Phonak Marvel TV Connector / Bluetooth - Sound issues

[catapultit]

Has anyone here experienced program changes while listening to an audio stream via bluetooth / TV connector?

For example i’ll be listening to some music and the pitch will suddenly change and the vocals will be “clear” but the background instruments will be distorted, it seems like it’s changing between speech and music on the fly.

Any solutions would be great as i’ve not been able to find anything to make it work with one profile only and am resorting to use my RogerDirect instead, my audiologist passed my request to Phonak after I got my hearing aids but I never heard anything back.

[Raudrive]

That really makes no sense. Your aids connected to the TV connector operates on only one program, one set of tuning.

If some how your aids were not linked and they functioned separately I can see how you might get the effect you describe.

Curious what others think about this.

[catapultit]

It’s kinda hard to explain so i’ve included an audio sample which is the entire babar theme tune (I had to pick something haha) via Bluetooth but the result is the same via the TV Connector.

Theme Song from YouTube:Babar -​​ Official Babar English - YouTube
Sample from Right Aid: Nextcloud
Waveform from Audacity at 33 seconds: Nextcloud

As you see in the picture the audio starts really compressed and washed out then suddenly gets irritably loud and clear.

[catapultit]

I’ll add that via phonak target there are two streaming options

Which to my understanding is switching between whenever it detects speech or music (or so it thinks as there’s no vocals at all in this video)

The TV connector as it’s connected to my PC does the same thing (Never had this issue with my Signia Aids and Streamline TV).

[tenkan]

@catapultit

Which to my understanding is switching between whenever it detects speech or music

My understanding is one is for music streaming and the other is for phone calls, so that would mean 2 different BT profiles.
Media music could be A2DP
Media speech could be HFP and HSP, so in theory the TV connector shouldn’t be changing between these profiles, it uses Airstream says phonak, whatever that is?
How have you got the TV connector wired up to your TV, as in what cables, 3.5mm plug, optical cable or something else.

[catapultit]

The TV connector is connected directly to my computer (Understandably for use not as intended) but the issue here is really bluetooth from my own iPhone.

[Blacky]

@catapultit

Has anyone here experienced program changes while listening to an audio stream via bluetooth / TV connector?

Yes, but not your issue. Eg if I stream from TV and there’s notifications on phone, then it switches to that. Or someone calls me. But switch in my case means ‘stop receiving from the TV completely’. Eg it is program change just not yours.

@Raudrive

That really makes no sense. Your aids connected to the TV connector operates on only one program, one set of tuning.

Nope.

@tenkan

My understanding is one is for music streaming and the other is for phone calls, so that would mean 2 different BT profiles.

Nope.
For phone calls there’s additional BT streaming profile. Check my pics, you’ll see all three

What @catapultit said is correct.

TV connector and BT media stream use same autosense and they’re two of them like in the picture.

Idea is that HAs automatically switch between the two profiles. How they decide, it is unknown to me.
In the app you’ll only see if it is connected to the TV or BT, but you cannot see which from 2 autosense profiles are active.

My wild guess is that it tries to detect SNR, eg vocal vs bg music, and if it’s similar, it uses music, if it’s different it uses speech autosense program.

I didn’t listen to music at all, so I didn’t experience this, but it makes sense based on their description how things are supposed to work.

You can make those both autosense programs at the same settings, but that’s about it. We don’t have any ability to adjust the trigger point between the two.

Only workarounds that comes to my mind is to use manual music program and some headphones that cover only mics and not opening of the ear canal (to avoid feedback).

But it was bound to happen, not all what we humans perceive as music can be precisely described through the numbers.

Nag your fitter that they nag the phonak, maybe they eventually upgrade autosense because of it, or give you some other idea.

Also, I’ve listened this sample with paradises (bad idea) and without and I must say that I don’t hear the problem that could be that my hearing is so bad that I actually prefer streamed version, or that we have different settings.

My setup, in case it helps with anything:

gain is a bit different between the two, and then options are completely different.

[Raudrive]

@Blacky

TV connector and BT media stream use same autosense and they’re two of them like in the picture.

You may be right but I don’t think so.
The streaming program media speech+mic is for the TV connector.
The program media music+mic is for other streaming devices, like your phone.
This is how I interpret the software. Might be wrong though.
@RogerPM could you help us with this question.

[Blacky]

phonak_insight_btb_audeo_marvel_autosense_os_3.0.pdf

Classification of media signals
Listening to music and enjoying it is achieved by an alternate setting than that used to attain optimal speech understanding. In an internal study conducted at the Phonak Audiology Research Centre (PARC), participants emphasized their preferences for clarity of speech for dialoguedominated sound samples and sound quality for musicdominated samples (Jones, 2017). This preference applies not only in the acoustic environment where signals reach the hearing aid microphones directly, but also for streamed media inputs via the Phonak TV Connector or Bluetooth connection to a mobile device.
Phonak Audéo Marvel with AutoSense OS 3.0 now incorporates streamed inputs into the automatic classification process offering the wearer speech clarity as well as an optimal music experience

[Raudrive]

That makes since. We read so much material and flat miss details sometimes.
Thanks for this information. No wonder so many including me enjoy the TV connector.

So, what this says is the OP might have too much difference in tuning between their streaming speech and music programming making it noticeable when auto changing.

[Blacky]

@Raudrive

OP might have too much difference in tuning between their streaming speech and music programming

Could be. Or they have really good ears

@catapultit can you share your screenshots for gain and options for each, if you want us to peek in it?

[Raudrive]

@Blacky

Or they have really good ears

This crossed my mind too.

[tenkan]

@Blacky

For phone calls there’s additional BT streaming profile

Yes that’s right, that’s most likely the HSP profile i mentioned.

@Blacky

Idea is that HAs automatically switch between the two profiles. How they decide, it is unknown to me.

So this Autosense streaming only works like this with the microphone’s on? It needs to monitor the environment to make these changes, its only one BT profile but different codec/bitrate? I know it hardly matters, as it just seems to work,as you say you couldn’t notice any differences, same with @Raudrive when using the TV connector.

@Blacky

You can make those both autosense programs at the same settings, but that’s about it. We don’t have any ability to adjust the trigger point between the two.

I wonder if you changed those settings to be quite different from each other, that might change the "trigger point "
What happens when you turn all these settings off, including the microphone, so no environmental input? (As in do you notice any difference then?)

@Blacky

@catapultit can you share your screenshots for gain and options for each, if you want us to peek in it?

It seems the op has now said its his Bluetooth from his iPhone that’s the issue and not the TV connector.

[Raudrive]

@tenkan

I know it hardly matters, as it just seems to work,as you say you couldn’t notice any differences, same with @Raudrive when using the TV connecto

I compared gains between the streaming speech/music programs. There was a noticable difference. I do not have good hearing to really judge these programs switching but I have never noticed a bump. Comparing AutoSense in the normal programs I do notice them switching.

[Blacky]

@tenkan

It needs to monitor the environment to make these changes,

Um, no, it analyses stream to decipher if it’s streaming speech or streaming music. This has nothing to do with environment but with material you are streaming
Don’t ask me how it does it though, no clue.

It’s two programs in autosense for that, and you can adjust gain and options, check pics above.

Third program is BT call streaming.

@tenkan

What happens when you turn all these settings off, including the microphone, so no environmental input? (As in do you notice any difference then?)

This sounds like a question for OP?

I don’t even see any problem with my setting, so it’s not that I’m positive I’d figure out anything

But I’m swamped currently. I’m trying to convince two dell laptops to allow me to install linux on them. One is conquered after a few hours of digging, but another one is refusing to even see the USB with this bootable image on it. UEFI something / secure boot / who knows what. These laptops are my current priority, so, won’t be in the mood to pull up HA equipment and test that thoroughly for some time. Having three laptops on my lap/couch and wires, is more than enough of problems to solve for now

@tenkan

It seems the op has now said its his Bluetooth from his iPhone that’s the issue and not the TV connector.

From how I read it, it’s both, check the first sentence.

[catapultit]

@tenkan

It seems the op has now said its his Bluetooth from his iPhone that’s the issue and not the TV connector.

It’s actually both which is odd.

@Blacky

@catapultit can you share your screenshots for gain and options for each, if you want us to peek in i

Absolutely. See attached

[catapultit]

@tenkan

What happens when you turn all these settings off, including the microphone, so no environmental input? (As in do you notice any difference then?)

I’ve turned the Mic off on the hearing aids with this setup and nothing changed ( Really do love turning the Mic off in certain scenarios, shame the timeout for the TV Connector etc isn’t that great)

[tenkan]

Ok i thought you hadn’t noticed.

@catapultit

I’ve turned the Mic off on the hearing aids with this setup and nothing changed

Ok thanks for letting us know, obviously something else at play, as you know both @Raudrive and @Blacky have the TV connector so they can best help, of course the other recourse is your audiologist and phonak.

[catapultit]

I’ve just turned off whistleblock on streaming, seems to have improved things significantly on bluetooth but the TV connector is still weirdly washed out on the PC, I guess that’s the nature of the TV connector being ‘incompatible’

[tenkan]

Excellent news, your definitely getting somewhere, more adjustments just might make it perfect ; )