@Neville: Thank you for putting your oar into this discussion, Neville.
To the best of my knowledge, my Audi performs REM on whatever changes such as adding NL2 are made. He definitely did have to turn some things up to match my prescriptive targets. I suspect that he may have to do some further tweaking, since it sounds as though everyone has a lisp. I’m hearing “sh” when only “s” is being said.
Although my music is a central aspect of my life, understanding my wife and students, as well as being able to hear sounds our critters are making are my most important criteria driving changes to my HA settings. My audiologist and I are on the same page, and I know for certain that he’s committed to best practices. Lazy he is not!
Since getting my More3s on March 2nd, I have been wearing the devices for 16 hours a day, on average. I wore my previous Unitron North Moxi Fit 800s far less than that - to be honest, on many days, the devices sat, unused, in their case (because they were useless to me, given their poor fit). I’m not sure whether 30 days suffices to refresh my heretofore unstimulated auditory cortex, but I’m certain that changes for the good are occurring.
VAC+ has , right off the bat, provided me with levels of perception and comprehension that are orders of magnitude greater than anything I realized with my Moxi Fit 800s. What a joy it has been for me, and for MrsSpudGunner! My audi and I agreed to install the stock More Music program at the first fitting, but to use our time getting VAC+ to work for me. Speech comprehension is what I need more of to improve my quality of life.
After reading numerous posts by @Volusiano and others, like yourself, whose familiarity with these rationales eclipses my own, I made notes and communicated them to my audi, along with an expression of my need to be able to perceive soft, non-speech sounds in a quiet setting. He had no objection to adding a properly-fitted NAL-NL2 program to my machines, with the caveat that I not spoil my brain-learning of the VAC+ neural signals giving me such success as I was experiencing, 3 weeks after first fitting.
My existing narrative documents the advantages that I’ve gained from having access to NL2, as well as the fact that I’m not likely to demote VAC+ from its current status as my go-to main program.
I’m interested in pursuing your suggestion that tweaking might improve the music program, however, I’d like to maintain our prioritization of speech, for the time being, and continue with an A/B/C comparison of the three fitting rationales. After a few weeks of habituation, my plan is to cull out either NAL=NL2 or DSLv5.0, (as long as my functionality in speech is not impaired), at which point, we can tweak the music program.
That, at any rate, is the plan, and I’m genuinely grateful for the information that you’re sharing with me to inform my decisions in this regard.
Thank you.
Thus far in my (short) journey with Oticon More3s, I have come to a few conclusions:
. There’s no research to speak to that, as the VAC targets are proprietary. NL2 and DSL have been compared a few times and come out pretty close, although there is some hint that DSL does better in noise (further, there are now also DSL noise targets). In any case, the one that is going to win is the one that gives you the best undistorted audibility, since you cannot hear what you cannot hear. There is certainly evidence that children whose fitting falls below targets have poorer language outcomes.