Hearing Ear How are you? – One month on report

21st September 2010

It has been just under one month since I was upgraded from my Auria processor to the Harmony. I am now using clear voice 24/7! This is surprising as I thought that I would not be able to have my processor’s sound go up and down.

Hearing in general sounds have “normalised” to the extent that my hearing is less acute than it was 2 and a half weeks ago. I still get the odd “wow” moment and I do hope that there will be more to come.

The results have been interesting so far. I have found that Clear voice works better in some environments better than others. I am now used to the more peaceful sound of traffic outside.

At a recent football match the whole experience was “heaven” Clear voice did an excellent job killing practically all of the unwanted low frequency background noise! The result was a very peaceful experience with the odd clear sounds of fans chanting!

At a couple of gatherings with friends and family painted two different pictures. One was in a group of 10 people all talking very loudly. Clear voice seemed to struggle to work at reducing “unwanted” noise as all sounds were competing for attention! I was able to hear the people closest to me but not the people down the other end of the table.

At the second gathering, I think the group was slightly smaller so listening was easier as less sounds were competing for equal attention!.

My worst hearing performance occurred at a recent work meeting within my workplace conference centre. The room acustics were just dreadful Clear Voice got rid of the air conditioning noise but did little to assist with the echo in the room. The result was people sounding as if talking down a long narrow tunnel. Some voices were clearer than others.

Music in general sounds very good on the whole. There are some rare instances where some musical pieces sound better with or without clear voice. This element I find rather confusing. High frequency sounds are generally better than the low frequency ones for me. Vocal clarity varies for me from singer to singer. Harmonies sound sweet and smooth and able to pick out individual voices. I am also attempting to expand my musical listening library to include bands or groups I have never heard of or listened to, for example the XX (Mercury prize winner) and Pepper and Piano  (from must be the music on Sky 1).

Tv watching has greatly improved since I last reported on this with everything sounding more normal.

Update coming soon

Hello everyone

An update will be forthcoming in the next few days thanks for your paitence

Clearvoice (C.V) faces its toughest test yet and it............ read on to find out

Well it has been just been over a week since the upgrade took place and after spending the week playing around with the two settings I decided to see what would happen if I kept Clear Voice on all day!
Out and about walking to the train station and getting to work I could detect C.V hard at work analysing the sounds around me. Traffic and train noises were kept at a very low level, including traffic noise – this however I still find a little worrying as it impaired my ability to hear traffic at a loud enough volume.
Train announcements came through clearly. In the office building C.V settled down to a “normalised” hearing level this being some noises at a quieter level than others, however still managing to pick up speech very clearly (even if at times I did not catch all of the office gossip!)
As the day wore on I was able to detect noticeable differences to the various sound levels. In the shop I could hear the background music clearly and fairly loud! This is supposed to be background music!
Listening to music at home with C.V switched on takes this up to the next level as its coming through clearer than ever before! It appears that C.V has identified music as music and the dip in sound level is not noticeable.
Clear Voice is working well for me after one full days use. I’m in the middle of watching Waterloo road and I can hear the background music within the programme itself!
More soon.....

Clear Voice – an explanation

Clear Voice is the name given to the software that works to reduce unwanted sounds to a comfortable level in order for the user to understand speech more easily in noisy conditions. How a person reacts to the software varies from person to person. My experiences are contained in this blog. The name “clear voice” may be a misconception I will be exploring this topic in a future blog post of mine.


I will explain other Cochlear Implant terminology as I use them.

Clear Voice Master of noise or is it an illusion? 31st August 2010

I put clear Voice through another tough test this evening in yet another noisy restaurant. The environment seemed noisier than the Turkish restaurant.


Clear voice brought the overall noise level down to a fairly comfortable level of tolerance and there was a loud party of people sitting behind me. I found it quite challenging to focus on the people I wanted to hear in addition to the racket going on around me.

I discovered some nice touches as the evening wore on these were as follows

I found it surprising comfortable to be in such a noisy place, though I was not hearing and understanding the speech 100% due to other competing noises.

I heard a train go overhead! I was told that this happens frequently though I only detected this once I found it astonishing I was able to pick out that amongst the rest of the noise going on around me.

Communicating with the waiter in such a noisy environment I found very easy to do without his voice being drowned out by the background noise. His voice was distinct if not overly loud.

That’s all for this instalment.