Omni-wow

[Lauren]

Now that I’ve had some thing sorted out, my audiologist added both Fixed and Omni directional programs. I’m LOVING Omni but have a period of adjustment to get used to it LOL. 

Just glad that now the full program potential can be tapped into finally. Before this week I had only natural directionality. (hoping I’m getting the terminology right). 

[Lauren]

I’ve been hearing much more with Omni. Yesterday it was a loud coworker on the other side of the building (same floor). Today it was a customer’s vehicle blasting loud bass outside. I work on the third floor but my office window overlooks the parking lot. 

I had to take off my processor and had a coworker message me when the customer left. I may get to hear more but doesn’t mean I HAVE to!

[Mary Beth]

@Lauren

For me omni programs in Sonnets need to be MAPped not just take a natural MAP and turn it to Omni because the access to sound is so much more with Omni.

[Lauren]

@Mary Beth

My audiologist did ask if I wanted any adjustments but I opted for none at the time as the CI center is super quiet so I never know what I’m going to get after leaving. There was two instances that I had to go back within 24 hours to get a MAP adjusted so far. Not sure if this’ll be the third time or not. 

[Mary Beth]

@Lauren

If you do return I suggest you ask the audiologist to play the beeps for each electrode at its loudest in Omni and see if you need any of them decreased.

[Lauren]

Thank you for great advise as always!! 😊

[Percy]

@Mary Bethwhat did you mean by ‘the Omni needs to be mapped’? I had inquired about mapping each program but the audiologist said that there is one way to do it which I take it to mean that the beeps are a global thing and not different  for each hearing mode? 
it would be great if I could get Omni to work for me since I liked Omni in my opus 2 but in the sonnets the Omni sounds too bassy for me and I use full directionality. Even the natural is too bassy. 

[Mary Beth]

@Percy

It took awhile for me to get the Sonnet Omni program to work as well as the OPUS2 Omni program.

We needed to do several things.

Tested and manually set the threshold for every electrode

Then tested and set the MCL for each electrode

Did loudness balancing between the electrodes

And used my feedback from listening in my real life to further decrease the bass tones as they were too overwhelming 

It tested my patience and caused a lot of frustration at times.  But we persevered and in the end created Omni MAPs that work very well on my Sonnets.  These MAPs are different than the automatic conversion in the Med-El software between OPUS2 and Sonnet MAPs.  They are also much more than little tweaks to the OPUS2 MAPs.

So I now have Omni MAPs that are identical on my OPUS2 and Rondo 1 processors.

And different Omni MAPs for my Sonnets.

I can switch between these processors/MAPs easily. My OPUS2 and Rondo processors are my backups and for some activities I prefer the Rondos.

As far as ASM2 mic settings for Sonnet1…

for me, natural is way too restrictive

adaptive is helpful in very loud situations

but 99% of the time I stay in Omni which I find gives me the best access to sounds all around me and is best for music.

[Percy]

@Mary Bethvery good information. I may try it again. Thank you!

[Mary Beth]

I hope it works for you too @Percy

It took multiple MAPling appts but was worth it in the end.

Keep us posted

[Dianna]

Hi mary beth, do you have access to more than 4 maps?

Right now i have just 4....im hoping to get a " retuned" map 1 with no ai and Map 2 is like 1 but with omni setting, and map 3 and 4 are map 1 with ai med and strong.

This is what im limited to now is map 1 with no ai, 2 and 3 are ai med (plus 8 percent volume) 4 is ai strong. I have no idea of any settings other than that.

Can they give more maps choices?

Edited August 7, 2022 by Dianna
Paragraphs typo errors

[Mary Beth]

All of our CI processors can have 4 MAPs loaded at one time so we have access to 4 MAPs at any given time if our audiologists loaded 4 MAPs.

@Dianna

[Dianna]

Gosh, im nearly as nervous as activation day,

Thank you

[Dianna]

Hiya, i studied the settings on the ai diag. Marybeth posted. So i asked audi about ai strong with the setting adaptive/omni and she said apparently its omni but ai may change it. Ive been testing it in my car lol. 

We made all four maps with ai and she said" next time i see you we will make a map for music.

She explained a little more about the settings she gave me last time and looked up the percentages of map use.

I know i was impatient, she knows too, but does this for soooooo many of us all day long, knows when folks are ready for what.

She is happy im signed up and moving forward with an ha on the unimplanted ear and will help if needed like with syncing etc.

So i guess i don't really have an omni setting unless i use my ai strong map

[Mary Beth]

@Dianna

Experimenting with front end features lets us figure out what we prefer.

Adaptive Intelligence Strong only uses Omni mic setting when it detects we are listening to music.  All other times it uses adaptive mic setting- which dampens noise from behind and kind of zooms in on the direction of speech 

 

Let us know your experiences as you test things out.

[Dianna]

Thanks a bunch! I will definately

[Lauren]

Recently was in a small but busy restaurant and there was a gentleman playing piano. I was wishing I had adaptive intelligence strong as a program option, so will ask my audiologist to add it. I only have three right now and would gladly bump Natural if there’s something else I could try. Anything at all…

Also, today driving to work I was trying not to be distracted as my car sounded different. Like a window was open. I kept checking to my left as that’s where it sounded like it was coming from and wrote it off as just weird. Traffic stopped except on my right and I glanced that-a-way and… yeah my rear passenger window was slightly down. It went from making me crazy to thinking I was crazy to realizing that, hey, I wasn’t crazy. Isn’t that crazy?

Also added a mental note to keep working on zeroing in on where sounds are coming from. 

[Enegra]

Stuff definitely sounds different with omnidirectional microphone and it isn't for every situation. If there's noise, no matter which side it comes from, it can often end up louder than the person I am talking with. I am happy to have it as an option though and just swap when needed. As unilateral, I really feel that the natural microphone muffles stuff coming from my dead side way too much. So far it looks like omni is a good baseline to use, then natural if i need to reduce the amount of things being picked up and focus on the left side. I use no filters at all with those two programs; for when I need the noise suppression I have mild and strong AI programs slotted in as well.

[Mary Beth]

@Enegra

natural mic setting is way too restrictive for me.

I use Omni 99% of the time.  In loud noise, I switch to adaptive.

There are quite a lot of people who like adaptive all the time.

[Enegra]

@Mary Beth I really disliked adaptive. It doesn't work well for me.

When I was bilateral natural worked quite alright for me. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore. Not having any input from the other side is making the strict directionality even harsher.

[Mary Beth]

@Enegra

That’s why it is great we have so many pre processing options to choose from.  I encourage users to get MAPs in various pre processing settings to test out on their real lives.  Our real lives are so different than a sound booth.

 

[Enegra]

@Mary Beth I agree, once people reach a rather stable MAP they should be given options of programs to explore. Some audiologists might be more hesitant to give the choices, but when given proper explanation with rationale, they probably will listen eventually. In another community I've seen people trying new things after years and being quite shocked at the difference between different filters / them off.

[Dianna]

8 hours ago, Mary Beth said:

@Enegra

natural mic setting is way too restrictive for me.

I use Omni 99% of the time.  In loud noise, I switch to adaptive.

There are quite a lot of people who like adaptive all the time.

Hi, so your maps have different mic settings?

Not sure how you guys can change yours, by changing maps? 

I have one no ai map, 2 mild ai and 1 strong. I asked about omni and was told map 4 but it flips if it wants to to adaptive.

I just asked my audi for an appointment for syncing with hearing aid and the promised map for music and she added in medel rep.....rep confirmed the syncing of sonnet can be done, and then stated medel recipients dont typically have maps for music, was there something specific i was asking for?

I have responded i will contact them later after ive worked with them awhile

[Enegra]

11 minutes ago, Dianna said:

Hi, so your maps have different mic settings?

Not sure how you guys can change yours, by changing maps? 

I have one no ai map, 2 mild ai and 1 strong. I asked about omni and was told map 4 but it flips if it wants to to adaptive.

I just asked my audi for an appointment for syncing with hearing aid and the promised map for music and she added in medel rep.....rep confirmed the syncing of sonnet can be done, and then stated medel recipients dont typically have maps for music, was there something specific i was asking for?

I have responded i will contact them later after ive worked with them awhile

The actual "mapping" term means setting the stimulation levels and thresholds for the electrodes. For Med-El implants the levels are called MCLs - maximum comfort levels. Perhaps the Med-El rep meant that it's not recommended to have a different setup of MCLs for music. The map typically stays the same for all programs, minus some specific situations that require it, for example cancelling out the "quietening" caused by Roger 21 sleeve or different type of stimulation for facial stimulation issues.

I have all 4 slots in my Sonnet 2 programmed: Mild Adaptive Intelligence, Strong Adaptive Intelligence, raw program w/ natural mic and raw program w/ omni mic. I only use AI programs in noise, but that's my personal preference. The AI programs control the microphone by themselves, I don't remember if it can be changed without disabling the whole AI. I know that the compression rate can be changed even for AI programs, and I have mine set to 2:5:1 for all the programs, which is lower than the default 3:1 Med-El uses.

[Mary Beth]

@Dianna

Adaptive intelligence mild and strong lets the Sonnet2 and Rondo3 switch features based on the listening environment automatically like the table I shared before.  
 

Programs can also be set to stay always in certain features no matter the listening environment.  Like a MAP set to adaptive mic setting with wind block off and ambient noise reduction on mild etc.  whichever features are chosen by our audiologists for that specific program stay set that way and do not change.

Fortunately now Med-El allows our audiologists to customize each of the 4 programs that are stored on the Sonnet2/Rondo3 separately.  
 

So depending on the 4 programs stored on our processor at the moment we can switch into these features by switching programs.

As far as a special music map…many people find an Omni map with all front end features turned off (no windblock, no ambient noise reduction, no transient noise reduction) works best.  HOWEVER it is important to test that MAP while you are at the audiologist appt because you may need your MCLs decreased to be comfortable.