Have been using Paradise P90 for little over 2 years. Now that I am back going into crowds I am unsatisfied with ability to enjoy myself due to background noise. Saw audiology today, audiogram is similar to last year. REM was to target. She suggested a trial of Oticon More 1. It has just been one day but the improvement is large. Maybe it is just different but sound is more crisp and lively. Not more treble but more comfortable. I wonder if this is just a new experience or if my brain really does better with Oticon. Any of you had same experience? Thnaks.
I find my More1 aids sound great and I have no issues with noisy environments. I have worn Oticon aids for over 12 years, and they have progressively gotten better over the years, but Oticon add on devices are lacking and the app to me is not needed and lacking due to connectivity issues. The sound of the Oticon aids and their ability to help me with my hearing loss issues has kept my using them.
There have been many comparisons between Oticon & Phonak, and the bottom line is:
TaDa! How good is the fitter?
Most people feel Oticon has a more Natural sound than Phonak, and I agree, because 2 years ago I trialed the Phonak Marvels, and found their sound to be more processed, and veiled than Oticon.
Just my HO!
@psternklar ,For me, “natural” sound and speech-in-noise speech comprehension are two different things. I have Oticon Mores and, although I like their natural sound, I have had trouble with speech comprehension in noise due to too much perceived background noise. It has seemed a little better lately since I switched from bass double-vent domes to power domes. But I would happily trade the More’s more natural sound for better speech-in-noise comprehension.
It’s so difficult to get direct comparisons between the latest models of different manufacturers’ HAs. It would be great if a user were able to get their hands on the latest and greatest models of each manufacturer’s HAs all at the same time and try each model out in the same noisy environment. But that’s not how it works in the real world.
If I were you I would try the new Phonak Lumity HAs before I committed to buying the Mores. The Lumity might be significantly better in noise than your Paradise HAs. Also the Mores have been around for about two years. Oticon might be releasing a new and improved HA in the next few months. It’s frustrating to buy HAs only to have a new and improved model be introduced a short time later.
Big caveat up front is that these are all last-gen HAs.
I had the Oticon Opn for 3 years from 2017-2020 and quite enjoyed them. I work in a very humid environment and both HAs eventually succumbed to the moisture, and while I’d had both repaired once, I didn’t want to do it again and switched to the Phonak Paradise in 2020 on my audi’s recommendation.
I prefer the sound quality of the Oticons, but the water resistance (no sign at all of any water damage 2.5 years in, still working in the same very humid environment) and Android BT connectivity make up for the comparatively lacking sound quality.
I’ll be up for new HAs next year and plan to take a hard look at Oticon then. If the BT connectivity is (hopefully) no longer an issue, then it’s a pretty easy jump for me to go back to Oticon presuming sound quality has not declined and water resistance has improved.
I have Own1 ITC and they are terrible for me. All these great reviews here have me wondering if the “custom” products use an inferior technology. I am also switching audiologists.
The OWN IIC has NO MNFI (Magnetic Near Field Induction) so you lose out on the binaural experience because the 2 HAs cannot share audio information with each other, thereby limiting your ability to localize the sounds. But the CIC and ITC and HS and FS versions all have MNFI so the hearing experience should not be too far off from the More version. The only thing you lose out on between the CIC up to the FS versions are access to a variety of connectivity functionalities like button controls, 100 dB size receiver, telecoil or Bluetooth (but not both), bigger battery size, etc.
So if you actually have the ITC (and not the IIC), and you have a terrible experience with them, switching audiologist may help improve your experience.
@grantb5: Sorry, Grant, but I’m sure @flashb1024 would agree: it’s hard to see the words “Oticon (Own)” and “inferior technology” used in the same paragraph together.
Terrible compared to what? Have you worn ITCs before and these are worse or is ITC new to you? I am on my second set of HAs - I have more 1’s now but my first set were Starkey IICs. There is no way for me to know what is making me feel that these are so much better (brand maybe better for me, newer technology or the style, different audi) but I think that the sound may be very different between custom in the ear and RIC. I was leaning towards the Own but my audi convinced me to try the More’s and once I did, I had no interest in going back to in the canal. I know lots of people love ITC, but maybe they are not for everyone.
My last HA, and the ones I am currently most happy with are Starkey Muse ITC. They are almost the same physical size as the Oticons I just got. The Starkeys are getting long in the tooth and the streaming requires a gateway device because they are 900MHz, not Bluetooth. Actually I like the 900MHz range, but the gateway device is a big negative to me. I selected the Oticons because they are well received on this forum, have the connectivity I want, fit in the ear and use 312 batteries.
Comparisons:
The OWN1’s take at least twice as long to boot and the song is embarrassingly bad. I had the audi disable it and the Starkeys still boot faster. But talk about a horrible first impression.
The OWN1’s impulse suppression uses a hard gate that cuts off the attack of almost any sound with a fast rise time. This is also embarrasingly bad and reminiscent of circa 2000 Unitron. I had the audi reduce this without making the impulse too painful. Previously on my Starkey there was a soft limit imposed to keep sounds under my Maximum (Un)comfortable Level. Sorry I can’t remember the term. MCL? My best explanation of this effect is that anything with a “beep” turns into a “meep” and a click is not heard from the origin, but from it’s sound reflection off a wall.
The OWN1’s slaughter noise. So fans and road noise become blenders. The opposite effect of what one expects. Hearing speech over a blender is impossible.
As a side note, people at my work were so frustrated with office conversation that they begged me to go back to the old pair. My old (Starkey) audiologist retired and my new one (Oticon) seems to just follow “first fit” with a few of the standard paint-by-number fixes from the software.
The connectivity of both is pretty good.
I believe the comment above about NFMI is incorrect, at least partially. The two aids to communicate for the purposes of changing volume, program and muting. If there is any other collaboration between them, I don’t know.
That’s as much as I have time to explain now. I bought a TV Adapter so that I could determine my thoughts on the frequency response (output section) without using the aids input processing (bypasses the mic and some of the input stages).
Honestly, if the new Starkey Evolve AI IIC Wireless could do what their manual says it can, then I would jump to those. However it seems you can’t stream to the IIC even though some documentation I found says you can. Not sure where the incorrectness is there as no one at the company will talk to an end customer as near as I can tell.
Certainly I have given up on my new audiologist after three attempts to make these usable. I am hoping to salvage something from them since their reputation is so high.
I understand the sentiment. I mean the OWN IIC being inferior to the rest of the OWN line. It’s like a second-rate instrument with quite acceptable connectivity.
@grantb5 very interesting - thanks for the comparison. I felt the same way about the gateway device with my old starkeys - so much so that it wasn’t worth the hassle to keep another device charged and carry it around, but that also meant I couldn’t change the volume or program. I was looking at the Own because I didn’t like the antenna on the new starkeys. But now I am very curious as to how I would have liked the Owns. Although I am finding the Mores to be such an improvement that I don’t see myself going back to ITC. I hoe you are able to get your Owns working properly (or are able to return them).
I was at my VA clinic yesterday, December 21, getting my More1 aids updated as well as my OPNS1 aids reprogrammed to be as close as possible to my More1 aids, I also had a conversation about the OWN1 ITE half shell aids, at the previous appointment we had discussed getting me a set of them but my audiologist decided against it due to my hearing loss and my need for the 100db receivers. My audiologist said that he was afraid that I would have issues with feedback due to the receivers and microphones being so close together. My wife complains about hearing what I hear as it is when we are sitting close together. We basically agreed that from now on I will need either MiniRite or BTE aids.
@grantb5: I really don’t know why the marketing experts that I’m sure Oticon can afford to hire insist on diluting the power and appeal of their star products with dud accessories (like ConnectClip whose battery isn’t replaceable) and bum apps (like ON). Why? Surely they know when their design compromises have gone too far and spoiled their value proposition?
I have never understood if the ON app is the best they can do, then why do it at all. As for as the connect clip, I have used it very rarely, it works great if I need it. I am more than happy with the TV Adapter. And the remote does what is needed.
And at least for my needs the aids and the TV adapter is all I really have to have, but the remote does come in handy if I am somewhere that I don’t want to pull out my phone and I have chosen to wear my real watch over the Apple Watch.
Hm, if you admit that you don’t know if there is any other collaboration between them, then why would you conclude that my statement about NFMI being used for binaural sound processing is incorrect (at least partially, as you put it)?
But you don’t have to take my words for it. Perhaps if an HCP says it, then you’ll believe it more? Here’s a YouTube video of Dr. Cliff Olsen talking about it at the 10 minute mark into the video when he reviews the Oticon Own.
Or perhaps a whitepaper by Oticon themselves that discusses the details of how binaural processing (they call it the Spatial Sound LX feature) works and its benefits can convince you further? This technology is pretty old as you can see the date of this whitepaper being 2013.
The changing volume, changing program, muting, etc. is the LEAST of what binaural communication between the 2 hearing aids can do via NFMI. The REAL benefit is in the binaural processing to help determine the localization of sounds, which in turn can help with the brain hearing being able to use localization of sounds to help suppress background noise if it can identify where various sounds come from so it can learn to focus on wherever the speech is and learn to ignore where the noises come from.
@Volusiano: I must say that, as much as I love my Oticon More1s, I have a hard time determining the source of sounds, regardless of where in the room they emanate from. I have put it down to a deterioration of my hearing, and not a failure of my engines…
