Volusiano, thank you very much for your comments
Jpeinado
Sure. In about a few weeks’ time, I’ll post up my actual review of the Sonic Enchant 100 here to share with everyone.
Your comments are invaluable for me.
jpeinado
Sonic Enchant 100 Review
I’ve done quite a bit of background preparation for the Sonic Enchant 100 review as seen above already. And I’ve worn the Enchant for 6 days now. I think I’m ready to provide a full review of it. If there’s anything new I’ll discover in the remaining week or two I have it, I’ll add to this thread later.
The first thing everyone probably wants to ask is: “Well? Is it the same as the OPN?” The unequivocal answer I can give is an emphatic “no”. But what does “no” mean? Does it mean it’s not as good as the OPN? Or better than the OPN? Well, I would say neither. “No” here simply means not the same.
Let me elaborate. We all know that the OPN operates based on a new “open” paradigm. The Enchant, on the other hand, operates very much based on the conventional paradigm, in my opinion. What do I mean by conventional paradigm? I mean the traditional directionality approach using microphone beam forming pattern for noise blocking of surrounding sound, and typical noise reduction algorithm to detect the difference between speech and noise to suppress noise and preserve speech.
So does this mean that it works the same as many current hearing aids on the market? I would guess probably so. But I haven’t had a chance to try any other current hearing aids on the market except for the OPN 3, so I can’t say for sure exactly. It does seem to work very similar to my old pair of Rexton CIC I had from Costco before I went with the OPN 1. But it seems to do it a lot better.
How does it do better, you may ask? Well, if you had read through the details of the previous posts about the Enchant technologies, that’s how it does it better. But that’s in theory. How does it translate to actual experiences? I can provide some examples of how it feels different than conventional HAs in practice:
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As I’m typing here on my keyboard, I have a little mini table fan pointing at my iPhone 7 Plus being charged wirelessly on a Qi charger. Because the wireless charging uses induction loop, it’s not efficient and generates heat, not something you want to impart on the iPhone because heat is any electronic device’s enemy. So I have a mini fan pointing at the iPhone/charger while it’s charging to blow the heat away and keep the phone cool. Not to stray from the original point too much, I can hear this fan loud and clear while I type because it’s only a couple of feet away from the Enchant (if even that). If I stop typing to compose some thoughts, about 5 seconds later, I can tell that the Enchant noise reduction kicks in and reduce the fan noise noticeably because it considers my typing as non-noise signal (probably mistook it for speech because it’s a modulating signal), but a few seconds after I stop typing, it detects only the steady fan noise and nothing else. So it determines that it now has entered a noise only environment without speech, so it automatically starts reducing the gain on the fan noise noticeably.
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This is just one example. Another similar example is in the bathroom. If I leave the water running in the sink, after ceasing to do whatever sound making activity for a few seconds, I can hear the Enchant start attenuating the running water in the sink noticeably.
But that’s in quiet environments. In more busy environments, I don’t hear NR kicking in and out as noticeably, because there’s always something else going on. But what I notice is still an overall comforting lack of noise or very mild static noise, while other discrete sounds can be heard around you, including speech.
What this is saying is that the Enchant’s overall SVP strategy to preserve the accuracy and clarity of speech (or non noise sounds), combined with its SmartCompress technology compress the right things (like speech) and reduce the gain of noise, along with the SPiN management trio of SPiN directionality, SPiN Noise Reduction, and SPiN Engage, are working very well together and effectively to offer an automatic and adaptive adjustment to varying listening environments all the times.
I don’t notice the SPiN directionality switching as much, but sometimes there may be a very faint hint of it when sounds transition from sounding “open” to less “open”. There’s no low frequency internal microphone static noise heard or noticed at all because their multiband third leg on the SPiN 3 prong strategy (automatic, adaptive and multiband) keeps the directionality omni at the lower frequency bands to avoid gain roll-off there, as discussed in the previous post on SPiN management. Or it’s also possible that this is due to the Soft Noise Reduction feature that attenuates the mic noise.
I took the Enchant through pretty much the same environments I took the OPN 3 through, at home, outdoors playing tennis, riding motorcycle, at a busy restaurant. The only thing I didn’t get to do with the Enchant is to go on a long trip in my noisy mini van. But I suspect such a trip would be a very nice experience with the Enchant since it does NR very effectively on static noises like fan noise and road noise. I’m just unclear on whether I’d be able to hear conversation from the 2 rows behind me as well like I can with the OPN or not. On the motorcycle, the Wind Management feature seems to work just fine. Actually better than the OPN 3, and about the same effectiveness as the OPN 1.
As for noisy restaurants, this time we went to a local CheeseCake Factory on the busiest night on Friday evening, and I expected it to be the worst noisy restaurant environment because of its open/high ceiling design where the acoustic of the room gets plenty of space to bounce around, creating reverb on everything, from talking to the clattering of silverware, etc. And it lives up to my expectation of a noisy place with lots of reverb.
How did the Enchant perform at the CheeseCake Factory? Very admirably. The reverb level at the restaurant is toned down significantly, the noise reduction is very effective, and speech clarity is great. I was able to understand everyone talking at the table. The only time I had to turn up the volume a notch or two is when my little soft spoken niece said something (the Enchant doesn’t have the Soft Speech Booster feature that the OPN 1 does). But once the volume is up to the right level, I was able to understand her just fine. The overall experience was very pleasant and far from overwhelming because the Enchant did a great job of toning down the overall noise level.
Did I bring along my OPN 1 to do a side by side comparison against the Enchant? Of course I did. And how do they compare? As expected, the OPN lets a lot more noise coming through. The reverb characteristic of the room is preserved (I can hear a lot more reverb on the OPN 1 compared to the Enchant). I can also hear competing speeches at tables around me more as well. But does that interference with the speech understanding at my own table? Not one bit. I could understand everyone at my table just as well as I could with the Enchant.
Before I give my final opinion between my OPN 1 and the Enchant 100, let me review the key features between the 2 side by side. I won’t run through an exhaustive list, but let me just say that just about any major features the OPN 1 has, the Enchant 100 also seems to have. From MFI to Speech Rescue LX (Sonic calls it Frequency Transfer, and it seems like exactly the same technology with the 10 configurations and with varying intensity levels of the lowered sound), to Tinnitus Sound Support (which I don’t know much about because I don’t use it), to Transient Noise Management (called Impulse Noise Reduction by Sonic, which is loud sound control to remove discomfort of sudden, loud sounds without sacrificing audibility of speech), to Clear Dynamics (Sonic calls it Extended Dynamic Range, 113 dB SPL on input mics for better live music listening experience), to Binaural Noise Management, to Twin-Link (Sonic calls it Dual Radio System), to same IP68 rating, to Wind Management, to Bass Boost in the OPN (called Low Frequency enhancement in the Enchant, for Phone or TV Adapter).
A couple of things not in both models is the Soft Speech Booster feature is in the OPN but not the Enchant. Soft Noise Reduction (to reduce mic noise, useful for clients with normal hearing in the low frequencies) is in the Enchant but not in the OPN.
Despite the myriad of similarities in functionality between the OPN and the Enchant, obviously shared technologies due to them being sister companies, the core digital processing and the core hearing paradigm of the two couldn’t be any more different. I won’t rehash the two core signal processing technologies here. The Enchant ones were summarized in the previous posts in this thread already.
But the end user result and experience is this: the OPN sounds a lot more natural, almost like you have normal hearing (even if that’s wishful thinking, that’s how close you’ll get to the normal hearing experience again). You hear everything, from the sounds you want to hear, to the sounds you don’t want to hear. You even hear the natural reverb of your voice bouncing around when you sing out loud in a room. You hear the natural reverb of a high ceiling place like the CheeseCake Factory, with its cacophony of all the sounds made in the room. But the bottom line is that I also was able to hear speech with clarity just fine.
With the Enchant, it’s a very different hearing experience. It’s nicer and quieter, even a bit more muted and subdued. The Enchant makes every attempt possible to automatically and adaptively minimize any kind of static, non-modulating noise for you. And on the other hand, the modulating sounds (inferred to be speech since that’s all you can classify them) are treated promptly and amplified accurately with clarity preserved as much as possible. I found both the OPN 1 and the Enchant 100 to work well for speech clarity in this very noisy and reverb"y" place.
If you are one of those people who finds the experience of the OPN too overwhelming for you, especially in noisy environment, and you can never get used to it, and you would rather have the comfort of minimal noise while still understanding speech well, then you’ll probably like the Enchant a lot.
I guess I can close this review by making an analogy. If normal hearing is analogous to normal sight, and the aid is the eyeglasses, then the OPN experience is probably like watching a movie through a pair of 3D glasses on a high def TV. You get to see a third dimension of the visual scape. And the Enchant experience is like wearing normal eyeglasses on a high def TV.
The OPN will give you that third dimension of all the extra richness of the natural sounds to you, and if your brain hearing can handle it, all that extra and natural richness and spatiality of the sounds would be very much appreciated and desired by your brain. But if you find all that richness TMI (too much information) and overwhelming, a cacophony, and would rather not train your brain hearing to hear anything else except for the meat of what you care to hear (speech and basic noises), then the Enchant is for you.
I think it boils down to comfort hearing (the Enchant) vs active hearing (the OPN). One is not necessarily any better than the other, just different strokes for different folks. You decide which one you like better, that’s all.
For me, I’m too far along on the OPN train that I’m used to and want to hear everything the OPN can offer to my ears. It gives me that feeling like I can almost hear normally. The Enchant seems like a constant reminder to me that I’m wearing a hearing aid because I can tell that the HA is zipping in and out trying to mute and quiet things actively for me. For example, when I yell out loudly (often in tennis games), I can hear the Enchant trying to attenuate gain immediately afterward momentarily. I think this is the automatic/adaptive directionality changing from omni to directional when it detect speech, then back to omni after speech is gone. Of course I can loosen the programming parameters up to lessen the attenuation effect, but even in the Music mode with no noise reduction or compression going on, the soundscape is somehow just not as full as with the OPN.
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So it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?
Somebody asked me to comment on the fact that the OPN 1 only has up to 9dB max attenuation on its noise reduction, while the Enchant 100 has up to 15dB max attenuation on its noise reduction. Can I tell that difference in my review between them?
I think my answer is that it’s irrelevant because they’re two very different types of noise reduction systems so it’s not apple to apple comparison anyway. The OPN has a noise model built -> a very key differentiation that makes the OPN noise reduction more intelligent and easier to implement and very successful (like how noise cancellation headphone has a separate noise model to help it cancel out the noise easily), while there’s no noise model built for the Enchant. The Enchant makes the assumption that noise is any un-modulating signal, a much more simplistic assumption.
So the noise they’re reducing is not really apple to apple in the first place. On top of that, the nature of the “open” paradigm still preserves the noise and only reduce it when speech is present. The noise is restored to full audibility when speech goes away. The Enchant, on the other hand, reduces the noise only when speech is not present.
Here’s a scenario base on a time scale:
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OPN -> Noise model built -> speech present and tainted with noise (OPN uses noise model to clean up tainted speech) -> speech goes away and no NR applied, brain is expected to tune out this noise.
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Enchant -> no noise model -> speech present and tainted with noise, but tainted speech is preserved because the overall signal is modulating -> speech goes away and NR applied, brain doesn’t hear too much of the attenuated noise.
The result is that the brain will hear cleaned up speech with the OPN but will hear tainted speech with the Enchant when speech is present. The brain may have to work harder with the Enchant when speech is present because speech is still tainted with the Enchant.
When speech goes away, the brain hears less noise with the Enchant and hears full noise with the OPN. But the brain is expected to tune out the noise by the OPN when there’s no speech. Meanwhile the Enchant (not the brain) attenuates the noise when there’s no speech.
Different effects on what the brain hears or does not hear and what the brain needs to tune out or does not need to tune out.
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This past week I’ve been wearing my Smart V’s (which I still like) after wearing a pair of OPN 3 for a month. What I immediately notice is the program changing when the sound environment changed. Not bad but noticably different (less natural) than the OPN’S. This review gives me the impression enchant would give me similar experiences.
Which summarizes just what I had hoped would be the reason I chose to switch from phonak to the New OPN way of thinking. As usual, nice review.
what about impulse noise management strong? also if soft noise and wind noise off all at same time? typing keyboard hearable?
Impulse Noise Reduction seems to work OK (I can hear my tennis ball pop dampened a little when it’s hit).
You can control Soft Noise Reduction independent of Wind Management.
I can definitely hear my keyboard when I type. But on my OPN, the keyboard sound is more full with more details heard. On the Enchant, the keyboard sound is heard but it’s more dampened. Similar to when I’m walking with my sandal on tile flooring. With the OPN I can hear more “shishing” (the sound of sliding it on the floor), but with the Enchant, it’s less pronounced. This is very typical with the overall experience between the OPN and the Enchant. You hear more details in the sounds with the OPN, less details with the Enchant.
The one different thing about the Enchant is that it doesn’t have automatic program change between its program 1, 2, 3, and 4. But it is similar to the OPN in that its Universal P1 program will scan the environment continuously to detect speech and noise (or lack of them) and adjust automatically and adaptively in 16 bands to impart NR or adjust compression ratios accordingly in each of the 16 bands. So I pretty much only use the Universal P1 program 99% of the times without needing the other 3 programs. So I don’t detect program changes due to environment changes because it’s in P1 the whole time even with environment changes.
But you’re right about guessing that your experience with your old HA probably being the same experience as with the Enchant. That’s the same thing I found between my experience with my old Rexton CIC and the Enchant, except that the Enchant is more automated and smarter and more aggressive in controlling noise and clarifying speech. It’s basically a much better version of the traditional HAs as we know it, but still using directionality and NR the same way, albeit automatically and adaptively and in 16 bands.
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The Enchant has the following built-in programs, even though you can probably stay in the Universal P1 program most of the times: Noise, Speech in Noise, Music, SmartMusic (for live music/concert), Classroom, Entertainment, Automobile, Airplane, and various phone modes (manual and with tcoil).
what about speech from distance and speech from tv/phone without stream and mid accessory? seems dampaned or full understandable?
Soft voices compared to the three?
I’ve watched TV with it sitting maybe 15 feet from the big screen. I need to turn up the volume a notch or two but speech is understandable, not too dampened. Of course this is in a quiet room.
As for live speech from a distance, like in a classroom or lecture environment, I haven’t had a chance to be in this mode, so I can’t say. I would expect that I may have to turn on the volume a few notches but will probably make out the speech OK.
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The OPN 3 has the Soft Speech Booster LX feature (all OPN models have this), but the Enchant does not have a soft voice booster like the OPN. So you may have to increase the volume a little bit to pick up soft voices with the Enchant while the OPN should be more automatic on this.
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As suggested by Volusiano I have been reading up here and online and have tried to find info on the Sonic Enchant 100. Assuming that it is a 100 power receiver. Does Sonic have a 105 receiver RTE model available, haven’t found it yet.
Not sure what you mean by RTE. If you mean BTE, yes they have a 105 BTE as mentioned in this brochure.file:///home/chronos/u-39e9272d668f06b9a0613d245666755772d2b101/Downloads/BS_ET_Consumer_Brochure_UK.pdf
Further Googling suggests the RIC is available in a 105 Receiver, so it looks like one has the option of a RIC or a BTE with large gain.
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Yes sorry I meant receiver in canal. Thanks
I have the Oticon OPN on trial now. So all the shop would need is to order the Sonic Enchant RIC without the receivers. I’m sure they dispense Sonic HA’s, so they have the programing. The unknown factor at this moment…it’s unclear the future Oticon ConnectClip is compatible with the Sonic Enchant platform.