Wow! AB's Harmony vs. Cochlear's Nucleus 5!

These details are only useful if you know what they mean.
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ve
read your other posts and you seem to be here simply to be picking debates with people.
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On the OTHER hand, I do think Resolution may have a good point. He doesn't sound anti CI. Rather he's bringing up the point that the specifics that the CI company brings up may not be all that important for performance. In other words, the specifics may be "audiophile important." Audiophiles are notorious for being " Oh this feature/equiptment/etc lets you hear SO much more!" And then independent tests show either no real difference or the difference that the stuff makes is too subtle for the human ear to hear.
 
Heath said:
I didn't know other CI technology existed besides the Nucleus 5.

There is a lot to think about.
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Heath, there are 3 cochlear implant manufacturers. Cochlear (Nucleus 5), Advanced Bionics (Harmony) and Med-El (Opus). Definitely do some research, see what each implant offers and when you get ready to decide which implant you want to get for yourself, consider the pros/cons, etc. Also speak with the CI audiologist and surgeon too about the implants.
 
cdmeggers said:
Heath, there are 3 cochlear implant manufacturers. Cochlear (Nucleus 5), Advanced Bionics (Harmony) and Med-El (Opus). Definitely do some research, see what each implant offers and when you get ready to decide which implant you want to get for yourself, consider the pros/cons, etc. Also speak with the CI audiologist and surgeon too about the implants.
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Speak with other CI user's too as CI audiologist/surgeons do not tell you everything. Here's a great amount of a post by a woman who did all her research for cochlear implants.

Cochlear implants I look so I can hear….
 
I actually have an Advanced Bionics Harmony Atria. It was picked for me by Sunnybrook Cochlear Implant section. That was 3 years ago. Still highly satisfied as I mentioned before -not capable of determining which of the 3 systems to get: Advanced Bionics. Cochlear Corp or Med El. They pick one which appears to be best for you. They do use all 3 here in Toronto.
Ironical: actually had a Cochlear Corporation booklet on their products and never heard of the other 2--before I became deaf in Dec/06.
I had an idea what was going to happen thanks to Cochlear Corp-- if accepted for an Implant.

Advanced Bionics-Harmony Atria-activated Aug/07
 
I was given teh option between AB and cochlear when I was evaluated. I chose Cochlear for the asthetic look and feel of the processor on my ear/ also the longevity of cochlear corp. Also My surgeon Is the CMO of cochlear corp so I felt he had more experience with implanting Coclehear than anything else. The sound quality is pretty good for having a device giving hearing, I dunno if I wouldbe doing as well with AB or not so I cannot comment on that.

Dr. Phil That had to of been scary to have them put that inside you without you having a choice in what to have done. Mad props man and I am glad your doing well with it. Cheers :beer:
 
This has been an interesting thread.

By reading some of the posts, I would agree that there does seem to some bias in Resolutions comments. I believe the bias is covert instead of blatant in-your-face bias.

That said, the general advice to look at sources and the quality of the source is standard in the academic world. Generally only peer reviewed publications are considered credible, especially in the Academic world. One thing that you must remember, in all these papers, is the doctors want to look good. They will likely not publish a paper saying "I implanted 30 devices and only 3 worked".

That said, faire, your articles also have credibility. Just because they are not peer reviewed does not mean that the data is not valid. You simply don't have the comfort of knowing that someone reviewed them to ensure statics and conclusion were agreed upon by a few other experts in the field. I would be very curious to know your source of the “largest implant center” [in Germany]. Which center was that and who was the author?

To make another thing clear, as cdm pointed out earlier in this thread, there are basically 3 cochlear implant manufacturers. Realistically, if he posted “I work for company X”, his employer may not like that or worse, if he were to say something (or imply) that is against the labeled functionality of the device, then his company could be held liable under US law. US law on medical devices is quite stringent.

As an example, lets say that Resolutions said he work for Cochlear Implant Manufacturer Y. Now, someone with Brand Y implanted in them tells him that the device is experiencing what they believe to be an improper functioning device. As a representative of the company, he is required by law to inform the employer of a customer complaint and it must be followed up on.

Now, let us extrapolate this a little further and imagine that someone from the FDA may actually look at this forum (which is not out of the realm of possibilities). If they are able to determine that Mr. Resolution knew of a complaint they may decide to ask to see that complaint file during their monitoring visit. When that complaint file doesn’t exist, Mr. FDA inspector will not be so happy.

I do think it is fair to ask his information, but people must realize that there may be reasons he doesn’t want to give it out. The industry is a very small one.

All of this said, I do not see any false information in what resolution has posted.

C1
 
I think resolution has given some very good points.I also see no false information and also wonder why one has to TRUST some posts here. They are here for your reading and digesting. There are pros and cons to most everything. I think resolution's comments have been informative and I don't see that he/she has recommended any one or said they were the authority. So as the saying goes " whats the beef "? Good discussion and also remember that most of the studies were several months old and some of the products have come out new and improved since then. Things change all the time and some on the top may be on the bottom now and other way around as well.
Yes I have a CI and yes I am biased to the one I picked which I think is natural. No one likes to say " I goofed" on something of that magnitude.
 
Resolution said:
These details are only useful if you know what they mean.

...

3. An expanded input dynamic range is useful for quiet situations, but in noise it just means you hear more noise, so this could be a positive or a negative depending upon the situation you're in. Current studies suggest an input dynamic range of 40 is better than one of 30, but there is no evidence to suggest an IDR of > 45 offers any further benefit.

...
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I have a IDR of ~50. I'm working on increasing that. The highest I heard of is one individual with 60.

Yeah, there is some trade offs of a high IDR. In a quiet environment, it has been fantastic. It's not too bad for me with lots of noise but there are drawbacks. It just simply means I have to pay attention more.

Interesting subject...
 
sr171soars said:
I have a IDR of ~50. I'm working on increasing that. The highest I heard of is one individual with 60.

Yeah, there is some trade offs of a high IDR. In a quiet environment, it has been fantastic. It's not too bad for me with lots of noise but there are drawbacks. It just simply means I have to pay attention more.

Interesting subject...
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My daughter's IDR is 70.
 
faire_jour said:
My daughter's IDR is 70.
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That is great!

I do know there aren't many that high!

Hopefully, in the next couple of years I will be close to that.

That being said, having a CI implies there is some upper limit and I suppose that depends on several factors.
 
sr171soars said:
That is great!

I do know there aren't many that high!

Hopefully, in the next couple of years I will be close to that.

That being said, having a CI implies there is some upper limit and I suppose that depends on several factors.
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AB goes as large as 80 db, Cochlear can only handle 50.
 
sr171soars said:
All I know is that my audi told me the person who has 60 has a cochlear. She mentioned that I should eventually reach that given my ability with my CI.
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The original link shows that Cochlear has an adjustable dynamic range of 45 db. So, if there are loud sounds, the DR moves up to access that sound, and if there is a soft sound it will adjust to hear that, but the total range at any moment is 45 db. (Adaptive dynamic range optimization is what ADRO stands for)
 
Resolution said:
These details are only useful if you know what they mean.

1. The temporal resolution numbers really aren't important, as it has already been shown that most CI users are unable to discriminate pitch differences for rates above 300 pulses per second per channel. The total stimulation rates as listed there for both devices are more than capable of delivering this.

2. The spectral resolution numbers are also overexaggerated. Even for systems with as many as 22 electrode pairs/channels most users are incapable of utilising more than 4 - 8 channels for speech recognition. Yes more channels in theory allows for better pitch perception, but in practice this is relevant only to puretones and does not translate to complex sounds because of current interactions between electrodes.

3. An expanded input dynamic range is useful for quiet situations, but in noise it just means you hear more noise, so this could be a positive or a negative depending upon the situation you're in. Current studies suggest an input dynamic range of 40 is better than one of 30, but there is no evidence ot suggest an IDR of > 45 offers any further benefit.

4. Potential pitch percepts - the emphasis being very much on potential. Pitch perception research suggests that CI users are unable to reliably rank the direction of a pitch change for a pair of notes 1/4 of an octave apart. Current speech processing strategies are very poor at providing pitch information, as they must work within the limitations of electrical stimulation in fluid-filled environment, the emphasis naturally being on speech as that is their main purpose.

5. Sound coding strategies are generally proprietary and largely device-specific. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest the advanced bionics strategies are superior to anything else on the market.
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That website is SOOO biased. First of all, the Nucleus 5 is cable of more than a 45DB range. Last time I was at the audiologist, I actually heard a range of 70DB and she told me, they arent supposed to set them that far apart because like you said "you just hear more noise" She set a 40db range is optimal.
Secondly, while the AB might be "splash resistant" the nucleus 5 can be submerged in 3ft of water for 30 min and work just fine. Lets see the harmony do that.
Also, the harmony has a "sound check" box to run a diagnostic of any problems with the system while, the N5 does the same thing using the remote. If you hold the coil to the back of the remote, it will tell you if everything is working.
 
I think that there is allot of confusion over IDR (input Dynamic Range) as compare to the current output dynamic range that is controlled by the maps to the array. It is not unusual for people have smaller output Dynamic range than the IDR and the sound then would have to be compress to fit for the output to the array. If you increase the IDR you would get more sound but it would have to be compressed to a higher ratio to fit the output dynamic range. Too much compression and you will have a harder time to pick out the voices out from all that compressed noise. It has been my experience that having a wide output range is more important for detail than raising the input dynamic range.
 
That's an AB site. Can you give us a comparison from an independent site?
 
Jeffypoo80 said:
Secondly, while the AB might be "splash resistant" the nucleus 5 can be submerged in 3ft of water for 30 min and work just fine. Lets see the harmony do that.
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In all do respect, it does say yes under Moisture Resistance for all three.
 
Why would anyone want to get their processor wet? According to AB handbook-2009- pg 48-takes 24 hours to dry out.

Implanted Advanced Bionics-Harmony activated Aug/07
 
I do!, I race yachts and I need to hear the skipper screaming his head off to tell me get my ass off to trim the sails!... many 1sts and not complaining... my CI gets dried out in wonderful global dry and store (which is now on it's way to Austria and replaced with smaller and more compact, Zeyphr) In the 2 and almost half years I have gotten my "ears" sodden with sea water many times and it still works.
 
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