Phonak Naida Q70-UP and peak clipping

Hearing Aid Self-Fitting and Adjusting [DIY]
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#1

Hello!

I am having an annoying issue with my hearing aids and I am wondering if someone can help.

I have Phonak Naida Q-70 UP. I have been programming my HA’s myself for about 2 years.

My problem is, I think peak clipping.

When there is a loud high frequency sound (my wedding band clinking on a glass cup, “T” sound when listening to the radio at high volumes, lots of sounds from music I can’t really identify) my hearing aid makes an additional clicking or clipping noise. It’s super annoying.

I had this problem on my other Phonak Bolero Q-50 and my newer Naida Q-70, more in the right than the left. I suspect this has something to do with the super high gain as my HF loss is profound maxing out the HA.

I have read online about “headroom” I.E. “Headroom can be defined as the “residual dynamic range of a hearing aid, expressed as the difference in dB SPL between a given output (such as gain at user settings) and the level of saturation of the device”*. In layman’s terms, it’s the amount of sound that a user can hear through his hearing aid before clipping or distortion occurs.”

Cool, okay. How do I fix this in Phonak Target?

Christina

#2

I have similar hearing loss like yours and I had saturation noise on my right HA because I have severe loss on the high frequency range like you do. I had my audi take down the the 8kHz and 6Khz gains by a few dBs, and even the 4kHz gain by a couple of dBs as well. With that, the saturation noise went away or is minimized.

Since you’ve been programming your HAs yourself for a couple of years, all you have to do is try to take down between the 4 to 8kHz gains a few notches and see if it helps. Even the 3kHz range as well. Just take it down a little bit at a time until it’s all gone, and take it up again until it reappears, so you know where exactly the sweet spots are. I would find a sound source like a movie or video where you hear a lot of the saturation, then just replay it over and over at the exact trouble spots so you can get a consistent reproduction of the issue.

That’s what I did in one of my fittings with my audi. I brought along a video with the trouble spots and played it on my smart phone after the audi took down the high ends a few notches to test out on the spot whether it helped or not. In your case it should be easier because you can do your own programming in the comfort of your own home.

#3

I’ll do that. I have a great source… my friend gave me one of those fidget cubes and all the little clickers on it make my hearing aids make the clipping noise.

#4

I got the peak clipping sound to go away by reducing the MPO for high frequencies. *shrug?

1 Like
#5

Bingo!!!