Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Stepping it up!

I went for my 3rd mapping yesterday, and what a step up! I knew I was ready for another visit. I kept increasing the volume over the weekend. I was at the point on Sunday where I couldn't raise it any higher -- I had maxed out my current settings. My brain wanted MORE and I couldn't give it more.

But yesterday....I got more.

Prior to the tweak, my audi's voice (like all voices) was muffled, sounding like it was underwater and very computerized. He boosted my volume and gave me a higher IDR (from 50 to 60). Instantly, I was able to make out his voice. I was able to determine that it was male and make sense of some words. It's a bit clearer now. Don't get me wrong, I still have a lot of work to do, but it's definitely a step up. He covered his mouth and said 5 sentences. I got 4 of them right. He was impressed, and quite frankly, so was I!

So I am happy that my brain is soaking it all in and craving more. With my new settings, I will have more work to do in the next two weeks. I can make it louder, but right now, my brain is telling me to slow it down. The new sounds are still a lot to take in. Not only am I not used to such high volume and the amount of sounds coming in, but my brain is also dealing with competing ears! One ear is normal-sounding (the HA) and the other ear is completely alien and distorted. It can be very overwhelming sometimes, so I have to tread slowly before I continue to raise the volume.

My current programs are:

Pgm 1 = HiRes-S with Fidelity 120, IDR 60, 50/50 External Mic and T-Mic. This is for my everyday, quieter situations.

Pgm 2 = HiRes-S with Fidelity 120, IDR 50, 50/50 External Mic and T-Mic. The lower IDR is for noisy settings. It decreases the window of sound.

Pgm 3 = HiRes-S with Fidelity 120, IDR 50, 30/70 External Mic and telecoil. This is for my looped system, for listening to the iPod, DVD player, computer, etc, while also hearing the outside world.

My audi wasn't keen on trying 100% t-mic yet, and he also thought it was too soon to try IDR 70. I'm going again on 11/12 for my one-month mapping, and maybe we'll try those settings out then. In the meantime, I'm soaking it all in one day at a time.

5 comments:

Pandaundercover said...

what's the 50/50 and 30/70 mean??

I've got my settings at 65, 70 and 75 right now and find I like the 70 IDR the best. The 75 becomes overally congested with sounds and vocals are less clear than they are 70. Today i managed to make out most of a sentence by listening and lip reading a news lady on TV, compared to if I couldn't hear her voice, I'd make out like 30% of it. I was pretty excited about that. I'm glad you're making out speech pretty well already. I'm still waiting for voices to clear up a little more and sound more real.

Dave said...

I'm using 50% external mic, and 50% T-mic for the first two programs. Everyone is saying that 100% T-mic is the way to go, but my Audi was concerned that if the T-mic gets faulty, I'll have the external mic to fall back on. But next visit, I'm requesting at least one program at 100% T-mic. Pgm 3 is 30% external mic, 70% telecoil.

You have wide IDRs so early in the game, that's impressive. My Audi wanted me to work my way up slowly. Started at 50, now at 60.

Pandaundercover said...

Oh, there's an external mic? lol. I know the standard, tmic is that long one right? And then they also give us a short one... but I can't see an actual microphone opening on it at all and was confused. I dunno, I'll have to ask about those next visit so I can test them out or something.

Dave said...

We might be thinking of the same thing. Standard = external. There is a microphone directly on the processor, in the front. The T-mic (the long one) is the "popular" one. And yeah, I think there is the short, but not sure who would use that if you have the T-mic, which is supposedly better. Hmm.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave, thanks for your comment! I've enjoyed reading your reports as well. :o)