our recent discussion here:
Oh, spudster, your main program is in fact P1. However, if your audi labeled it VAC+ under the Client Program Name in Genie 2, it would show as VAC+in the ON app.
There are 4 program slots available, and your audi can label them any way they like for your edification.
@mingus I truly enjoyed reading your description, and conclusions about MSB. Thanks for that.
@Volusiano Crazy, I’ve never felt the need to even try MSB!
Beetween you and mingus, I now know I’m not missing anything, really.
My concept of it is similar to Phonak Autosense, where it just kills everything but the front facing speech.
I’m going to post about this elsewhere, but the new Whisper hearing aids are head and shoulders above everything else I’ve tried for speech in noise. The difference is marked. They finally do what hearing aids should have been doing all along.
The need for an accurate description of what users can expect from a features like MSB should not be underestimated,and here’s why I believe this to be true:
- Hearing perception - especially where that sense has been damaged - is subjective, so much so that HA users usually have a difficult time finding a common vocabulary or glossary of terms to describe to other users what they are (or aren’t) able to hear. A good description of a feature from a hearing aid manufacturer provides a platform of words and phrases that users can adopt as a common language for talking to one another about their expectations, results, methods for taking the best advantage of the feature, etc. Left to our own devices, we often end up arguing over the words we are using to describe our successes or failures using the device in question, instead of discussing solutions to our shared problems
- Because our damaged auditory mechanisms force us to guess at what we are hearing, notwithstanding the fact we wear hearing aids, our perceptions and our beliefs about what it is that we are hearing are highly plastic, and subject to manipulation by suggestion. Depending on whom we are talking to about what we are hearing, these suggestions can change, and along with them, out beliefs about what it is that we’re actually hearing. I believe that it’s this plasticity and susceptibility to suggestion that accounts for much of the divergence of opinion about MoreSound Booster that we detect in the Forum from thread to thread, and even from day to day. Oticon isn’t telling us what to expect from their product, and they are not providing us with easily-understood concepts and concise terms of reference to discuss things with. So we remain in the dark, and susceptible to the power of persuasion: a poster for whom we have respect suggests what we’re hearing, and that’s what we hear. Another poster with good credibility suggests another possibility, and so that’s what we hear. Our own ability to decide what we’re hearing, as well as our ability to put it into words are compromised, and our constructive dialogue becomes embroiled with chuntering about what we are trying to say, instead of understanding what we’re hearing - or not.
- Because of the oligopolistic nature of the hearing aid industry, makers either have, or pretend to have, treasure chests filled with revolutionary technical secrets which they are loath to disclose. The relatively few “white papers” that actually talk to the technological specifications of hearing aids stop short of full transparency, even to highly erudite Forum members with backgrounds in engineering or audiology, so we are deprived of any means to either prove or disprove the claims about their products made by the Big6 makers. Thus, there’s no way that we can prove that Brand Y is every bit as capable as Brand X of highly directional beam-forming, despite the fact that Brand Y is marketed as a device whose core competence is in processing incoming sounds from all directions. As users, we are, once again, left to our own devices to figure out what we believe we are hearing, and the extent to which those auditory perceptions coincide with the expectations the makers have caused us to have by virtue of their marketing suggestions and persuasive selling tactics.
My point is this: @Volusiano’s remarks about the indistinct descriptions we are fed by the companies that make the devices we wear are accurate, and they merit being taken seriously, because - as hearing devices become more and more complex and sophisticate - we users will be left more and more in the dark with respect to the reasonable expectations we should have about the performance of the devices we put into our ears every morning. And the more in the dark we are, the greater the extent we are susceptible to the power of persuasion, with the result that, at the end of the day, we will be hearing only those things that the Big 6 have told us that we are hearing, in comparison to those who have suffered no hearing loss.
As for me, I’d like to one day understand enough about these things to make up my own mind as to whether I’m hearing the beautiful little spring peeper frogs, or whether the guide pulley on my old van’s water pump is about to let go.
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Yes, that’s just what he’s done, relabeled it. What’s your point, Flash?
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Yes, I have the same, just checked, though I rarely use P4 these days. P4 is a copy of P1 with some slight modifications which I requested for testing purposes. The other two: P2 which is the Speech in Noise program and P3 which is the MyMusic program, do not have the MSB option.
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I have my default program P1, t-coil windows microphones P2, TV adapter, and remote microphone. The remote microphone is because I have the connect clip. I will use the MoreSoundBoost when in some of my meetings.
I personally find I don’t need the speech in noise program. And my audiologist needs to enable the MYMusic program which I guess will become P3.
After all of this discussion I may go into a noisy environment where there are a lot of people talking at the same time, leave P1 on and engage MSB and see if it is helpful. I have tried it in a noisy environment with fans, a TV and a washing machine all going at the same time. While it took the edge off the fans and washing machine, it was not terribly useful.
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@JeremyDC:.Jeremy, I’m having lunch with a good friend on Friday. We like frequenting a small Korean restaurant that’s surprisingly noisy for its small size.
He wears a More1 in 1 ear (his other one is normal) so we’ll be able to compare notes. I’ll post a report Friday night or Saturday.
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My point?
You stated in another post you do not have a General P1 program, but a VAC+ Program.
I was only attempting to enlighten you as to the correct description, which is indeed P1.
's’all good man.
I don’t wish to challenge your very extreme high quality of intell.
So, ok
Actually what @flashb1024 and @SpudGunner are discussing here brings up an interesting question.
I also thought I heard from somebody (maybe @mago ? but I could be wrong) that they have a copy of the P1 program which is VAC+ as well (of course if VAC+ is what’s selected in P1) but slightly altered, and they could enable the MSB in this “copied” program as well. For example, if this copied program is in P4, then both P1 and P4 let you enable MSB.
I’m guessing that the built-in Speech in Noise program also started out with VAC+ as its baseline and Oticon altered/tailored it slightly to become SIN, maybe we’ll call it VAC+ SIN. Similar to the built-in Lecture program, we’ll call it VAC+ Lecture, etc.
Then let’s say that I pick P1 to have NAL-NL2, then P2 to have the vanilla VAC+, then P3 to be the built-in Speech in Noise (the VAC+ SIN), then P4 to have the vanilla VAC+ as well, but I modify some stuff in the programming to make it different than that of P2 which is also the vanilla VAC+.
Then I assume that the Oticon ON app is smart enough to not allow MSB for the P1 and P3 program (because it’s NAL-NL2 and VAC+ SIN respectively), but the ON app will let you enable MSB for P2 and P3 because they’re variations of the vanilla VAC+?
I’m not asking any of the non-DYI folks to test this out because their set up is already fixed as is. But it’d be interesting to understand the basis of when Oticon would allow MSB to be enabled. My assumption is that if you have a garden variety of the vanilla VAC+, but not when you have the specific built-in VAC+ SIN or VAC+ Lecture, or VAC+ Comfort, etc. And for sure not for VAC+ Music or for MyMusic for that matter as well.
Q: Are “P1, P2, P3, P4” actually programs, per se, or are these designations merely “placeholder names” for caches, into which the various “flavours” of fitting programs can be written (and then called by whatever label the user desires)?
They are designations that the ON app uses by default but can be edited. In my iPhone control panel it doesn’t show the P designations just the names that my audiologist placed in the Gene2 software
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