Starkey X Series 70

Hearing Aids
,
#1

Hello All

Just acquired my new Starkey X Series 70 HAs. I hope the ZCT et al might be able to advise me about the following:

The aids are a good fit. Hardly any feedback. Works well in 1 to 1 situations. (Even my 15 year old analogue could do that). What I want to do is test them in demanding situations - against background noise of various types and also in small groups where the person I want to hear talks too quietly. My dispenser tells me that he can program for four specified situations and he has left me with:

  1. Normal 2. Auto-phone 3. Telecoil for use with loop systems 4. Music.

This leaves me with nine other “memories” that I can try, but only if I take the HAs back to him - and five of these are ones I would really like to test. The telecoil I need every week in two separate locations. The Dispenser says that I have to have “Normal” and “Auto-phone”; otherwise I will not be able to switch back to normal, nor will I be able to use the phone. My phones all have built in amplifiers and I don’t think I need this one, but he says I do. This leaves only one spare memory which at the moment is on “Music”. I have already found that this is a good one, but I shall have to take it off if I want to try anything else. Do I have to test all the other memories one by one? I thought that these memories were additional features, not standard ones which are automatic in
mid-range HAs.

The method by which I am told to bring in a memory is by listening to my phone and pressing the *key twice, followed by 6 key to travel through items 1 to 4, or 4 key to travel through items 4 to 1. I can also use the 2 key to turn the volume down or up, but this is an unnecessary facility because it duplicates my manual volume control. We have five telephones in the house, four different manufacturers and not one of them will activate my HA memory facility. The dispenser says they are incompatible and I must buy another mobile phone. However - brainwave (!) I remembered that I have a tone dialler left over from an ancient telephone answering machine. It works! The Starkey Pro Website says I can use any phone. Little to they know.

Anyway, it seems I have to make an appointment and then a long journey every time I want to change “Music” for 1. Crowd 2. Small group 3. Restaurant/Party 4. Theatre/Distance 5. Traffic. I asked if “traffic” included noise inside my car (mainly tyre noise) and he said not - it was for outside in busy streets. So how do I get something for inside the car? Or maybe the HA automatically senses this kind of background noise?

Problemsolver1 Location: Derbyshire, UK

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#2

This is quite a big question!

I think you can get quite hung up on the whole memory thing. You have to keep in mind that all they really are is a frequency response that is supposed to be better in the situation you are talking about. But it would be just as possible to take a Normal program and modify it to perform better in a restaurant, or in the car. The programs are nothing but a starting point for the user.

I take a different approach with my patients. It has always been my suggestion to begin with just one program ‘normal’ and work with that. I would then add memory options if there are specific situations where a patient is not hearing well enough. Modern hearing aids of this caliber are surprisingly intelligent and adaptive, so the need to constantly switch memories is often less necessary than it may have once been.

Another approach would be to have memory 1 as Normal, memory 4 as telecoil with the microphone still active, which would function for your telecoil situation AND use on the phone, and then you’d have space for music and one other memory of your choice.

#3

Hello All, and hello ZCT

My thanks to ZCT for his prompt and well informed advice. ZCT, you are
always constructive, and I cant understand those who criticise you. I
throroughly approve of your defence of socialized helathcare. I shall
certainly take your suggestion about using only one memory for both loop
systems and telephone to my dispenser as soon as I can.

Turning to my own particular problems with my new HAs, I recognise that
they may be surprisingly intelligent and adaptive, but I wonder how quickly
they will adapt and resolve the difficulties I have with background noise. In
truth, I only enter these situations about once a week on average and for
the rest of the week I am in the quietness of my own home or walking out of
doors. I suppose the supermarket might also give the HA a chance to adapt,
but that is only half an hour. Nevertheless, the background noise situations
are important to me. My only chance to meet other people and I would like to
be able to hear them.

About once every two weeks, I do some folk dancing (I think you might call
it “contra dancing”) and I paid £20 to have the loop system in the hall
altered so that it could be linked to the club’s amplification system. A good
buy. I used to put one of my Destinys on telecoil and the other on normal, so
that I could hear the caller with one ear and use the other to hear what is
going on around me. The system works when I am dancing, but it isn’t much
good listening to people in between dances. With a push button, I could
quickly change one ear to “background noise reduction” - but this was only
partially useful. Went to the club the other evening in my new X series 70s.
The high frequency din was dreadful, and my X series were worse than my
Destinys. I didnt attempt to use the telecoil memory.

Reading elsewhere in this forum, I gather that my brain needs time - ?2 to3
weeks or months - to interpret this high frequency shushing so it may be that
over time your advice to persevere with the new aids will pay off, and I shall
adapt to my new perceived environment at the same time as my intelligent
aids do their own self- adaptation. But if I put the telecoil memory on when I
am at the club, will this prevent the new aids from doing their adaptation to
the “normal” setting? The same sort of syndrome might crop up in
restaurants/hotel dining rooms. If I use the “restaurant/party” memory, will
this, again, hinder the HA’s adaptation?

Problemsolver 1
Yorkshireman living in Derbyshire, UK

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L __30__20__30___50__65___65___70 90 ___∆
R____25__25 __35___50__50___50__100__100___∆