Blue jay… I do wear a 4 length in wires because I like HA’s down a little lower behind the ears
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Here’s the fitting range for the M&RIE receivers. My audi also told me when they first came out for the Ones that they wouldn’t work for me. When I asked about trialing the Omnias with M&RIE receivers, she said, No problem! I think since then by making bigger molds such as the ones that I’ve got, they’ve been able to suppress feedback at higher amplifications. My molds unlike the nice compact ones that Ureout has for regular receivers will take some getting used to on my part and they will certainly be a lot more visible in my ears, like I have a chunk of gum or something plastered into each ear canal.
Source: Datasheet link for M&RIE receivers on following web page: Hearing aids ReSound - ReSound OMNIA support
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None of the Audis I’ve had in the last ten years offered to bend the wires. Had coworkers that had them like TraderGary picture. Thought it was the size or shape of my ears. I’ll ask when I go back this week.
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The M&RIE receivers are working great for me, identifying where sounds are coming from and better sound quality and understanding speech better which is my primary need. I don’t even have to use my TV streamer with the Omnias and have turned of the CC. My Audi also used the NAL-NL2 as my fitting algorithm but as a first time user and 100% gain, need to ask her why since I have used hearing aids for the past 10 yrs. My problem on getting used to the occlusion from the power dome on my left side maybe that the righ ear feels very natural with the closed dome, even though is the first time using a closed dome feels a bit unbalanced, all my previous HA I’ve used open domes.
There could be a relation in size/shape of ears and the fit of ear wires. But I think it’s useful to try out the various sizes of WIRES. Insist upon it! My audi said the sound quality would be different if I went from L to M wire length, and IF that was the case, it was nuanced, and I got used to it asap.
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I took and labeled some pictures of my right ReSound Omnia M&RIE MP receiver mold vs. the original ReSound Quattro mold made for regular MP receivers. Unfortunately, the original mold has yellowed and lost transparency a bit with age, so it’s hard to see the receiver and vent tube channels inside the mold.
Two distinct differences between the molds. The M&RIE receiver vent tube in the ear canal is nowhere near the opening for the receiver in the ear canal. In the Quattro mold for a standard MP receiver, the receiver and vent openings are right next to each other. The second thing is the M&RIE receiver is considerably bigger and longer than the standard MP Quattro receiver so the mold is correspondingly more massive, and the outside end of the receiver almost sticks out to the end of the tragus for each ear to accommodate the length of the straight receiver within the bending shape of the ear canal. For the M&RIE receiver, the length of the run between the “speaker” end of the receiver and the opening of the receiver tube in the ear canal is quite a bit longer, but in spite of that, the sound is great. Not sure if the sound for the M&RIE receiver is being delivered closer to my eardrum. Too bad one doesn’t get a 3D view from the mold design and original impression of exactly how the receiver for each type of mold is positioned in the ear canal relative to the eardrum and the walls of the canal, etc.
Click on each picture to get a larger, easier-to-read, more detailed view.
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Looks Great! What size vent did you end with?
My Audi changed my power dome to a large closed dome which has a small amount of vent, and I don’t feel the terrible occlusion that I had. Now I have to get used to my voice again using closed domes. The Omnias are definitely a great improvement over my previous HA’s. I can heard lots of sounds that I was missing and the speech in noise understanding is great. This morning I could easily understand my wife talking to my while she was in the shower.
I think it’s about 1 mm vent size. AFAIK, they don’t label the bore sizes on the supplied plugs and it’s a little bit hairy trying to measure the actual opening size of the ven.
IIRC, I decided to use a vent originally for pressure equalization when descending or ascending while flying. My molds fit that well.
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Today was the first time I received a cellphone call on my vehicle with the Resound Omnias and the iPhone using CarPlay. What was different is that it used the vehicle microphone, but the audio instead of using the car speakers came through the Resound Omnias. Don’t know if this is normal or was it a change on the new iOS 16.3. The bad thing about is that the car radio can still be heard.
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Under Settings, Accessibility, Hearing Devices, what do you have for the Audio Routing options?
I have “Always Hearing Devices” for Calls but “Automatic” for Media. What’s happened with these settings is that when I go to play a podcast using the Automatic setting, the audio output always goes to my iPhone speakers, even when my Omnias are connected to my iPhone. Maybe for the microphone in CarPlay, there is a similar routing choice and rather than leaving it on an “Automatic” setting (if there is one?), you need to pick a settings choice that force the microphone to be on the Omnias (or perhaps CarPlay just treats hearing aids as a listening headset, not allowing for them to have input microphones?). I would think that your car microphone would be a better bet as that ought to be directly in front of you whereas the HA mics are on the side of your head. Perhaps the audio pickup depends on the beamforming capability of each type of microphone.
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I’ve developed a problem with my left M&RIE receiver and mold. To get a tight fit and avoid feedback, I was firmly pushing the mold into my ear canal, probably too far, thus distorting my ear canal’s shape (my hypothesis). As I reached about two weeks into owning my Omnia 962s, I was starting to get feedback in my left ear. My right ear is doing great. Zero feedback problems. Going along with the idea that I was pushing the mold in too far, pulling the mold out just a tad would prevent feedback.
Well, today, two weeks after I got the HA’s, the audi finally did REM (fixed her machine?). The right ear was spot on the programmed fit and needed no adjustment. The left ear was a few dB too low in the 4 kHz range, so the audi cranked the gain up appropriately. Result: feedback galore! And it’s very hard to find a position where the mold stays in place and talking or eating doesn’t displace the mold from its optimum position. So it seems like I’ll need to have another impression taken, and ReSound will need to have another try at creating a mold that occludes my canal enough that no jaw motion or nearby reflections create a feedback loop. Other than the shape of my ear canals, my left ear is not too much different in hearing loss than the right ear. But it’s that extra few dB of amplification in the mid-tone frequencies that my left ear requires (haven’t updated my audiogram yet) that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, along with probably distorting the shape of my ear canal by pushing the mold in way too much.
Edit_Update: One funny thing I’ve noticed is that exercising cuts down on the left ear feedback after the REM adjustment. Related to that, I’ve wondered if wax buildup on the mold helps seal whatever’s not quite right about the fit or whether it’s more warm blood swelling my ear canal tissues for a better fit? Be interesting to hear what the audi has to say and whether a mold remake is going to be on the house!
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Jim, I finally was able to get the MRIE’s today a set came in last week but were #2 in length way to short for what I like … I wear a #4… I have them in my silicone molds and initially had severe backfeed until my audi ran the feedback cancellation… I asked my audi about resound molds and he said they make a great HA but he stopped using them for molds to may problems… I’ll let you know what I think in a couple days after wearing them in different enviroments
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I was very happy with my first set of molds for my ReSound Quattros. I think the problem with my Omnia molds is that almost four years have gone by since the audi took my impressions for the Quattro molds. She just ordered the Omnia molds made from those Quattro impressions, perhaps because the Quattro molds fit so well, and she did not make new impressions for the Omnia molds. So, that may be the crux of my problem: in four years of aging, calcium bone loss, or whatever, the shape of my left ear canal may have changed. Rather than tell her I expect a new impression and a new left ear mold for free now, I am going to pay her another $100 for a new impression and a new left ear mold. That way, I won’t feel bad if I run the situation into the ground trying to get the best possible left ear mold out of her by repeatedly rejecting any poor remakes. And maybe she’ll learn that it’s worth the trouble to make a new impression after a couple of years have gone by.
If any providers happen to read this post, I wonder how long any of you folks consider a mold impression good for?
I wonder what problem’s he was referring to? Can’t imagine anything obvious.
Oh yes absolutely, and your audiologist should have known this straight away, and as you say this is the cux of the problem, always new impressions for new HAs after that length of time, maybe she’ll offer to do it for free anyway?
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well I’ve worn the MRIE’s for 2 days and I can say I definitely hear conversations better … I played golf yesterday and noticed an improvment in hearing conversations from all directions… I played pickleball this morning and then umpired a softball game later in the morning… with 6 P’ball courts going at our Rec. center it can get pretty noisy but I did notice an improvement in cross court talk and chatter from courts next to me… at softball I struggled a little because there are bleachers on both sides and behind the backstop and with about 30 people sitting and watching the game the ones dircetly behind me seemed very loud… when usually I can hear them but never really make out what they are saying… I think not being used to hearing that is something that will ease up over time when I get used to it… later after thinking about it I wished I had tried my restaurant program which I have set up for a much narrower band of hearing
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@Ureout . The mics on the end of the receivers will mainly work in low-background noise situations. Sound processing will be increasingly switched to the behind-the-ear mics on the HA bodies as the environment gets noisier, AFAIK. I wonder if part of your improved hearing with the M&RIE receivers could be from wearing a more occlusive fit designed for molds made to hold the M&RIE receivers?
For me, the WOW moment with M&RIE receivers was hearing a bird chirp in a tree in our yard. The sound came to my ears as if it were shot from an arrow from the branch the bird was sitting on. My brain knew exactly where to look for the bird. But maybe it was just a particularly shrill bird! Normally, the localization effect is more subtle than that, but it’s definitely there for me. Except for the perception of enhanced bass with the Lumitys***, the overall sound is excellent and quite comparable, and I get long-lived disposable batteries plus all the MFi connectivity in addition to Smart 3D app control via my Apple Watch. I opted to leave the Restaurant program out of my allotted four HA programs. I have All-Around, Front Focus, Outdoors (for wind noise), and Music. My Omnia 962s have a telecoil option, but my audi tells me to turn that on, I’d have to sacrifice one of the other programs. She consoled me by saying that telecoil is very little used in San Antonio, TX. Hoping BT LE Audio gains traction soon and the Omnias are upgradeable. BT LE Audio would be in stereo, whereas telecoil is monaural, AFAIK, anyway.
*** Turning the bass up to +6 and mid-tones and treble down to -2 each in the Sound Enhancer, if one wants enhanced bass, and then adjusting the overall sound volume works well to provide enriched bass without having to get a HCP to make a fit adjustment.
Edit_Update: Another thought, @Ureout, on the better hearing with M&RIE receivers, is that they might benefit from the natural pinna amplification effect. OTH, ReSound only advertises better sound localization as a benefit of M&RIE receivers, not sound amplification. Maybe the artificial average-person pinna effect in place for strictly behind-the-ear mics also includes an artificial pinna amplification factor? (I’ve already mused about this in some other post lost in the vast plains of this forum!). But I thought the Lumity Sound Enhancer feature for soft voices was going to beat the pants off the Omnia, but with my M&RIE receivers, just as you found in your experience, my wife’s very soft, not Germanically-articulated voice (no biting off of consonants, etc.!), comes through loud-and-clear, very comparable to the benefit the Lumity Sound Enhancer feature conferred. I’d love to know why?!
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I grabbed two interesting slides from a continuing education course authored by an AuD with GNResound. The fitting range for M&RIE is better divided into two sections as shown on the slides. For those with steeply sloping hearing losses that cut across both sections as they described, the M&RIE receiver is specifically NOT RECOMMENDED by GNResound and those “do not typically make good candidates”.
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Yes, I reported on that after taking an Audiology Online course back in September 2021 in which ReSound summarized their recommendations after the ReSound Ones with M&RIE receivers had been out and in use for about one year. (see graphs in my post)
OTH, Dr. Cliff, in a YouTube video, has said that he’s successfully fitted patients with loss that doesn’t match ReSound’s advice and that patients that he’s fitted with the M&RIE receivers prefer those to standard receivers.
I think part of ReSound’s advice might be grounded in the standard practice that people with good low-frequency hearing should have a relative open fit so they don’t have occlusion and can use their own good hearing and pinna effect with an open fit to good advantage. You can’t have an open fit and serious high-frequency amplification with M&RIE receivers, or you’ll get feedback galore.
OTH, if you’re like me and wear a totally occlusive fit, you’re essentially also relying on your HA’s for even low-frequency amplification. So I’m essentially having myself fit like a moderate to severe loss across all frequencies. And I am probably pushing the M&RIE limits. I have to have an ~almost perfectly fitting mold or I’ll get feedback. I am also pushing things by employing the NAL-NL2 fitting algorithm, which amplifies high frequencies a lot more than ReSound’s proprietary “more comfort” Audiogram+ fitting algorithm.
So if I can’t get a good enough fitting left mold with a ReSound remake for my left ear, I may just switch to Audiogram+ or just cut back a bit on NAL-NL2 high-frequency amplification for my left ear to compensate. 
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Hey, thanks! That’s an interesting thread. Looks like now a year and a half later, ReSound hasn’t changed their recommendation.
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It’s your iPhone doing that for you. Mine did the same way.