Just wanted to thank the invaluable contributions (especially Narenkona) in this thread which spurred me on to my own DIY adventure :
Last year I got Resound Aids and as soon as they were turned on I noticed crackling in the right aid whenever the audiologist spoke. They made some adjustments and it seemed a little better plus I figured the masks we were both wearing may be exacerbating the issue.
When I got home it became clear that any low frequency noise triggered the distortion and in some male voices it was present at the end of every word they spoke. It was particularly unbearable when using the TV Streamer. At the next appointment no amount of adjustments could eliminate the distortion so it was sent back to the manufacturer for repair.
Sure enough the microphone and receiver were replaced but surprisingly the issue remained. I really liked the music features of the aid (music streamed from the phone sounded great and didn’t have any distortion) so I figured I could sacrifice the gain in the low frequencies to be rid of the issue. Understandably the audiologist was reluctant but they made the adjustments.
The distortion was gone which was great at first but after a few days I noticed everyday sounds seemed flat and raspy. And another issue that was there all along seemed much more pronounced - some female voices sounded warbly.
I conveyed this to my Audiologist and they told me to be realistic. Which is fair enough as it did seem like we had tried everything as far as gains values were concerned. So I could either get used to them or return the aids and try another brand with no guarantees the same issue woudn’t arise (my previous aids had a similar clipping issue with the left aid). Then I thought about going DIY!
So I found this forum and this topic in particular and I decided to take a risk (I was qutie anxious I would F things up) and order the Noahlink Wireless. It arrived last week and I’m glad to say (thanks to this thread) I was able to backup my original settings and create a new experimental profile in which I was able to fix the issues I was having as well as other quality of life changes.
So, under Advanced Features changing the following solved my distortion issues :
Time Constants : Changed from Syllabic to Slow fixed the audio distortion in right aid
DFS Ultra II : Changed from Mild To Music fixed warbling in speech
Smartfit’s media player was a huge help as it allowed me to play conversation samples through my PC speakers while I adjusted or enabled / disabled various features until I narrowed it down to the features above.
After that I reset the prescription so the gain levels in the right aid were restored and all is well now. From now on I will only be buying hearing aids that I can fine tune myself.