I tried using adaptive mic setting for a full day in noise and here’s what happened

[Mary Beth]

I am a fan of omni mic setting because I prefer the audio quality and greatly prefer the way music sounds in omni mic setting.  I also enjoy hearing sounds from all around me equally.

Recently I spent a day in adaptive mic setting.  This is the mic setting that the adaptive intelligence strong  setting uses in noise.  I chose to try a day in adaptive mic setting because we were spending a very busy day in a group of people in various very noisy settings.  Usually I only use adaptive mic setting in a very noisy restaurant when I am not moving around.

Although adaptive mic setting made it easier to hear in noise, I was totally unaware of people calling me if they were behind me.  And the people noticed this several times.  They thought I wasn’t paying attention.  They are used to me having access to sounds from all around me.  So after a very full day, we all decided I hear best in omni mic setting.

I will continue to keep an adaptive mic setting program but will only use it when I am seated at a very noisy event.  The dampening of sounds from behind me just doesn’t work for me in my real life.

I will stick with omni mic setting.

[Tim]

Thanks @Mary Beth This kind of thoughtful test and comparison is really helpful. 

It seems that my Audi defers to Med-El's defaults so I expect that most of her Med-El recipients end up using AI-Mild and probably don't switch much at all. 

 

[Michi]

Ich finde die omni- mic- Einstellung auch am besten. 

Was haltet ihr von der natürlichen- Mikrofon- Einstellung? 

[Lauren]

@Michi my audiologist originally had me in Natural Directionality as that’s the default for Sonnet 2/Rondo 3. I did not like it at all. I’m only supposed to have Omni from now on. 

Couldn’t tell until recently but I think only my right Rondo 3 is potentially somehow in Natural while my left one and Sonnet 2s are all in Omni with two programs. My right Rondo has only one program. I’ll get it fixed at my appointment next week.

Natural is supposed to mimic normal hearing focus but I did not like it as it did best with sounds from in front of me but if someone called to me from behind or to the sides I couldn’t reliably tell. This is the setting Med-El recommends so I suspect most audiologists use it by default. I had to advocate and push my audiologist to give me Omni. 

[Enegra]

I actually wonder if I should have a fixed mic on my AI programs. Having only one side active is killing me with the head shadow. Thankfully, omni mic is greatly reducing the effect.

But really, these things should be made available in the app. I really don't understand why the oatients couldn't do that on their own. Like sensitivity snd volume are remembered for each program in the app, so could there be a drop-down for microphone directionality.

@MED-EL Moderator Have you considered giving the users possibility of changing the micriphone settings on their own? It could be something that the audiologist enables, so that less knowledgeable patients wouldn't get confused.

The users of the competing brands have a lot more control over their processors using the app. I think, this is an area where there's room for improvement that should be easy to implement.

And please, a volume mixer when streaming with AudioStream. 50:50 is far from ideal in certain situations. For example the past weekend I wanted to escape from some infernal bass music, but couldn't really hear anything on the stream due to how loud stuff from the background was.

[Tim]

@Enegra I really like the idea of the Audiologist being able to enable greater user control. I get keeping a default setting such that people don't cause themselves problems - if my parent's had the CI, they would not be able to handle switching programs. 

In Discord I saw a user of another brand talk about how limited the control was for the CI on the Apple Watch was compared to the full app but saying it was nice that they could adjust basic settings including the microphone!  I was thinking wow - not only can't we change the microphone setting from the app, we can't even see what any setting was programmed in for any of the 4 slots other than default "sensitivity" and "volume".

I am very appreciative that my Audiologist now emails me a prints or emails a PDF of the programs for the Rondo 3 and Sonnet 2 after every MAP appointment now.  

The demographics of CI users seems to be shifting with the wave of SSD people and people that were implanted as kids now being programmers, engineers, etc.  There were always people before that would want to have flexibility but that seems to be increasing rapidly.

I understand wanting to keep the job easier for Audiologists but at some point, it becomes harder for them to do things to serve as an intermediary for tech savvy users like print the two different four page programming reports or print to PDF and email them out.

 

[Mary Beth]

@Michi

Natural mic setting is not a good match for me.  It is way too restrictive.  For me it’s like having ear blinders on.  Totally not for me.

[Mary Beth]

@Enegra and @MED-EL Moderator

I would love user control of the streaming mix ratios (without needing to use the AudioLink nor any other intermediary device- just from the app).  I would also love user control of the front end features like mic directionality (including the omni mic setting), windblock, ambient noise reduction, transient noise reduction.

 

[Mary Beth]

@Tim

Almost all audiologists defer to Med-El recommendations and choose adaptive intelligence mild (which almost always uses natural mic setting) or choose fixed natural mic setting.

It’s very unfortunate in my opinion because all of those people are missing out on the mic setting that sounds the best to me (omni).  
 

I wish Med-El would recommend giving users a program in Omni to try as well.

It is important that the Omni program be tested for loudness as it may need to be adjusted a bit for comfort by our audiologists.

[Anthony Canada]

@MED-EL Moderator I too wish I could control most of my settings including AI, windblock, Microphone, streaming mix ratios and noise profile. It is not fun driving in my noise program (AI strong) and it decides the road noise is in fact something I want to hear. 

I find the omni microphone the best sounding but the adaptive is useful in noisy environments. The Natural microphone feels like a weird in between zone. 

I get that some users would like to let the programming drive their life but much like my camera and my other ear's hearing aid I much prefer selecting the settings I want. I don't see why we can't have both options. 

[Enegra]

@Mary Beth I think the issue might be that some patients get easily overwhelmed when too much information is given. But on the other hand, there are those who like to know as much as possible.

I started doing better with my implants when I had the programs I asked for. I know better than my audiologist what kind of environments I am typically in.

The Strong AI is a godsend in heavy noise. I could understand speech very well with it in a loud party and it was the hearing people who asked "what?" more than me. Then again, I have a habit of being very soft-spoken. Maybe in the Meets it didn't seek that way but I had like 150bpm when recapping my disastrous journey.

I agre that Med-El should post more articles about the microphone settings, possibly sharing users' experiences. A competing brand does that in their "tips" posts, there were so many times I stumbled upon the mention of forward focus feature. Med-El's users should also be informed what their processors can do, and short posts are usually processed better than massive infodumps at the audiologist office.

There's one more thing in the programming that the AI controls: compression ratio. It's dynamic in the AI programs but with AI disabled the default is 3:1. It made soft sounds way too loud for my liking. Music also sounds more balanced when the compression is lower. I've been using 2.5:1 in all programs for over a year now.

[MED-EL Moderator]

Hi everyone,

thank you for your feedback on user control of the microphone settings. We have already sent it to our product experts for future product improvements.
Please let us know if you have anything to add.

Kind regards,
Gordana

[Mary Beth]

@MED-EL Moderator

Thank you Gordana

[Mary Beth]

@Enegra

interesting!  Do you have links to information about how adaptive intelligence is altering the compression ratio?

[Mary Beth]

@Anthony Canada

Have you tried using adaptive mic setting with adaptive intelligence turned off as your noise program?  Then the processor remains always in adaptive and doesn’t automatically switch to omni if it determines the audio setting is music.

[Michi]

19 hours ago, Lauren said:

@Michi Mein Audiologe hatte mich ursprünglich auf natürliche Direktionalität eingestellt, da dies die Standardeinstellung für Sonnet 2/Rondo 3 ist. Es gefiel mir überhaupt nicht. Von jetzt an soll ich nur noch Omni haben. 

Konnte es bis vor Kurzem nicht sagen, aber ich glaube, nur mein rechtes Rondo 3 ist möglicherweise irgendwie in Natural, während mein linkes und Sonnet 2 alle in Omni mit zwei Programmen sind. Mein rechtes Rondo hat nur ein Programm. Ich werde es nächste Woche bei meinem Termin reparieren lassen.

„Natural“ soll den normalen Fokus des Hörens imitieren, aber es gefiel mir nicht, da es am besten mit Geräuschen von vorn zurechtkam, aber ob mich jemand von hinten oder von der Seite anrief, konnte ich nicht zuverlässig erkennen. Dies ist die Einstellung, die Med-El empfiehlt, daher vermute ich, dass die meisten Audiologen sie standardmäßig verwenden. Ich musste meinen Audiologen befürworten und drängen, mir Omni zu verabreichen. 

Vielen Dank 

[Michi]

16 hours ago, Mary Beth said:

@Michi

Die natürliche Mikrofoneinstellung passt für mich nicht gut. Es ist viel zu restriktiv. Für mich ist es so, als hätte ich Ohrenblinzeln aufgesetzt. Absolut nichts für mich.

Vielen Dank

[Michi]

18 hours ago, Enegra said:

Ich frage mich tatsächlich, ob ich in meinen KI-Programmen ein festes Mikrofon haben sollte. Wenn nur eine Seite aktiv ist, bringt mich der Kopfschatten um. Glücklicherweise reduziert das Omni-Mikrofon den Effekt erheblich.

Aber eigentlich sollten diese Dinge in der App verfügbar gemacht werden. Ich verstehe wirklich nicht, warum die Haferflocken das nicht alleine schaffen konnten. So wie Empfindlichkeit und Lautstärke für jedes Programm in der App gespeichert werden, könnte es auch ein Dropdown-Menü für die Mikrofonausrichtung geben.

@MED-EL ModeratorHaben Sie darüber nachgedacht, den Benutzern die Möglichkeit zu geben, die Mikrofoneinstellungen selbst zu ändern? Es könnte etwas sein, das der Audiologe ermöglicht, damit weniger sachkundige Patienten nicht verwirrt werden.

Die Nutzer der Konkurrenzmarken haben mit der App deutlich mehr Kontrolle über ihre Prozessoren. Ich denke, dass dies ein Bereich ist, in dem es Raum für Verbesserungen gibt, die leicht umzusetzen sein sollten.

Und bitte einen Lautstärkemixer beim Streamen mit AudioStream. 50:50 ist in bestimmten Situationen alles andere als ideal. Letztes Wochenende wollte ich zum Beispiel der höllischen Bassmusik entfliehen, konnte aber im Stream aufgrund der Lautstärke im Hintergrund nichts wirklich hören.

Ich würde auch gerne die Mikrofone selbst einstellen können. Es gibt sicherlich viele Leute, die gerne experimentieren. Und nicht immer auf den nächsten Termin warten  um es umstellen zu lassen. Lg 

[Enegra]

@Mary BethI managed to find a blog entry from Med-El about it. I originally read about the compression used by Med-El processors in a book about programming cochlear implants, but I don't have access to it right now. The Adaptive Intelligence uses Automatic Gain Control, which is mentioned in the article. https://blog.medel.pro/products-updates/a-guide-to-sound-field-thresholds-and-dynamics-compression-in-med-els-cochlear-implant-systems/

I am someone who's quite peculiar about the way I want to hear things, unless I am after filtering out certain noises, I prefer hearing things at proportional volume, without artificially inflating soft sounds and reducing loud ones.

[Anthony Canada]

@Mary Beth my noise program is AI: Strong, Wind: Adaptive, Microphone: Adaptive. I'm not sure how turning off AI would be helpful in a noise setting. I thought one of its purposes was that it filtered background noises and selectively modified the output. It seems to react in a similar way to Widex's impact setting where if it detects say road noise in the background that it filters that out. I could be wrong I'm only a few weeks into my CI. Could you explain why that combo is useful?

I'm somewhat annoyed that the windblock wasn't set to strong in the noise profile like I asked but that's a fight between me and my audiologist. I still need to read the Maestro user manual so that I can understand more of the settings and limitations.

[Enegra]

@Anthony Canada You can have the filters, such as background noise filter, transient noise filter and wind block set to strong and then they will be always active. That way you would have a static program for noisy situation.

The AI is trying to be a "two in one" and shift between quiet and nosy situations, but it isn't perfect. I actually never use the strong AI outside of noisy environments.

[Anthony Canada]

@Enegra is that what your noise program is set to?

[Enegra]

@Anthony Canada Not anymore, but I used to have static filters rather than the mild AI.

Basically in the front end programming if you select adaptive intelligence mild or strong, it will default other parameters to auto. But you can set AI to off and set the parameters manually. It could be more useful if you are often in environments where the scene classifier gets easily confused.

[Mary Beth]

@Anthony Canada

Here is how adaptive intelligence mild and adaptive intelligence strong works.  As @Enegramentioned, if you want your noise program to stay in certain settings without changing automatically, adaptive intelligence can be turned off and each setting can be manually set by our audiologists.

[Anthony Canada]

@Mary Beth & @Enegra thank you!