Yes, in the Program Manager section of Genie you can copy over an existing program and then modify it slightly to test out changes. I don’t have a working copy of Genie yet but I could see the Audi copy over the General Vac program and then change the feedback management setting. If I can get a copy of the screens, I’ll post them.
Thanks for this.
Tried turning the Feedback Optimizer off today but the feedback is pretty bad and louder than before so I’ll have to look at turning this back on perhaps on low and also use the traditional feedback analyser as well and see how that works. The bass was lowered slightly in the low frequencies as well so sounds feel a bit clearer than before and I’m less sensitive. Just the feedback being annoying, especially in my right ear. Obviously I’m getting new ear moulds this week but I can’t really move my head at the moment without feedback so will look at turning this back on in some shape or form.
Yeah, I think the new feedback prevention Optimizer would be particularly helpful for people with heavier hearing losses like yourself. Oticon did say in their Optimizer whitepaper that folks with heavy hearing losses may have to use both the new and old feedback features combined to treat feedback together, because just the old feedback analyzer alone is not going to be effective enough, unless you go with sealed molds with no vent at all.
So your strategy of using both, and maybe keeping the Optimizer set to Low, is the right strategy. Sometimes a little fluttering is worth putting up with if it’s not a constant recurrence like the feedback is. But hopefully if you engage both, the traditional feedback analyzer will help make the fluttering from the Optimizer happen less often.
Does you current ear molds have a vent in them? Will the new ones have any vent? If there’s a vent, there’s a chance for feedback. If there’s no vent, then “in theory” there should be no feedback as long as there’s no path to enable feedback. Having said that, if the mold is not tight enough, even a leak from not being able to keep the molds sealed in tight can create a feedback path.
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My current ones don’t but they are canal lock and do slip so they aren’t tight enough. If I push them in, then the feedback is eliminated. But then they become uncomfortable and I feel occluded. I have previously worn full ear moulds for years with a vent so I’m used to having feedback naturally and even before when I was with the NHS but it is particularly excessive now having turned the feedback optimiser off so definitely have to revert back but on a lower setting alongside the traditional feedback analyser, and hopefully minimises the flutter. Turning it off completely been fully eliminated at the expense of the excessive feedback sadly for me.
I did request a vent in my new ones due to feeling plugged and I have previously had ear sores wearing moulds without a vent but I’m not sure if they have vents. Only got a brief look on video this morning. So I’ll expect feedback anyway if they do but hopefully more controlled E.g. not when I move my head.
Thanks for your advice and guidance, it’s been extremely helpful.
I remember when I had my molds done, they put in a vent, but then my audi gave me these plastic plugs that have vent holes inside of them as well. The idea is that if the original vent hold is too big and caused too much feedbacks, you’d find a plug with a larger hole inside of the plug to reduce the vent size. If still too big, proceed with a plug with the next hole size in it, and so on, until the feedback is minimized and hopefully you still have some amount of vent, albeit smaller than the original vent drilled through the mold.
But I’d start with the traditional feedback analyzer and the new Optimizer set at Low and whatever original vent size for your molds first. If feedback is still an issue, maybe you can ask your audi to see if you can get these plastic plugs with different hole sizes in them to make the vent smaller until you reach a good balance point for everything.
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Thanks so much for your advice. Really appreciated. I’ll see what I get and go from there. Hopefully the REM will help a lot next week as well. This is with a different audiologist that I see in the U.K. I’ll keep you updated.
For what it’s worth, I have a similar hearing loss to yours and have reached a pretty good point in terms of both feedback and flutter. I’m trialing Real 1s with 105db receivers. I have Feedback Management turned off (the anticipatory feedback tool), and Speech Rescue turned off since it caused increased flutter. I wear custom silcone molds that have no vents and fit snugly. Generally, I get molds that hurt a bit (one of my ear canals is very difficult) and then I gradually sand down the areas (yes, you can sand silicone) that trouble me to get a very snug fit. I get zero feedback with the above combination.
Yes, the molds are very occluding but I’ve worn this type of mold for 50 years and have gotten used to it. It’s also possible to get a “half” silicone mold which is still occluding but lets your ears flex more.
If you do have vents, one quick solution to see the effect of the vents is to plug them up temporarily with “Blue-tac.” Hardly anything seems to stick to silicone molds but Blue-tac does. It’s not elegant but seems to stay on and is easy to remove.
For my next visit, I’m going to turn Speech Rescue On and run the Reactive Feedback Analyzer to determine if I can add frequency shifting without feedback or flutter. But I’m quite happy with what I have now.
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Thanks! Your post is very helpful I learned a lot!
DaveL
Toronto
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That’s great. Yeah I have one ear that is very difficult as well. That’s the ear that is giving me the most feedback as it slips. I have had ear moulds my whole life. I had no vents in my ear moulds for many years but then had huge issues with ear sores hence why I started to have a vent at the sacrifice of feedback so I don’t mind it but yeah this is excessive haha. I’ll see how the new ear moulds are, these are skeleton ones and if they have a vent or not and go from there. I’ll have to get the feedback management turned back on for now and then do further adjustments with the REM next week and hopefully find the right balance for me like you have.
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I have got them remotely adjusted today and it is so much better. The traditional Feedback Analyzer is ON and the new reactive Feedback Manager (Optimizer) is on LOW and there is no flutter and feedback is far, far better.
Just to try, I asked him to put it onto normal, and almost instantly I got flutter so the low setting alongside the traditional feedback Analyzer is spot on for me.
I get the new ear moulds at the weekend and then REM next week, but I’m much happier now with my settings currently, and I can hear speech really clearly now the bass was turned down a notch in the low frequencies. Could hear words as I was walking away, and heard a conversation going on the other side of my office, with my manager’s back turned towards me and another colleague facing me sideways and previously I would have struggled so I’m really happy now.
Thanks again for everyone’s help. I’ll post when I get my new ear moulds.
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Who knows the difference between the Oticon Zircon and the Oticon More/Real?
EDIT Nevermind I searched for the answer. It’s has less features
In my opinion, Looking at your type of hearing loss, More 1 & Zircon is not suitable. You should be looking at SP or UP (super power or ultra power) hearing aids. Oticon Xceed or Phonak Naida are some of the powerful HA’s for your type of hearing loss.You are in the severe to profound hearing loss region.
Maybe others could comment on your type of hearing loss-HA
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I have now got my new ear moulds, which were made by Oticon. See below.
I have no vents, which is actually fine as I have got used to having no vents for the last few weeks with my previous moulds. Feedback is now pretty much eliminated which is great and they are very comfortable!
Going for REM on Friday.
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I’ve done fine with the Agile Pro and OPN 1 105 db receivers. My occupation’s didn’t require important conversation, I’m retired now nor did I want a bulky tubed BTE.
But thanks, I’m aware of power aids though dead regions and recruitment would result using powerful HA’s from my experience.
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I’m in the same situation. For myself I have virtually no high frequency hearing and super power aids, aside from being heavy and tube-y, provide little marginal benefit. My Audi and I have focused on leveraging existing hearing and I think we’ve been successful (learned two foreign languages fluently, customer facing job). Sometimes exploiting what you have may be the best approach.
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Are you using Speech Rescue?
Might allow you to use less bulky power hearing aids.
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I’m going to try it tomorrow. Couldn’t use it previously as was making flutter worse. But with feedback management turned off (primary cause of flutter), am looking forward to trying Speech Rescue. Thanks.
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I’m very interested in what you write. I don’t have Oticon’s but after Phonak experiences I shall be looking in the future.
DaveL
Toronto
I wanted to provide a brief update on my situation with Real 1s in case it’s of benefit to anyone.
As indicated previously in this thread, I started out with a significant “fllutter” problem caused by the Feedback Analyzer function being turned on in my Oticon Real 1s. Since my last appointment, I’ve been running two general programs – one with Feedback Analyzer on low and one with Feedback Analyzer turned off – and was still getting slight flutter with Feedback on low. So, yesterday we turned off Feedback Analyzer in all programs. ((As an aside, my audi admitted the “last place” she would have looked to solve a problem involving “feedback like noise” – which turned out to be flutter and not feedback – was in Feedback Analyzer. I wonder if Oticon realizes that in certain circumstances (high power receivers, tight silicone molds, etc) Feedback Analyzer is actually causing problems rather than solving them.))
With Feedback Analyzer turned off, we created a new program that copied the general program but added in Speech Rescue. Speech Rescue had high frequencies turned off (I have no high frequencies), the slider was set to max power, and we set the maximum 2.4hz destination for frequency shifting. We then ran the normal (reactive, not predictive) feedback management tool.
I don’t have any feedback or flutter in this new program with Speech Rescue which is a good start. Also, in the first 5 minutes in this new program I started hearing what sounded like ‘tails’ attached to certain words – almost a hissing ‘s’ sound. I stopped hearing the tails pretty quickly, but possibly ehe ‘S’ tail was Speech Rescue at work and I stopped hearing it because my brain adjusted quickly (I’ve worn HAs for over 55 years). I’m going to switch back and forth between the two programs (with and without Speech Rescue but Feedback Analyzer turned off in both) and see if there’s a difference. I suspect Phonak Lumity’s would do better with their version of Speech Rescue since they can transfer frequencies down to 800hz (where I have more hearing), but there are other things I like a bit better with the Real 1s.
As another side note, I’m using new silicone molds from Westone which are very “grippy” in the ear and quite snug. One of the molds is impossible to get right (despite some very careful grinding by the audi in front of me with a super high RPM tool and blue grinding bit. I’m beginning to think the silicone molds are a mixed blessing. They’re very snug – keeping feedback at bay – but also seem to “hold” on to the ear and create hotspots until they harden up over time. Does anyone know a way to perhaps accelerate the aging process of silicone molds so they lose a bit of their grippiness. My audi said I could switch to acrylic, but she fears I won’t get the same snug fit and will just introduce feedback or flutter issues. Any thoughts appreciated.
Lastly, I’ll try to do a comparison of Phonak Lumity L90-RT HAs and the Real 1s in the coming days in case anyone is interested – as I’ve been trialing both. There’s a lot to recommend for both aids and I’ll try to sort out the differences and who might be inclined towards which aid.
Thanks, community! You guys are the best.
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In the Oticon whitepaper, they did mention the potential for fluttering. That is why they have the On/Off switch for it to begin with, and then they added a Low switch later on as well. I think they need to do a better job educating the HCPs on the option to disable it if clients complain about the fluttering. It’s natural to expect more frequent fluttering (to the point of it being unusable) for high power receivers if there’s a potential for feedback occurring. But if you have a tight custom mold with no vent, there should be in theory no feedback issue because there is really no feedback path for it to materialize, unless the mold has leak around the sealing border.
With Speech Rescue at the 2.4 configuration, the “s” and the “sh” to blend in and sound the same, because they’re now bunched together into a very tight destination range. And they’re probably very pronounced like you said, especially at the tail end (like it should), same for me. But I get used to it over time and it seems like you do, too. If it’s too loud to be annoying, you can always turn the volume strength back to medium or low until you’re more used to it. I think it should be at the tail like it should, but folks like you and I are just so used to not being able to hear it before, so now it sounds much more pronounced to us compared to before.
When you A/B test the 2 programs with and without the Speech Rescue feature, you may want to pay particular attention to how music sounds between the 2 programs. To me (I’m a musical guy albeit just an amateur), the music still sounds very natural to me with Speech Rescue on.
If you are going to try out the Phonak Lumity SoundRecover 2 frequency lowering later on, pay particular attention to how it sounds with music as well, especially compared with the Oticon Speech Rescue. Both companies use different frequency lowering technologies, with SoundRecover 2 using frequency compression, and Speech Rescue using frequency transposition and composition, so pay attention to see if you like one over the other better. Yes, SoundRecover 2 allows you to lower to even a lower range than Speech Rescue, but if you can already hear the lowered sounds in Speech Rescue well enough to notice a difference, this advantage from SoundRecover 2 may not be that significant anymore. Then it becomes a consideration between the 2 types of frequency lowering technology. For speech, it’s probably not very noticeably different. But for music, the difference may be more noticeable between the 2 frequency lowering technologies.
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