In doing the “thought” experiment before actually switching out the domes, I read a bunch of posts in this forum including the following by um_bongo (Stephen Bright):
I found two threads useful to save links to, the one that Stephen’s post is in and this other one:
https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/power-dome-concerns/24007?u=jim_lewis
plus the one in which you posted the paper on analysis of open vs. closed fittings (I gave up reading after those so there still may be other very worthy threads I’ve overlooked).
Just to be sure, I have gone back to Smart Fit 1.3, changed the dome specifications for both HA’s, found the “Recalculate” submenu item on the Tools menu in the Right (horizontal) Center (vertical) bar for Smart Fit and find that the programmed gain settings do not change one whit between medium open domes and medium power domes - but you’d think that they would as for very low frequencies NO GAIN is prescribed for 250 Hz up through 1 K in my HA’s. Maybe the lower frequencies make it through the power dome somewhat as well as being replicated with no gain by my HA’s (I don’t yet really understand what a gain of 0 means in terms of output from the HA - I would think that it means that the sound is passed on at the same volume it was received by the HA).
The other thing I’ve noticed about using the Power domes is that it makes my HA’s less sensitive to feedback - that’s a by-the-book observation of what occlusion is supposed to do for you. Off to gym to exercise lazy butt and try power domes in very noisy environment. They worked great on a walk last night using my noise cancelling headphones to stream talk show podcast to my HA’s. Speech very crisp and clear compared to open vents even with same headphones on. Gym will be tougher test. Eventually the noisy restaurant test.