Reverberation?

After having a pair of Oticon Acto ITEs on trial since May, I picked up a pair of Widex Clear220 CICs today. My audiologist thought maybe they would help with my tinnitus (24/7 since March 2004) due to the presence of the Zen program. [The mere act of wearing hearing aids does nothing to change the nature of my tinnitus.]

I get the distinct feeling that these new aids are distorting sounds by making them feel full of echoes. Not actual echoes, but for instance the sound of my husband’s voice seemed to be bouncing off the kitchen ceiling and filling the area right around him, as opposed to travelling directly between his mouth and my ears as it used to be.

I had the volume on the TV so low that for a change he couldn’t hear it and he turned it up. Maybe that means that the volume on these aids is set too high. Could having the volume set too loud make sounds seem as if they are reverberating?

– Thanks,
Mary D. Taffet

Hi

You should have your hearing aids readjusted. Have your sensogram checked, it may be too high in the low frequencies. Re-run the feedback test.

If you don’t get the bass right, try to disable “in-situ gain modelling”. It was the only way for me to get a tolerable and a pretty good sound. It turned out that this modelling was completely wrong in my case, maybe because I have especially deeply fitted ITE moulds.

It is also possible that the vent diameter setting is incorrect. It can happen that your audiologist has forgot to set it.

Thanks for your reply. I have no control over the hearing aids myself. Any adjustments made will have to be done by the audiologist. I have an appointment with her this afternoon.

I wish I DID have some control over the aids myself, but it seems that all adjustments are only possible at the audiologist’s office. My previous pair did allow me to control the volume myself, but this pair doesn’t – not without a remote that I currently don’t have because I just picked this pair up on Thursday last week.

– Thanks again,
Mary