Were there microphone tubes in your ears for the entire matching episode?
Hi Neville, no, there were not. But it was clearly evident that the volume did not match before the compression increase and did (along with feedback) afterwards. There was a very drastic increase.
So youāve learned that you donāt actually prefer a linear fit, which is useful. Increasing compression and so increasing soft sound gain will certainly make it louder.
But if theyād just matched on the ear they could have identified the problem with the low frequencies as well. Does this clinic simply not do real ear measures? Because thatās a red flag to me. Frankly, it doesnāt sound like they did test box matching either, just software matching. And if the clinician needed the manufacturer to do that for themā¦I dunno, I feel like these are red flags that you should go elsewhere.
Thank you @Neville . You may be right - she didnāt do test box testing either.
So it made sense to you that increasing the compression increased the volume for me?
Because that also didnāt make sense to the audiologist nor the clinician.
so Widex still has the Puresound, I wore Widex forever and loved them, music sounds great in them. You can get that in the Widex Moment.
Certainly. I mean, you can increase compression without increasing volume, but it depends on how you do it. Compression just smushes the dynamic range of the sound. You can smoosh it all down from the top and that will make everything quieter, or you can smoosh it all up from the bottom and that will make everything louder, but I expect that they just smooshed the quiet sounds up and the loud sounds down a bit (smooshed into the middle), with an overall feeling of things being louder because soft sounds are the sounds that youād be looking for.
Interesting. Thank you.
Iād say that BTE hearing aids are the only things that are going to work for severe to profound hearing loss.
Also, in the ear hearing aids are often Far more visible than BTEs.
I havenāt worn hearing aids in almost a decade (since I got my first cochlear implant (my hearing was the same as it is in my āaudiogramā in my profile for several years before I got a CI)) but I always enjoyed the connections between my hearing aids and music/speakers/FM. That I donāt think is possible with ITE hearing aids (I used audioshoes with direct connections between my iPod and my hearing aids.
Now Iām chilling out watching TV with the sound streaming directly to my cochlear implants (AB Marvels) and I can turn off outside sounds which makes my CIs like noise canceling headphones.
Thank you. I agree that BTEs may be the way to go for me here. I will be taking the time to research the BTE UP options for all 6 major brands before deciding which to trial first.
Welcome the forum! I just wanted to interject a little suggestion here that might save you some time in your research. Do you research on profound hearing loss and I know you said that you have wore ha most your life. Trying to find an acceptable ha with profound hearing loss is a major task. Not every audiologist has the skills to deal with profound hearing loss. Most audiologists have the shills to deal with mild hearing loss. I have poor word recognition and I have the Naida Paradise 90 UP. These ha are very powerful. My hearing requirements are not very high. The ha have bt and I connect them to my pixel 7 android and my pc. Eighty percent of the time I understand what is being said with my phone and pc. I donāt stream to my tv. I watch movies and I understand the dialogue with out subtitles which is a miracle for me with my hearing loss. I too am a candidate for cochlear implant but refused because the percentage of hearing improvement for my age was not acceptable. I listen to music through BT on my phone. Again welcome to the forum there are some very knowledgeable people will to help you with your hearing needs. And yes I forgot to add that the Naida line up is all BTE. I noticed Phonak only offers the Naida Paradise in the rechargeable and the UP which has the big battery I like because it last up to three weeks. Sorry for the long jargon good luck in your research.
Iāve had good success recently with the relatively new Phonak Lumity Naida SP, which is a slightly smaller, and slightly less powerful model than the Phonak Lumity Naida UP. It really does deliver comparable loudness to analog hearing aids that I used to wear in the 1980s and 1990s and is more powerful than the RIC UP aids I have worn recently. I thought I would mention it, as looking at your audiogram, we have a similar loss.
Btw - itās a fantastic aid in other respects too - bluetooth, good in noise, reliability - had no problems in very hot conditions, with sweat etc.
Thank you glucas. How is the bass on this? I listen to a lot of trance/EDM, so bass is important and needs to be deep. Iāve found it quite lacking on the non-BTE aids Iāve tried so far (with the exception on the 2017 Oticons I have now for some reason).
Bass is really really good. I wear closed moulds and get no feedback. I am able to hear and perceive low frequencies (music etc) in TV programmes that are in the background that I couldnāt perceive before.
Good to learn you have 80% understanding via BT when using cell phone and pc. But when just hearing through aids what is your speech understanding?
Though Iāve also been a candidate for CI for sometime, I was not aware that you can actually get a rough percentage estimate (per your post) regarding success of CI. Now you mentioned āageā into the equation which I understand the older you are the longer it might take to become accustomed to a CI. But I was not aware that some one in medical field for CIās would actually go out on a limb and put a āpercentage stampā on success or failure of an impact.
Iāve always felt thereās no guarantee of final CI implant result (after a year plus) and you just roll the dice knowing odds are in your favor for hearing improvement. But final outcome depends on a number of factors depending on age, device, quality of surgery, Audi skills, healing, training and learning CI capabilities and shall we say some āluckā on the side.
For a doctor or Audi to tell you your āfinal resultsā with CI would probably not be up to your level of acceptability, tells me you either figured things out yourself or had someone be very honest with you in the CI process.
Hi @glucas, I am glad you are still doing well with the Naida Lumity SPās, the Lumityās are indeed exceptional aids, are you using NAL NL2, fitting formula, if so, I believe there is a newer version, NAL NL3, it may be worth a try? I havenāt looked for it as yet? Also, I had a firmware update last week, on my Naida Lumity 90 UP BTEās, (Old Firmware is 1.0.1.0, new is 1.0.3.0, check your app) I noticed immediately, clarity improved, slightly louder also, I had to turn them down 3 clicks on the rocker switch, until I got used to themā¦ OP might do well with Naida SP or UPās, I get around 12 days runtime, with moderate streaming, with the 675 batteries, these are by some distance, the best aids I have ever owned, in 30 odd years of using hearing aids with a severe/profound loss, if I could sum them up in one word it would be āClarityāā¦ Cheers Kev
I donāt have the literature that I was given to me after letting me know I was a candidate for CI. And as you said there is no guarantee that CI implant will improve a persons hearing. And yes there is lots of cases where the patients hearing is improved. The big drawback for me is that the surgery is irreversible and a ten percent hearing improvement was not acceptable. There is no guarantee period. The CI literature was where I got my information. Sorry I could not be more specific with providing the literature but maybe someone on the forum has more information concerning CI
Ten percent improvement over aides or ten percent improvement over your audiogram results?
Sounds awesome. A lot here are recommending this, so it may very well be the BTE I try first (and hopefully only). How do the dimensions compare to others, say the Oticon Xceeds? Also, do they fit well with glasses?
ten percent hearing improvement.
Thanks for the heads up Kev! I will fire up Target and do some updates and take a look.