Oticon Real 1 Music in Non-Music Mode

Hearing Aids
#1

Hi. Newbie here so apologise if this has been answered before. Asking also because I’m going back to my hearing place on Friday for a review.

This may be absolutely normal so please tell me if that’s the case. When my Oticon Real 1s are in ‘My Music’ programme, music sounds ok but the level needs pushing up to +2. When I say, OK I mean not as good as my good ear (I only wear one hearing aid) but better than in my General programme.
In the General programme music is horrible, speech is great. Music sounds swirly, slightly muted and when I block my good ear it’s just a mess. This is mostly noticeable in the car. When I send more volume to the car speaker on the left (my hearing aid’s in my left ear) it more audible but still a horrible swirly mess. Is that normal in the General setting or is there something I can tell my specialist so that she understands what I’m getting at?
Just didn’t really want to have to switch to Music mode just for a short car journey to enjoy the radio. And as iPhone shortcuts don’t have access to programme switching it’s more than a little annoying.
Any help or advice greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.

#2

The processing done in the General program to improve speech comprehension, and to overall make the world sound more tolerable, messes up music. So this is normal. I have Oticon Real 1’s also.

Not sure what you mean by this. Program switching is available on the iPhone hearing aid screen, whether you bring it up from the Control Center or by the triple-click shortcut.

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#3

You can always have your HCP easily increase the volume across the board just for the MyMusic program up to the level you like as a default so you don’t have to click up the volume every time you want to use that program. The other programs’ volume should remain the same.

As to why MyMusic starts out with a slightly lower volume that you want, it may just be a personal balancing preference that your brain has when listening to music compared to other modes.

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#4

Remember, you can always switch programs by merely pressing and holding the “up” button for a couple of seconds and the Real will switch to the next program (and likewise the “down” button to return to the previous program). If your MyMusic program is the second program, then it’s super easy to switch between the General program and the MyMusic program and not even bother using your phone to switch.

#5

Yes that’s fine. But if the programme selection was available as a Siri shourtcut you could then ask Siri to change programmes which I feel could be helpful.

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#6

Thank you I will ask. :slightly_smiling_face:

#7

How exactly can this be achieved in the software? I always have the impression that especially the music program sounds generally louder than the others.

#8

Definitely have the HCP set the music program set to how you like it so it works best for you for music. Aside from an overall quietness, another thing that could be causing music program sound quiet is it using less compression than the speech program. While it may be more ‘accurate’ it may not sound right to you. If the HCP has a way to play some familiar music during the visit, all the better. Good luck Friday!

#9

See the screenshot below. In this Fine Tuning section, select the program of interest, then click on “All” on top of the MPO, Loud, Moderate and Soft buttons. The whole Fine Tuning section with all the values will be colored Red and Blue. Then just click on the + button to increase the volume in every box by 1 dB. The - button will decrease everything by 1 dB.

Naturally if you want to just do it for each row separately, then click on the whole row by clicking on Loud, for example, to select all the gain values in the Loud row, then click + or - to adjust the gain values for that whole rown.

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#10

Great, I understand. So you select the whole area and then decrease it.
MPO is again what exactly?

#11

Rather than start a new topic, I have a question regarding Driving and road noise while in the Real Music settings.
Music sounds very good if I could only get rid of the road noise that is drowning it out.
My course of action now is to lower the volume on the HA’s and increase volume on the car audio. Is there possibly another way to conquer the road noise?
Settings in the Music Program are Fixed Omni and Aware in More intelligence with Neural noise suppression turned off.

#12

That’s the price you pay for the Music program.
Remember, all the noise block, and other speech related enhancements are turned off in order to allow the music to pass through undistorted.

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#13

True that, agree. It’s not that far off though.
Maybe selling the truck and purchasing a Bentley may solve the problem. LOL

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#14

MPO stands for maximum power output. When you have your audiogram done, the HCP will do a test of the maximum volume level that you would not tolerate beyond that. That data is transferred into the MPO level here. Below is the help guide from Oticon on it.

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#15

There’s really no rule that says that the Neural Noise Suppression must be turned off in MyMusic. It just makes sense that it should be turned off under the assumption that you want to minimize all the processing as much as possible. You can always turn it back on if you want to see if it helps. But then it may affect how music sound if you listen to it in a quiet environment like at home, unless you create a dedicated program that is a copy of MyMusic but call it MyMusic in Car or something like that and enable the Neural Noise Suppression there. Of course this will cost you a program out of the 4 you have. If you almost always only listen to music when driving, then maybe you can live with Neural Noise Suppression enabled in MyMusic for good.

Another approach is if you know which frequency range the road noise is in (may need to do some kind of experimentation to figure that out, maybe through trial and error), you can go to into the Fine Tuning section and decrease the gain only in that frequency handle. Of course the trade off is that you will also lose music information in that frequency channel as well, which is no big deal for car music listening, but may be a bigger deal for non-car music listening.

I think your current workaround of increasing the car music volume and decreasing the HA volume is a smart and clever trick, as long as you don’t have a travelling companion with you in the car who may mind the louder music.

Have you tried to listen to music in the car with just the default program that already has the Neural Noise Suppression enabled? Is it that much worse than using MyMusic then? If it’s acceptably good enough for you, that would be another workaround for you → use the default P1 program to listen to music in the car.

#16

Thanks. Yes P1 (General) isn’t great, not enough bottom end. I haven’t really tinkered with that setting much other than to maximize speech. It seems closed and not the open sound I need.
Being a part time drummer like yourself that bottom end is what we crave. Your suggestion of having 2 music programs is on point as that is what I’m tinkering with at the moment and you may just have me going in the NNS direction. I was actually thinking of have my wife drive as I tinker on my laptop to fine tune car audio for a MyMusic 2 program.

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#17

This is UCL. Uncomfortable Level.

This is just based on your audiogram and fitting formula unless you enter the UCL on to the audiogram and then the MPO could be lower if you struggle with noise / pain.

Example of UCL on audiogram.

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#18

Thanks for the clarification, @Zebras . You’re correct on all points here!

#19

I gather if self programming do not exceed the initial fit MPO levels.

#20

When I want music appreciation while driving I bluetooth from my phone, though you must be aware visually of your surroundings while listening