A short review of the Xceed models from my first impressions looking closer at it.
The Xceed is the successor of the Oticon Dynamo.
Since UP or SP BTE are not the high sellers compared to medium to power performance instruments, the hearing aid manufacturers usually develop the hardware of such a form factor only once for a chip platform. Probably with some FW upgrades later or improvements, but in principle we can expect such a new product only every 6-8 years. (Dynamo was a hardware redesign from Chili which was launched in 2010, Dynamo in 2015 (?).
Looking at the Oticon Xceed UP data, we can see that this BTE has the highest gain performance in the market, which is also shouted out loud by marketing. There is always a dB-race in the industry, pushing the physical limits further and further. Highest gain has always the highest risk for instability and feedback of course.
As far as I know both Xceed models are the first BTE UP-675 and SP-13 using MEMS microphones in the market (and probably the first launched MEMS product for Oticon at all). Meanwhile MEMS microphones are the industry standard.
I had already a deeper look and there are three interesting factors for the Xceeds to push the gain so extremely high and still keep the tendency of feedback under control:
- MEMS mics. They have a lower vibration sensitivity than classical ECM microphones.
- Oticon’s improved feedback canceller algorithm, introduced with the OPN-S family.
- A very special and innovative symmetric microphone inlet design. It has been designed very clever: when the air is stimulated by vibration, the mass of the air in the sound inlet counteracts the mass of the microphone membrane. Unwanted vibrations and the tendency to feedback will be acoustically (=mechanically) nearly cancelled out.
It looks like this design has one disadvantage: it makes the space requirements of the inlet large in a way, that it will not be suitable for smaller BTE or other form factors, but that’s not relevant for them anyway.
As I’ve said, an UP-675 will not be a high seller but the Xceed models are in the moment one of the most innovative and interesting products in its class.
‘We break the laws of physics’ (says Oticon marketing).
If this is true, this would lead to a fail! What you can do is to define new physical limits. (As an engineer I am naturally in conflict with marketing)