The BEST Way to STOP Hearing Aid Wind Noise

Don't like the sound of wind noise when you go outside wearing your hearing aids? Well, don't worry because this might be the solution to your problem. Receiver in canal hearing aids are extremely popular. In fact, the last time that I checked, they accounted for over 80% of all hearing aids dispensed in the United States. Not only are these hearing aids nearly invisible, but they can treat a wide range of hearing losses all the way from a mild hearing loss up to a profound level of hearing loss, and they are typically loaded with all of the latest and greatest features. However, placing these hearing aids behind your ears comes with one major drawback, and that is wind noise. A receiver in canal hearing aid typically has two microphones that sit behind your ears. And while there are benefits to having these microphones behind your ears, it does make them more susceptible to wind noise.

In fact, anything that uses microphones is susceptible to noise generated by wind. This includes microphones on your smartphone while you're on a phone call outside, the microphones that newscasters use while conducting an interview in the field in inclement weather, or the microphones on a video camera that a videographer would use to record an outdoor wedding. The reason that wind is such a problem for the microphones on your hearing aids is that the slow and fast-moving air particles cause a physical disturbance of the microphones. And not only is this annoying, but it interferes with what you're trying to actually hear. You see the majority of sounds called phonemes that make up human speech mostly fall between 250 hertz and 8,000 hertz like you see on this audiogram. Fun fact for you here, the typical ear canal resonance is 2,700 hertz, which is very interesting because it is this frequency range that is extremely critical to understanding human speech.

All right, so back to wind noise. So wind speeds that are less than three meters per second typically impact the lower frequency ranges up to around 1500 hertz. Wind speeds between three and five meters per second, typically interfere with the mid-frequency ranges up to around 3,500 hertz, and wind speeds above five meters per second will typically interfere with all of the frequencies. And like I mentioned before, any of the scratching sound that you hear caused by wind noise not only is extremely annoying, but it interferes with speech, which is why it's such a big problem. This is why a lot of golfers hate wearing receiver in canal hearing aids while they're out on the golf course, especially if they're racing along in their golf cart because the wind noises so much louder. This problem becomes even more apparent if you happen to live in a windy state like my home state of Illinois.

The good news is there is a simple solution to this wind noise problem, but before I tell you what that solution is, if you could do me a huge favor, click that like button, really helps out my channel. And if you are not yet subscribed to the channel with notifications turned on, go ahead and do that as well because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I release multiple new videos every single week. That being said, I really appreciate it. Now let's get to that solution. All right. To get rid of wind noise, the only thing that you have to do is wear a dead cat. That's right. All you have to do is put one of these over your ears is going to block all of that wind from interfering with your microphones and you're gonna be good to go.

Of course, I'm just kidding. What you should really be doing instead is getting yourself a pair of Oticon Real hearing aids from Oticon, today's video sponsor. Hearing aid manufacturers have been trying for years to try to get rid of the problem of wind noise, and most manufacturers have not been successful at this. Oticon took this complaint from hearing aid users very seriously when developing the technology inside of their Oticon Real hearing aids, which were designed to significantly reduce the impact of wind noise and handling noise. Now, I've tested a ton of hearing aids over the years, and I can tell you that the Oticon Real hearing aids are some of the best when it comes to reducing the negative effects of wind noise, and they didn't have to harm any cats in the process. And yes, this is known as a dead cat. During my several week review of the Oticon Reals, it happened to be really windy where I live now, which is Phoenix, Arizona, and it was the first time that I can remember that wind did not interfere with speech understanding when on walks with my wife Ashley and my dog

Charley. Oticon's approach to developing their wind and handling noise stabilizer was to shut down the microphones in the specific frequency ranges that it identifies wind noise at very low wind speeds of around two meters per second and below. Oticon was able to keep both microphones active and just use their noise reduction system to get rid of the wind. Now, most traditional wind noise management systems are very good at eliminating wind noise at 1500 hertz and below. However, not only was Oticon successful at reducing wind noise by up to 30 decibels from 1500 hertz and below, but they were also successful in reducing wind noise above 1500 hertz by up to 20 decibels. Now that is huge because every 10 decibels that you reduce that is cutting the amount of noise in half. During wind tunnel testing in Denmark, they were able to see how well the new Oticon Real hearing aids performed at moderate and stronger wind speeds compared to their previous Oticon

More hearing aids. As you can see across the board, the Oticon Real hearing aids were able to significantly outperform the Oticon More hearing aids in both moderate and stronger wind speeds for each frequency range tested and overall, the Oticon Real hearing aids were able to provide an additional signal to noise ratio improvement of 4.3 decibels over the Oticon More hearing aid, which is huge. Meaning that even when reducing wind noise, the Oticon Real can give you better access to speech compared to Oticon's previous generation technology. Not to mention when compared head-to-head with its competitors, the Oticon Real hearing aids outperformed both when it came to the loudness of wind noise and the clarity of speech in wind. Overall, if you're one of the 80 plus percent of individuals who struggle to understand speech when you're outside on a windy day, now you know why. The way I see it is that you've got a few options when it comes to getting rid of wind noise. The first option is to stop wearing your hearing aids outside. And let's face it, that is not a very good option. Option number two is to use a hearing

aid that goes all inside of your ear canal like the Oticon Own because that gets rid of the microphones from behind your ears and puts them in a protected position inside of your ear canals. Option number three is to use a dead cat, which let's face it, this was a joke anyway, so that's out of the question. And option number four is to use a receiver in canal hearing aid that takes care of this problem for you. Honestly, all of these options are probably better than what you're doing right now, so the choice is up to you.