Suggestions for profiles to setup on Oticon OPN 1

I’m nearing end of trial for my OPN 1, and after a brief mid way trial of a Widex Beyond Fusion 440, I am sticking with the OPN1.

I’m heading into my audiologist next week and wanted some input and advice on what profile configurations may be useful to try.

I know It’s commonly stated to not need to switch profiles often due to way OPN is designed. However I did read that it’s helpful to have different profiles that toggle the discrete modes like speech rescue.

So this leads me to question of what would be useful to play with in terms of various profiles?

I listen to a lot of music so am thinking one profile for music would be useful that turns off all suppression of background noises for example.

What else should I be trying?

Note: my Audiogram is in my profile.

We set up all our OPNs with:

  1. Normal
  2. Noisy
  3. Telephone or Music

You really don’t need much more than that. The aids are so good at what they do, you won’t really need them that much.
Also, don’t pay a dime over $1795 per aid for the OPN 1.

What specifically settings do you enable or set for Noisy and “telephone or music”?

I read that the iPhone streaming is not a specific profile in itself and instead uses either profile 1 or whatever profile you’re currently set to. Do you know?

If your OPN has firmware 4.0 installed (the latest), there should be several built-in profiles you can choose from, like Comfort, Speech in Noise, Music, Lecture, T-coil and Mic & T-coil (for the last 2 you’ll need the newer version of the OPN that has T-coil support).

Beside those listening programs, there’s also the Auto Phone program that I’d suggest you have enabled (it’s not enabled by default). If you have the T-coil version, then there are 2 phone programs -> Phone T-coil and Phone Mic & T-coil.

Here’s the way I set up my 4 programs:

  1. Default program 1 -> I have Speech Rescue enabled so that when I use my TV streamer, the TV Box mode will pick up the Speech Rescue feature as well (it picks up whatever setting you have in the default program 1).

  2. Program 2 is a copy of program 1 without Speech Rescue enabled. Sometimes I don’t want Speech Rescue like when I’m outdoors where Speech Rescue can pick up a cacophony of cricket sounds and bird tweetings which I normally wouldn’t hear unless Speech Rescue is turned on. So this program gives me some filter not having to hear those sounds if I don’t want to. It’s also helpful to have so I know which sound had been enhanced by Speech Rescue if I hear it in program 1 but not in program 2 then I know that it’s a lowered sound from Speech Rescue that I hear. For example with Speech Rescue, I’m beginning to hear all kinds of soft digital beeps from the fridge and all kinds of digital devices that I normally don’t hear before. So if I hear them in program 1 but not program 2 then I know that it’s a Speech Rescue sound.

  3. Program 3 has the built-in Speech in Noise setting. I also enable Speech Rescue in this mode 3. And I even increase the volume of the Speech Rescue sound to the max volume here, but that’s just a personal preference.

  4. Program 4 has the built-in Music mode.

You’re correct that the iPhone is not a specific profile. But while you’re streaming an audio app from the iPhone, you can triple click the home button to bring up the Hearing Devices settings and you can see all 4 programs (and the TV Box mode which would be the 5th program if you had paired your OPN with a TV Adapter 3.0) and you can select whichever of these programs and the streaming sound from your iPhone will pick up whatever settings set for these program. You can also control the mic volume from this menu, for example turn the mic volume down to 0 if you’re in a noisy car or restaurant to turn off all ambient sound so you can hear the streamed sound only.

Is there a way to have the mic configured to go very low whenever streaming audio or on phone call?

Yes, you can do it in 2 ways, statically have it set in Genie 2 so that it defaults to that setting every time. Below is the Genie 2 window under “End Fitting”/“Accessories”/“Phone” where if you set the middle row (Mic relative to phone) to the leftmost value, it’ll give you -12dB attenuation relative to the streamed phone sound. The right most value is 0 dB for the mic, meaning there’s no attenuation and you’ll hear everything from the mic like normal. You can also adjust the streamed phone sound on the top row. The middle value is 0dB (normal volume), so you can go up or down to 3dB, 9dB respectively. The third row is to adjust the sound quality to fuller or brighter, and you can even adjust the power bass.

You can see the next tab to Phone being TV Adapter with similar adjustments for the TV Streamer.

Beside the static adjustment as default value as mentioned above, you can also dynamically change it yourself on the iPhone from the static default each time. Just triple click on the Home button to get to the Hearing Devices parameters and from there you can slide the Mic volume button to wherever you want.

What does “brighter” vs “Fuller” sound mean?

Is there a document that describes what these built-in profiles do? I have not heard of Comfort, Lecture nor the “Auto Phone” you mentioned later.

Brighter will give emphasis to higher frequency sounds, and Fuller will give more emphasis to lower frequency sounds. It’s the equivalent of more treble or more bass.

Try this link The Opn Family: Meeting Even More Audiological Needs - AudiologyOnline

For those who don’t want to bother, the snippet from the link that talks about it is below. It doesn’t really say much details about each of them. The best way to know is to download the Genie 2 software, install it on our computer, create a client profile (yours) and add in your audiogram, then go to the Fitting section, select Program Manager, then for programs 2, 3, and 4, select the listening program you want (see example in second picture below), then go through each of the listening program as selected to see what’s turned on and what’s turned off for them to get an idea.

But for example, if you pick Music for P4 like the example below, if you go to the OpenSound Navigator page, you’ll find that Noise Reduction is turned off, and the directionality setting is “Pinna Omni”. In the Automatics page, you’ll find that Transient Noise Management is turned off. In the Fine Tuning page, if you click on the CR (Compression Ratio) button, you’ll see the compression ratio value, and you’ll notice that the values in the Music program are lower than the values, say, in the Speech in Noise program…

On the reverse, if you select P3 (Speech in Noise), you’ll find that in OpenSound Navigator, Noise Reduction is set to On, Directionality is set to “Open Automatic”, OpenSound Transition is set to High help. In the Automatics, you’ll see the Transient Noise Management set to Medium or High (depending on your profile preference selection from another page).

Anyway, that’s the only effective way to understand how each of the built-in program is set -> walk through all the parameters in Genie 2 and see what those values are set to and you’ll find that they should be set to values that are consistent with the corresponding program if you were to build up such a program yourself.

Maybe there’s a “report” page in Genie 2 that dumps out all these parameters set for each program all on a condensed page, although I’m aware of a way, but I’m still very new to Genie 2.

Hi:

Sorry to disturb you. How is called that Oticon software?

Is compatible with Windows 10?.

I ask you this because I am looking for a future substitute for my Siemens Pure 701. And after reading much info in this forum, I think the best option for me it could be the OPN1.

Regards

jpeinado

The Oticon programming software is called Genie. Before the OPN, it was Genie 1, but for the OPN, it’s now Genie 2. It’s compatible with Windows 10. That’s what I’m using, on my Windows 10 laptop.

You can search the DIY forum or find PVC’s avatar and click on it to follow his links to instruction on where to download Genie 2. Or here’s the link if you’re lazy to search: How to find Fitting Software to Program Your Hearing Aids [DIY]

Thank you Volusiano.

One more question.

I have thi HiPro, the CS44 cables, and the flex strips for my Siemens Pure 701.

Do you know if Genie2 and the OPN1 are compatible with HiPro?

If yes, I think I will only need to buy the flex strips.

Thank you very much for your help

I’ll need to defer this to @pvc for a definitive answer, but my guess is yes, you can use the HiPro with the CS44 cables and the flex strips that would work for the OPN, then you’re all set.

Thank you very much

jpeinado

Yes, you can work with HiPro with his cables. What you need for connection directly to the OPN HA is the flexcable, called flexstripe: http://www.thehearingclub.com/Programming-Adapter-size-312-13-or-FLEX-STRIPS-Comes-with-two-adapters_p_285.html

For Oticon either of the 2 options listed will work.
Flex strips or the programing adaptors?

I know PVC haS Info on this available but I’m still a lil confused. I have phonak CS44 cables. Without hacking them up will they work for Oticon OPN?

Yes standard CS44 cables will work. Phonak CS44a cables will not work.

Flex strips should not be confused with programming pills. The picture you linked to is a programming pill with a battery-sized pill on the end. The flex strip has just a flat strip on the end. It’s the small picture in the link you provided. It looks like this;
Flex Strip

mini Pro and Hi Pro are interchangeable. Sameo, Sameo.