well, It seems that the implementation is different … Phillips seems to be implying for example “more help from front” the use of the sensors for beam forming purposes.
Where as the Intent, it is clearly applied to NR to create a bigger contrast between SNR … time will tell
Very good point you raised here @user246 that Philips may apply beam forming more aggressively to put more focus to speech on the front in the “no motion” and “occasional motion” situation, compared to how Oticon does it (which may put less emphasis on beam forming due to their open paradigm). However, I suspect that the intent interpretation between the 2 brands are probably not too far off from each other, simply because there’s really not much else you can interpret from the head movements beside this. By doing any deeper interpretation beyond this simple “generalization”, it would be too far reaching and can have the opposite effect of doing a bad interpretation.
Anyway, having the open paradigm doesn’t imply that Oticon doesn’t do beam forming. Oticon may choose to do beam forming differently and less aggressively, but they do use beam forming, based on the 2 observations below:
The Oticon whitepaper since day 1 (of the OPN era) until now always mentioned the MVDR (minimum-variance distortionless response) beam forming technique to create a bigger contrast between meaningful and less meaningful sounds. The first screenshot (from the OPN whitepaper) below are the 2 illustrations of how the null directions are formed using 2 types of polar signals for droning noise sources like a car. The second screenshot is the verbage explaining how this beam forming works. Note that it’s titled “Intent-based Spatial Balancer”, implying that before it was just a simpler balancer, but now, there’s an input component to it that is based on the 4D sensor. Unfortunately, Oticon didn’t go into details of now the 4D sensor input drives the MVDR beam forming.
For the Difficult Environment classification, This Intent-based Spacial Balancer is placed squarely right before the DDN Neural Noise Suppression feature (see third screenshot below). After the Spatial Balancer does its own noise attenuation to balance the sound scene better, the DNN take this input and does its own noise reduction for speech specifically. The noise reduction by the DNN is not beam forming based using microphone plotting techniques anymore, but it’s just about varying the volume levels of the different sound components in the sound scene that the DNN has broken down and recreated, to achieve the SNR for speech contrast by giving higher volumes to speech components and lower volume to other non-speech sound components.
Because the Directionality Setting in Genie 2’s MoreSound Intelligence window has 3 possible values: 1. Neural Automatic, 2. Full Directional, and 3. Fixed Omni, this implies that the DNN can place localization information on the sound components. Before, in the Real, without the 4D sensor, the DNN probably just gives better SNR contrast to speeches coming from anywhere, not just in front. But now, in the Intent with the 4D sensor, the DNN can use this information to apply various SNR contrasts for various speeches differently, depending on where they come from in the sound scene, based on the interpreted intent using the 4D sensor on the head movement.
So going back to @user246 's great observation that the Philips 9050 probably uses beam-forming to execute the interpretation of the user’s guessed intent for speeches, but the Oticon Intent probably doesn’t. The Oticon Intent’s DNN can still execute the same interpretation of the user’s guessed intent for speeches, not any differently than the Philips 9050, except without needing to use beam forming, but simply by rebalancing the volumes of the various speech components it has broken down and rebuilt in its sound scene. Because the Philips 9050 and the Bernafon Encanta don’t have the DNN like the Oticon Intent, it’s likely that the earlier 2 use beam forming to execute the intent interpretation, while the later uses the DNN to do it.
But the main point is that I think it’s unlikely that the Philips 9050’s intent interpretation would be any different than the Oticon Intent’s interpretation, nor any different than the Bernafon Encanta’s interpretation. There’s only so much you can deduce from the head movement sensors, so the goal should be to keep the interpretation simple enough and generalized enough so that you don’t over-guess the intent incorrectly, which can backfire in embarrassing ways.
Just to contribute my experience, I am also trialing the Intent 1s coming from the Real 1s since last Thursday. This weekend i had the opportunity to visit a loud restaurant and a college graduation where things were loud and the noise scene relatively complex.
The headline for me is that, while the OPNs brought the open sound scene, the Mores 1s added more sounds (indiscriminately at times), the Real 1s took away wind and to some extent sudden sounds and the Intents reduce noise (somewhat aggressively at times) and focus on voices.
On the upside I can say that there is a definitive difference between the Reals and the Intents in picking out voices. I have them configured with the most aggressive sound reduction (intentionally as wanted to see the real difference since this is a trial). The result is a very aggressive highlighting of voices against sound which improve speech comprehension for me… Surprisingly so…
On the downside, music on the regular program appears muddy and flat. Need to make more adjustments to improve this and I’m sure this can be addressed. The music program is better as expected but not great. This flatness of sounds occurs with other sounds as well which is not always a positive… but not really with voices.
It’s only been a few days but I tend to think that the 4D sensor thing is somewhat gimmicky. I have not experienced this in action but maybe it’s so good that it’s transparent which is probably the definition of success for hearing aids.
A few days in i have to say i can hear the difference in speech comprehension. Will do more adjustments and see if that helps music.
I am also using speech rescue which i find helpful in the Real and Mores before that.
Lastly I am currently using the 85db receivers and plan to try the 100 db to see if there is benefit. My high end loss is profound but maybe there is some speech that is audible on the 2K area for one side.
YMMV and hope that helps.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the Intent. If I can remember correctly, you’re probably one of the rare (if not first) users who has worn all the models, the OPN, the More, the Real, and now the Intent. So your experience is very valuable from this perspective in terms of the progression of the improvements from one model to another.
I think you’re able to get away with using just 85 dB receivers for your hearing loss but still manage to hear speech well enough is because you’re using Speech Rescue, at least for your left ear. I’m definitely curious to see if you might want to try to experiment just shortly in an equivalent program without Speech Rescue but still with your 85 dB receivers to see if this hunch is correct or not.
And of course when you switch over to the 100 dB receivers, again, if you could try with and without Speech Rescue, to see how they fare against the 85 dB receivers. So there would be a total of 4 scenarios to compare here.
As for a music program, if you still do have your OPNs and you’re a DIY’er, one recommendation I have is to copy the original legacy Music program on your OPN over to the Intent setup verbatim in the Fine Tuning Gain section, turning off all the Neural Noise Suppression stuff and set the Directionality Setting to Fixed Omni, maybe turn off some of the other processing stuff as well if you can manage without them, like the Sudden Sound Stabilizer, Wind and Noise Handling, Feedback Manager, the old Feedback Analyzer/Stabilizer, and even Speech Rescue (once you’re on the 100 dB receivers), one by one, to see if it sounds better than the new MyMusic program or not.
I’ve heard some other folks like to use the DSL V5.0 Adult for music as well. You might have seen that already yourself, too. If you’re a DIY’er, I think arriving at an acceptable music program is feasible and just a matter of time and experimentation.
Thanks for the input and helpful suggestions @Volusiano . I recently increased the setting for speech rescue with the 85db receivers and can confirm that this makes a difference. Once I increased the level one notch above default at the lowest frequency available i could hear the “s” and “sh” sounds transposed which was weird at first but quickly got used to.
I must say i do quite a lot of coping, reading lips and understanding conversations because of context which can be exhausting at times. Definitely not complaining and i feel i do pretty well in social situations. Still rely on captions for streaming content (not news programs for some reason) but so do the young people these days it seems…
When i first got the intents working with my provider I had the mids and highs toned down in the fine tuning screen because i was initially thinking the volume was too loud (I do experience loudness recruitment and are uncomfortable in loud places)…. I’ve gone back to a more appropriate level and some of the muddiness and flatness of sounds has gone away. I’m much happier with the fitting today thankfully.
I will try the 100db receivers once they come in in a couple of weeks and will report back.
Overall pretty happy with the Intents. The improvements are probably incremental to some extent but enough to notice. Proof of the improvement came from my wife who suddenly said “you are not speaking as loud as you usually do!”… to me that was independent external validation… 
Are you DIY? I am DIY too, and I’m sttruggling with Speech Rescue tuning. As I can see you use far left position of SR. Can you distinguish S and SH sounds at this SR position? I tried it, and I hear both sounds as same sound but with different volume. Sometimes I hear SH at higher frequency than S. But if I move SR to higher positions, S sound disappears completely.
If you move the SR destination region to a higher configuration, as you can see below, the red band destination region starts to get into your severely profound inaudible region, so it wouldn’t be of any help anymore.
Even configuration 1 in the screenshot below (the leftmost red region at the bottom of the screenshot below) is barely in your region of somewhat audibility, especially for your right hearing.
@Lostdeaf, I’m a bit of both and trust the provider for the prescription side of things.
I found through experimentation exactly what @Volusiano posted above. I had a provider once set speech rescue to a higher destination band (not understanding how this works) and it did nothing for me. Then spent some time reading about and it became clear that all I could do is aim to land some sounds in the first band because my loss is too severe in the higher bands. I suspect the higher you can go, the more natural the sound is but, I’ll take what I can get.
As to whether i can tell the difference between “s” and “sh”, I can in some cases and not in others. To me, context helps discern what the words are.
Speech rescue has its physical limits and as your loss moves to the lower frequencies, the less effective it becomes. At least that is my thinking.
One update here after some real-world testing…
I’ve visited several loud restaurants in a large group and taken a red-eye flight while on vacation.
On the positive side, and after making some more adjustments to more closely match the levels of the Real 1s I had earlier, I can say that there is a noticeable improvement for me in speech comprehension. In one instance i was able to more clearly understand a person wearing a mask where I couldn’t read lips. As posted before, for me, the Intents highlight voices away from noise more than the Reals and the Mores before then. I expect this is a combination of the improved noise reduction and the new DNN. So far this improvement to me is enough to justify the upgrade.
Feedback control seems improved as well as I have been able to put on my over-the-ear headset without the feedback i would get with the Reals that used to require lowering the volume or muting the HAs. Same molds with the same size vents.
On the less positive side, a couple of things…
The 4D Intent feature still seems a bit elusive. Here is an example…. If you are sitting at a table of 6 other people in a loud restaurant and the person in the left starts speaking, then the person in your right responds and then the person in front of you says something else while other tables also have their own conversations going on at the same time, I wonder if I should expect that the Intents somehow know how to follow the conversation by virtue of my head movement… not should they. My experience is that voices overall are highlighted away from the noise without regard to the source. That doesn’t mean they performed poorly and, in fact they performed very well… just that i did not experience some sort of dynamic or intentional focus on the source of the voices that i thought i should. Maybe my expectation is incorrect.
Another observation is that the travel charger with a lid is a must have. I had to charge the Intents while on a flight and that meant putting them in the charger and being concerned about them falling out while i put the charger back in my bag on the floor. Sure I could have put the charger on top of the seat tray but I would much rather put them in a charger where I can close the lid and put them away back in the bag.
I have not yet tried the 100db receivers.
Hope this helps and curious about others experiences particularly with the new features.
I haven’t received my INTENT1 aids yet, I will in a little over 3 weeks from now. I will have the custom semi skeleton ear molds with 105db receivers. My Real1 settings will be copied to my INTENT1 aids then the checklist from Oticon will be followed to make the INTENT changes needed for the settings. I will be interested in how much improvement I see. With my Real1 and More1 aids and skeleton custom ear molds I don’t have any feedback and no wind noise issues. But I do have issues with noisy environments. I also can only be in a one on one conversation. For our church services I use t-coils for a pleasure understanding of the service. Music with singers is a no go, instrumental music is enjoyable.
While it’s not documented for Oticon exactly what the 4D Sensors do, it is documented on the Philips 9050 whitepaper, and for all practical purposes, it’s the same accelerometer technology used on both aids. Below is a screenshot of the description of how the Philips 4D Sensors do. It’s rather quite simplistic when you look at it. So you shouldn’t expect much in terms of how smart it is to truly read your personal listening intent.
It doesn’t really follow your head movement to direct your hearing toward the speech your head is pointing to. In the scenario you described above, with quick exchanges between people at your table, your head would have been making steady motion left and right, and speech from your periphery (perhaps on the sides and back) would have been picked up more according to the table below, which might not have matched with your listening intention.
Had the exchanges been slower, which caused you to move your head occasionally, you would have just gotten the default help for front speech → not much help for the conversation on the sides.
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t have high expectation from the 4D Sensors technology to be able to be smart enough to really interpret your personal listening intent correctly. If you just have a lower expectation of what it can do rudimentarily as outlined in the screenshot below, then perhaps you won’t be as disappointed in it.
Right @Volusiano … this above would match my experience. I also think that attempting to predict the user behavior is probably too ambitious and a bad idea.
I guess I’m still looking to figure out what the 4D thing does. It took a some time for the Speech Sound Booster to be clearly understood as compared to the marketing speak.
Phillips use traditional beam forming where as Oticon has open sound.
There is a white paper explaining how the sensors work to create the SNR contrast.
While 9050’s seem to be implying to take into account the environment, perhaps this is
the detectors for speech and environment are perhaps different , modulation based as oppose to
voice finder?
The only meaningful level of details that Oticon reveals in their whitepaper that I can find about how they apply their speech SNR contrast based on is with the screenshot below. As you can see, the more complicated the environment (the left side of the x axis) would widen up the scope of the SNR speech contrast, with the highest SNR contrast applied to ‘intimate conversation’, and the lowest SNR contrast applied to ‘navigating the room’. And the contrast between these 2 extremes widens as the listening environment becomes more complex (migrating toward the left side of the x axis).
But this is consistent with the table shown in the Philips 9050 whitepaper, where “intimate conversation” is based on no head movement, and “navigating the room” is based on frequent head movement, leaving the middle part (default help for speech from front) for occasional head movement, which corresponds to the dashed blue line.
The bottom line is that the 4D Sensors technology gives you a wide range of SNR contrast depending on the amount of movement on your head. If you want the most SNR contrast for speech, keep your head as still as possible. If you want the least SNR contrast for speech, move your head a lot, either up and down (to simulate walking) or sideways (to simulate scanning for various speeches around you).
Thanks. I’ll see if I can correlate.
Just over a month now with my INTENT1 aids. First off the INTENT smart charger is fantastic, I am able to charge the charger on Sunday and it will charge my aids the next 6 days with no extra charge of the charger. Now I must say even with 2 to 5 hours of streaming of audiobooks most days I haven’t seen my aids batteries drop below 35% life left. I am averaging 16 hours a day wearing my aids.
I only have default general program and it is all that I need. I am having no issues at the church services, not needing the t-coils to understand the service. I have been to a number of meetings with from 6 to 40 people in attendance and haven’t had any issues. I have been to a movie and not needing to use the t-coils. I can hear the TV set to my wife’s comfort volume without needing the TV adapter. I have been to a concert and to be honest I wore my headphones over my ears and aids to feel comfortable as the sound was way too loud even with muting my aids. I have been to several noisy environments, restaurants, Sam’s club, and haven’t had any issues with noise.
I have custom ear molds and I am to the point that I am mostly hand off my aids or app I haven’t needed any volume adjustments or equalizer adjustments exceptfor the concert. My aids go on when I get out of bed and come out only when preparing for bed.
Connectivity with my Samsung S23 is solid, but I have had to disable le audio, and hearing aid compatibility. I use the connect clip with my android tablet, and don’t have any issues even with the aids also having connections to the phone.
It is almost as if I have my normal hearing life back.
That sounds great. Congratulations!! Except for the LE Audio bit. What is that all about? Hands free telephone with Android is important for me.
At this time Samsung hasn’t fixed the bug that was created back in April that has messed up le audio. Honestly I am doubting it will be fixed until android 15 or maybe, I can hope, with OneUI 6.1.1.
I am not someone that makes connectivity that high on my demand list, in fact it is the bottom of my list. My needs is speech of all types and that is checked off in spades for me now. Connectivity is just added bonus.
What issues have you seen with the Hearing Aid Compatibility option? This is the first time hearing that this did not have a positive effect. Is this an Intent specific thing? Thanks.
There is a bug causing the phone app to not stream to my aids if I enable the le audio. With it disabled I am not having any issues.
