@codergeek2015: I’m a retired recording artist, and I understand how compression works (although from a practical and perhaps less scientifically-erudite POV) . @Volusiano is exactly right in this statement. Compression, judiciously applied, is our friend!
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You could ask your audiologist to export your NAIDA Q50 UP settings and import to your Naida B90 UP aid.
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To the people talking about compression: Compression and digital does me absolutely zero good if:
- Zoom calls are always muffled.
- I have trouble hearing on the phone because that is muffled.
- The overall sound of the hearing aid is muffled.
- I can’t even hear my own voice well because half of my voice is muffled (vowels).
- Muffled muffled MUFFLED is absolute horse crap.
If the overall reputation of Phonak is the fact that they have a muffled sound, then they have declined in quality significantly, and it’s time for me to look into Oticon hearing aids.
My current set of NAIDA B90 hearing aid + CROS B is out for repair and we will see how well I hear with it when it returns. But my suspicion is that it may not, because I haven’t had any Zoom calls that were not muffled since I got them and I’ve never been happy with them regardless of the tweaks we have done for the past 3 years.
The NAIDA Q50 I’m wearing apparently is the last model that had full digital linear, so its settings wouldn’t really benefit me all that much in the new B90s. All hearing aids since the Q series have done away with that and have wide dynamic range compression without the ability to do digital linear or turn off compression entirely, from what I’ve been told. Even a compression setting of 1 is the least compression (which is where I’m already at), but you still have some compression.
Without some compression you’d not be able to hear at all.
Assuming ‘normal’ hearing has a maximum dynamic range of approximately 120dB, if you have a SN loss of 50-60-70 dB plus any degree of recruitment, you need compression to ‘fit’ the sound into the available dynamic range. Whether that’s 70-60-50-40dB.
How you tackle that in different environments is down to your compression processing strategy:
Some aids kick in early to deal with louder sounds while others retain more loudness growth. Different people like different approaches to this; that doesn’t make some hearing aids ‘better quality’ than others.
Oticon has used a technique called ‘Floating point linearity’ - this allows normal (linear) growth of loudness in brief time windows, but which means that the same speech sound will be amplified differently in different overall average noise/speech situations.
Widex has a different approach: it has a ‘soft-release’ technique which delays the changes through syllabic peaks of words, to preserve the ‘shape’ of the word loudness.
Phonak historically uses fast syllabic changes in compression to attempt to reproduce every part of the speech as best as they can (per NAL2 etc.) but this can cause loss of parts of speech; especially with people with poorer auditory resolution. I believe Marvel has more of a smoothing function specifically to deal with this.
As for zoom calls: can’t you Bluetooth them straight to your aid?
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No. Bluetooth streaming on the Q series is limited to the ComPilot, which I don’t have. Bluetooth streaming directly to the hearing aid without an external device wasn’t introduced until the Naida V series. Now the Naida V, M and Naida P series have bluetooth streaming built in.
The hearing aid I am using right now while my B90 devices are out for warranty repair is a Naida Q50, about 3 or 4 generations behind current Phonak models, is the last time I had fully unencumbered perfectly clear Zoom calls, thanks to the ability to go fully digital linear on this model.
No, you can make the Bs sound just like the Qs. The linear options are the same (you couldn’t really turn off compression in the Qs completely either, they still used WDRC at the top rather than clipping like old analogues). Again, if you have a functional set of Qs that sound good to you, it should not be hard to just match the Bs to them in the testbox.
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Phonak Naida V came out before your Naida B so how can it have Bluetooth like the M and P?
The Naida V and Naida B both use the same ComPilot.
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Thank you, Zebras. I got my models mixed up there when posting.
You can buy used Naida V90 UP and compilot II on eBay. I brought a pair of V90 SP, compilot ll and tv link on eBay. When the Naida P70 UP came out, l brought them along with TV connector at good price. I still have the old aids as backup.
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As a follow up, the clarity continues with my NAIDA Q50. Day in and day out. Absolutely no changes. Echoey environments are perfect. I can hear my voice very clearly and perfectly in addition to all other noise, exactly how it should be. It doesn’t matter where.
I will be testing this against my NAIDA B90 + CROS B when I receive it back from warranty repair to see what else needs to be changed.
With my NAIDA Q50: Vowels are clear. Consonants are clear. Zoom calls are perfect and clear. Everything’s clear. I can hear every single part of a sound regardless of its frequency. From the bottom part, the middle part, and the top part (I’m sorry I just don’t know the technical audiology terms for this…maybe peaks and valleys?). When I was at the store I could hear all across the store. The beep of the forklift (which was blocked by my NAIDA B90). Being able to distinguish between loud and soft sounds is about 10 times easier.
With my NAIDA B90 + CROS B: Vowels were muffled especially when coming from my own voice, but consonants were clear. Zoom calls were always muffled and I never had a single Zoom call that was clear with my NAIDA B90 + CROS B and had to turn my computer speakers’ volume up to 80 to get any usable benefit when on a Zoom call. I could only get the “middle” part of the sound. Sounds just sound flat, dull, and lifeless. Voices were just voices, without the rich texture of voices. The music sound was just the “sound” without the texture of the sound. And I could only hear about 15-20 feet in front of me, and not across the store. I am not sure how much of this is due to the degradation of my hearing instruments over a 3-4 year period.
I hope my explanation makes sense. My audiology term vocabulary is limited.
Again, this is a programming issue. It should be relatively straight-forward to make the Bs sound like the Qs. 
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Hope this helps…your old hearing aids are capable because they are setup properly. Your new hearing aids need to be setup and programmed properly.
It’s taken a while for me to get my new hearing aids in the acceptable range. They weren’t before. It’s taken multiple visits to a very helpful audiologist. I prepare a list. When I have a problem, I add to the list. Then I send the list to the audiologist in an email. I get helpful criticism at home…“your hearing aids don’t work…” First thing I do is add to the list. Second…I change the wax guard in my hearing aids, and change the dome. Clean the microphone ports on the shell of the hearing aids. And check the charge on my battery.
DaveL
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Hi Dave,
I go through the same process. But have been doing so for the past 3 years that I’ve owned these pieces of junk. I’ve never been happy with them. Maybe it’s time to work with the software myself.
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Please do, it’ll be the best chance of getting your HAs sounding how you like them to sound.
Just ask if you want the software, plenty of people from right here on hearingtracker to help you along.
Okay…do I need both of these?
The iCube II to import programming data from my NAIDA Q50,
The NoahLink Wireless for my NAIDA B90s?
I may end up tweaking the NAIDA Q50 for feedback issues also.
Noahlink Wireless is only for Bluetooth Aids.
The Naida B90 IS NOT Bluetooth.
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Thanks, Zebras! I got both icube II and Noahlink anyway. I am pretty close to an upgrade so I will get good use out of both of them during my hearing aid transition as I upgrade to the Paradise. With my severe/profound loss, I can’t go without my hearing aid for an extended period.
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Ya good to go then.
What is a good place to trial hearing aids online? And which brands can I trial now that I have a Noahlink on the way? The one thing that I have always been unhappy about my audiologist about (they have generally always been a great audiologist for 20+ years otherwise, don’t get me wrong) is that the only thing I could ever try was Phonak, especially considering they are well-known for their muffled sound.
You wouldn’t buy a car after trying out one car right? The same principle should apply to hearing aids. Not everything works for everyone.
Find an audiologist that deals with more brands?
Not all audiologists will deal with all brand of hearing aids.
Mine only deals with Phonak and Widex.
I don’t get muffled sounds with my Phonaks.
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