Knowing your mic setting helps us in difficult listening situations

[Mary Beth]

A big THANK YOU to Med-El @MED-EL Moderator for the adaptive mic setting!  Today I switched to my program that uses the adaptive mic setting in a noisy restaurant and a packed full car and enjoyed easy listening.

Adaptive mic setting (ASM 2) and Adaptive Intelligence STRONG (ASM 3 uses adaptive mic setting for speech- really stays in adaptive mic setting for everything except music where it switches to omni mic setting).

I think of adaptive mic setting as a mic setting that focuses on sounds from ear to ear (180 degrees).  It zooms in on speech in what feels like a more focused way.  Adaptive mic setting dampens noise from behind.  This is very important to understand so we sit and position ourselves correctly to benefit from adaptive mic setting.  
 

For example, today in the restaurant we were a family group of 7 people.  The table was along a wall with bench seating along the wall and chairs facing the wall.  Instinct as a long time hearing impaired person, I gravitated to the bench with the wall to my back. Then I remembered that adaptive mic setting performs best with noise to our back.  So I chose a chair seat facing the wall.  It was so easy to follow multiple conversations around that long table.  Adaptive mic setting is very impressive.  (And I look forward to using adaptive intelligence STRONG setting which uses this adaptive mic setting when ASM 3 is released in the US.)

 

Another example was in the truck (kind of noisy truck) with 2 people in front and 3 of us in the back seat.  I was seated next to a window in the back.  I was still in adaptive mic setting.  If I looked out of the window, my family members were behind me and were dampened.  If I looked toward the center of the truck, my family members were positioned optimally for adaptive mic to focus in.  At times there were various sounds happening simultaneously.

-Road/truck noise

-fire dept radio alerts

-2 separate conversations underway simultaneously 

And again listening with the adaptive mic setting was easy.  I could change which conversation the mics were focused on by turning my head.

 

Have you noticed similar things when using the adaptive mic setting (ASM 2) or adaptive intelligence STRONG (ASM 3)?

 

Many thanks to the Med-El researchers and engineers who designed the adaptive mic setting.