Phonak Marvel - vibrating tremolo effect for high pitched (electronic) sounds

Sure it will. It will allow you to turn off the whistle reduction in all programs, which is what you say is causing the problem.

You may run into occlusion issues on the other side, though, which could be worse. But individual sensitivity to that varies.

What I was going try next was exactly that - shutting off Whistle Stop in all programs. I can live with the amount of feedback in the music program - no big deal. The person at Connect Hears knew I wasnā€™t going to be purchasing there, and I didnā€™t really want to put her through any more stuff just to buy them at Costco. So, I decided to wait until I get to Costco to experiment with shutting off Phonakā€™s feedback rejection system completely.

Still, seems to me that if one HAS to hear that trem/trill effect when itā€™s engaged, itā€™s a faulty design, right? So, for me, Iā€™d prefer to not go full-bore and block out the lovely natural bass that I hear just fine in order to overcome what seems to be a design flaw in Phonakā€™s hearing aids.

My understanding of a real REM test is that it could be done on most any hearing aids. However, the question would be whether or not the pure tone signals could be displayed in a manner that would show what the waveform looks like. The purpose of REM is to get the sound amplitude vs frequency correct. You would need an oscilloscope type display that locks on the wave form to see what else is there.

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Is it faulty design? Or is it an effective way of dealing with feedback in situations that might warrant it? I have a pair of marvels and a pair of opns on hand, and right now with the settings Iā€™ve got I canā€™t get the marvels to do it while the opns are doing it pretty strongly. (They are not set up identically.) Whether it is there would, Iā€™d expect, depend on the feedback risk given the individual gain and acoustic set-up.

IIRC, most manufacturers use some sort of pitch shift or phase delay for their active feedback management. Iā€™m not actually up to date on how the fancy new opn s feedback managment is supposed to be working (wereā€™s volusiano).

REM microphones and test signals are external to the hearing aids. Thatā€™s the whole point. However, the measurement is averaged over a relatively long time window. Too long for what youā€™re looking at.

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When I was fit for the Marvels, at Phonakā€™s own Connect Hearing center, the technician told me that REM was done by a mic in the Marvelsā€™ receivers, and test tones generated by Phonakā€™s fitting software. No extra test mic was placed in my ear. As far as the stock fitting, with all of what the aid perceives as pure tones (whistle a C# above middle C) providing that trilling effect, and having that carry over into consonants in every day speech and sounds one encounters, Iā€™d say that thereā€™s something flawed in the process. Whether it was the Phonak technician who fitted me while she was on the phone with Phonak, or itā€™s the current version of Target fitting software, or the aids themselves, I donā€™t know. But I do believe it canā€™t be right.

Are you doing the fitting on the Marvels yourself?

I myself donā€™t have Marvel, I have a few different set including Phonak B90ā€™s, but it seems to me that you are indeed on to something here ( I donā€™t think itā€™s a design flaw tho something else) Iā€™m following this thread with interest because of problems with distortion/feedback, by the way Iā€™m also following another post here
Balancing trade-off between comfort and improved clarity for all-to-nothing ski loss

Could be of interest to you, especially this link

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~alexan14/fittingassistants.html

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Iā€™ll admit to not being a pro, but Iā€™m pretty sure thereā€™s no microphone in the Marvelā€™s receivers. Receivers for all intents and purposes are replaceable speakers and thereā€™s no purpose for having a microphone in them. Microphones in the Marvels sit in the body of the hearing aid. Phonak may have some way of simulating REM, but ā€œrealā€ REM uses a separate microphone placed in the ear.

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I agree. As Iā€™ve already mentioned, I currently have the Phonak Nathos Auto and Oticon Dynamo SP8. The Phonaks warble, the Oticons donā€™t. Iā€™ve previously had Siemens aids and theyā€™ve never warbled either. Hmmmmā€¦ :thinking:

Sounds like they ran the in situ audiogram for some odd reason, not REM. Shouldnā€™t make much difference with the trouble you are having, though.

Iā€™m an audiologist, so yeah I do set things up on my own. But I donā€™t have much of a hearing loss and what I do have is a bit atypical, so while I do like to test drive things my experience is not going to truly be comparable to typical users.

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Thank you for clearing that up.

Nice to find this discussion! I have been trying out some M70-Rs and noticed the tremolo effect right away. Iā€™m also a musician (piano/keyboard) and could hear it immediately when playing in the upper register and when listening to certain music. Very annoying. I went back to my audiologist today who was baffled by it. I thought it might just be meā€¦ but I can see it ainā€™t.

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I have been following this thread some wondering what could be done to fix this tremolo effect.
I have an app called Spectroid on my phone. It monitors frequency and decibels. If someone could play the piano or guitar to find out exactly what frequency this tremolo is happening I wonder if lowering the gain in that particular frequency could stop this tremolo effect. Just a guess but trying to help.

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BTW, I had the WhistleStop turned down from 8 to 4, and although a little better, I can still hear the effect. I can even whistle myself and hear it, especially if the aids are turned up more.

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Exactly. And the more you notice it, the more you notice it.

If you scroll up to my previous post in this thread, you will find audio of the effect happening that you can feel free to measure. I chose those because they show it most clearly, so itā€™s not just a single frequency. The threshold, however, is pretty low - Iā€™d say notes starting around 400Hz and up cause it.

Right. I wore them to church today where I play keyboard in a band. Could hear it mostly in the upper register of the guitar and piano notes. I keep thinking it wonā€™t bother meā€¦ but it will. Phonak needs to address this issue.

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Dave, if you are full-in with the Phonaks, your audiologist/fitting technician can create a manual MUSIC program for you. Just have them reduce WhistleStop to zero. That will eliminate the Trill effect. You aids will feedback in the normal situations (hands close to ears, etc), but they sound very good that way. Problem is, when you go back to Autosense 3.0, normal everyday stuff still trills in the higher frequencies.

And to clear it up - looking at the user manuals for Phonakā€™s target software, they donā€™t do REM within the aids as I was told - itā€™s something they call ā€œReal Ear Testā€ where they play a range of tones that, I presume, set the comfort levels for Sound Recover, WhistleStop, etc.

I am a performing wind musician. I used to get this this ā€œtrillingā€ sound when playing. I once heard it described as the sound you get when ā€œplaying into a fanā€. To eliminate this on my Phonak hearing aids my audiologist turned off the the feedback manager on one of my programs so I could perform without this trilling sound. When I changed to Widex a couple of years ago we had to make no such adjustment.

Thanks for the feedback. I will be seeing him this Sat and will see what can be done. Maybe going the manual route is the only way.

I can see feedback happening if you place your hands too close to the aids. What else will cause this?