Using Hearing Aids

I have had my hearing aids for a while now. Mine have a lot of programming but still finding it difficult in public settings like restaurants and bars to hear people due to surrounding sounds. I am wondering if sitting with my back to a wall may help, but not always possible.

If you have directional microphones, it is usually better to have your back to the noise and let the directional mics reduce some of the noise. If you have the ability to have stand alone programs especially if you have beam forming mics (Phonak’s speech in loud noise for example) I made a stand alone program accessed via the push button for speech in loud noise and it made a noticeable difference talking to the people I was facing and reducing the background noise.

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My experience was that gave me noise from both directions. The source and bouncing off the wall. My aids have a front focus program that is very effective in a noisy place if the folk(s) I am talking to are in front of me.

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So you find speech in loud noise works well…any adjustments to it

I wear Phonak Lumity Life aids and have a dedicated program for “Speech in Loud Noise” which is okaaaaaay. My gripe is that literally ALL sounds, speech and noise go down dramatically! So I have to really hunker down and pay attention to the person talking. Then I can pretty much “lift” their voice up from the miasma of other sounds. But it takes TOTAL concentration.

I agree with georgeguy that having the noise BEHIND one is better than up against a wall, due to the wall’s reflectivity, etc. Weirdly, even if no one is behind a person whose back is to a wall, the ambient noise can still crash around making speech difficult to comprehend.

In the perfect world, we’d not only have fully waterproof aids (but I digress) and aids that somehow drill down to a speaker’s speech frequencies to boost them UP. To be really snazzy, if there were multiple speakers, the AI in a pair of aids would instantly calculate all the different speakers’ frequencies and pitch and then boost those as they talk. Maybe the stuff of science fiction… ?

Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact! I remain hopeful but aware that sometimes the pace at which “tomorrow” arrives can be awfully slow. But I do know my hearing aids, even several platforms behind what is current, are so advanced compared to what my grandfather had that it’s like comparing a tricycle to a moon rocket. His sat on a table. I can wear and benefit from mine. Hearing aids will keep improving.

You are so correct, cohen. When I started fitting hearing aids in 1976 Starkey had a three transistor circuit in a full shell ITE that I thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Today there is something like 40 million (or more) transistors in circuit. Our adjust-ability was was a low cut trim pot that effected about 8 dB at around 500 Hz. Nothing was automatic but it still worked and people loved them, it was better than nothing and all we had to work with.

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it looks like we have the same problem, but I just tried Bernafon alpa 7. and haibrid features the noise is great. and I’m comfortable in noisy situations . and the information I that I’ve got ,it’s the same with Oticon more features. or you can look for this feature in other hearing aids