Fresh From the Bench: Widex Moment mRIC RD Hearing Aid

February 24 2021, 14:10
Can a hearing aid use DSP to deliver superior performance plus the convenience and versatility of the latest true wireless Bluetooth earphones? Brent Butterworth tests the Widex Moment to find out.
 

Manufacturers are packing an incredible array of features into the latest true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones, including adaptive active noise cancelling, hear-through modes, biometric sensors, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant access, multiple EQ tuning modes, and more. The millions of people who wear hearing aids must be a little envious, especially considering hearing aids fitted by an audiologist typically cost 10 or 20 times as much as name-brand TWS earphones.

Hearing aid companies have started to respond by turning their products into something more akin to TWS earphones. They’re offering Bluetooth connections for music and podcast listening, multiple listening modes optimized for different environments, and even directional pickup modes that focus on sound coming from a specific direction.

One of the newest entries in the high-tech hearing aid category is the Widex Moment, which is available in three in-ear and three behind-the-ear designs. In addition to the features already described, the Moment uses a “Zero Delay Accelerator,” accessed through its PureSound mode, which Widex says reduces the latency of the hearing aid to 0.5ms. This compares with around 2ms in the Moment’s Universal mode.

According to Widex, this mode makes the Moment sound much more natural than other hearing aids. The reason, I assume, is that it reduces comb-filter effects — cancellation and reinforcement patterns at different frequencies caused by the phase differences between environmental sounds that pass straight to the ear and those processed by the hearing aid. The company claims not only that the Moment “restores one’s sense of perfectly natural hearing,” but also that wearers streaming through Bluetooth will find the Moment to be “the best headphones they’ve ever used.”
 

The Product
Each of the Moment mRIC RD hearing aids consists of a tiny, 1" long (25mm) electronics module, connected via a thin, plastic-covered wire to a single balanced armature driver. (Most behind-the-ear hearing aids have the driver inside the electronics module, with a tube carrying the audio from the driver into the ear.) An assortment of open and closed silicone ear tips is provided. 

The Moment uses a rechargeable battery rated for 16 hours of runtime with a full charge, and four hours’ runtime with a 30-minute charge. The charging module has slots into which each hearing aid drops. It connects with a USB-C to USB-A cable to a provided wall-wart charger. Removing the hearing aids from the charging module automatically powers them up.

Almost all TWS earphones have a charging case that can recharge the earphones three to five times before the case itself must be recharged, but the Moment doesn’t. Instead, it has a case with air-filled rubber pads to hold the hearing aids in place during transit, and vents that allow them to dry out. So if the wearer expects to be gone long enough to exhaust the Moment’s battery, they’ll have to bring the charging module, the charger and its cable, and the ventilated travel case.

Each hearing aid has a single button on the back of the electronics module. A long press of this button turns them on and off. A brief touch can flip through the different listening modes, and also control volume if you’re using two Moments. You can use the Moment not just as a hearing aid, but also as a set of Bluetooth earphones, so you can listen to music and podcasts and take phone calls through the hearing aids, just as you would with TWS earphones. However, at present the Moment can stream only from iOS devices.

According to Widex, the Moment is "...also prepared for future connections with select Android devices." There is a Widex Moment app for Androids, though, which allows the wearer to control the hearing aids, even if it doesn’t allow the wearer to stream content through Bluetooth. 

The Moment offers as many as 11 different basic listening modes, accessed through the app or through the button on the back of the electronics module. These modes are added by the audiologist as needed. My sample included the Universal, PureSound, and Music modes. Other options include modes optimized for quiet and loud settings, parties, music listening, transport, phone conversations, and more. The audiologist can add a Zen mode, which provides relaxing sounds, and there’s also a SoundSense Learn mode, which uses AI to optimize the hearing aid’s response for the user’s daily routine.

Widex does not publish pricing on hearing aids, because its products are sold only through audiologists, and as part of a package that includes initial testing and fitting as well as return visits for fine-tuning. You’ll have to ask your audiologist about the pricing, but as with other audiologist-provided hearing aids, expect to pay at least $2,000 per ear for the product and the audiologist’s services.

Widex offers its behind-the-ear models in 13 colors (including Sporty Red and Shocking Pink!), and also offers optional interfaces that let you use the Moment to listen to TV, FM radio, and so forth.

The Fitting
Although I have only the mild hearing loss typical of a 58-year-old male (i.e., an easily detectable amount of loss, but not enough to benefit from hearing aids), I have recently been evaluating and measuring various over-the-counter personal sound amplification products (PSAPs), so I’m familiar with how hearing-assistance products work and was eager to see how a real audiologist-tuned hearing aid stacks up against the PSAPs I’ve tested. 

Widex provided me with a sample of the mRIC RD, a behind-the-ear version of the Moment, along with access to an audiologist to set it up. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted this procedure remotely, using the Widex Remote Care Link. The Remote Care Link is a Bluetooth-connected device that hangs around the patient’s neck, and connects through the Widex Remote Care smartphone app to allow the audiologist to conduct a hearing test that’s much like what you’d experience in the audiologist’s office. The only exceptions are the test tones come from the hearing aids themselves rather than headphones, and you don’t take the test in a soundproof chamber as you would with an audiologist. A video conferencing link within the app lets the audiologist talk the patient through the process. The audiologist can then remotely program the hearing aids to best suit the patient’s hearing deficiencies.

I’d had a professional hearing test about a year before that showed only mild loss typical for my age and gender, so I wasn’t surprised when the correction curve the audiologist put in was too subtle for me to detect or even reliably measure. Later, a Widex technical representative used the same remote setup process while one of the Moment hearing aids sat in my GRAS Model 43AG ear/cheek simulator. She was able to program the Moment for a more typical hearing-loss profile that would make my measurements and evaluation easier.

Measurements
I performed the measurements using GRAS Sound & Vibration test equipment: the Model 43AG, an RA0402 high-resolution ear simulator/coupler, and a KB5000 anthropometric pinna. I also used an Audiomatica Clio 10 FW analyzer, as well as an M-Audio Mobile Pre USB interface with TrueAudio TrueRTA real-time analyzer software. 

The first measurement I wanted to try was to confirm Widex’s claims about processing latency — something I’ve honestly never thought about measuring in PSAPs, because most seal in the ear canal and block the majority of external sound above about 1kHz. I measured the latency by placing a Genelec HT205 powered monitor a few inches from the ear/cheek simulator, then playing a logarithmic chirp tone to measure the impulse response with no hearing aid, with the Moment in Universal and PureSound modes, and with a generic over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid I had sitting around.
 
Figure 1: Impulse response showing latency of a generic over-the-counter hearing aid. The pulse furthest to the left is the original sound entering the ear simulator; the pulse to the right is the delayed sound that has been processed and amplified by the hearing aid.
Figure 2: Impulse response showing latency with Widex Moment hearing aid in Universal mode.
Figure 3: Impulse response showing latency with Widex Moment hearing aid in PureSound mode.

In each of the charts presented, the black trace represents the impulse response with no hearing aid, and the blue trace shows the impulse response with the hearing aid. Measuring the difference between the original pulse and the second pulse created by the hearing aid gives us the latency.

Figure 1 shows the latency with the generic OTC hearing aid, which measures 6.34ms. Figure 2 shows the latency with the Moment in Universal mode: 1.60ms, much less than the generic hearing aid. Figure 3 shows the latency with the Moment in PureSound mode: 0.48ms. Clearly, Widex’s latency claims are accurate.

Converting the Moment’s impulse responses to 1/12th-octave-smoothed frequency response measurements was illuminating. You can see in Figure 4 how the PureSound mode seems to completely eliminate the comb filter effects that are easy to see in the Universal mode.
 
Figure 4: This graph shows the 1/12-octave-smoothed frequency response of Widex Moment in Universal (blue trace) and PureSound (red trace) modes, measured with logarithmic chirp tone. Comb filtering is easily seen in Universal mode but almost absent from the PureSound mode.

Next, I wanted to see the effects of some of the Moment’s different listening modes. To perform this measurement, I used an array of six Dayton Audio B652 speakers mounted around my lab plus a Sunfire True Subwoofer Jr., all playing uncorrelated pink noise at 60dBC. (This is the same setup I use to test active noise cancelling in headphones.) I connected the output of the ear/cheek simulator to the M-Audio USB interface and viewed the result in TrueRTA.

In the resulting chart, Figure 5, the 60dBC noise baseline (corrected for the response of the speakers, room and ear/cheek simulator) is shown in red, and the response curves of the hearing aid in the different modes show how much the hearing aid boosts or cuts the sound at different frequencies. (Keep in mind that this sample was tuned for the hearing loss of a typical hearing aid owner; a typical correction might be +10dB to +20dB between about 800Hz and 5kHz.) Note how similar the profiles of the Universal and PureSound modes are, and how the Music mode is more or less at parity with the others around 2kHz, but adds considerable boost above and below that frequency.

I tried several methods of measuring the efficacy of the Moment’s directional pickup modes, finally settling on using a couple of Audioengine A1 speakers, one placed 1.5 meters to the front side of the ear/cheek simulator, the other placed toward the rear, so I could produce pink noise from each direction. I first ran response curves without the hearing aid, so I could subtract the ear/cheek simulator’s transfer function and see only the response of the hearing aid itself.
 
Figure 5: This graph shows the 1/6-octave-smoothed frequency response of Widex Moment in Universal (green), PureSound (purple) and Music (blue) modes, measured with 60dBC SPL pink noise.
Figure 6: Directional effects of Widex Moment in Universal, Directional Front, and Directional Rear modes, 1/6-octave-smoothed, measured with 77dBC SPL pink noise. Upper set of traces shows the effects on sound coming from 0° (straight ahead), lower traces show shows the effects on sound coming from 180° (directly behind).
Figure 7: Frequency response of Widex Moment, configured for typical moderate hearing loss, when used for audio playback from a Bluetooth-connected source, in Music (green trace) and Speech (purple trace) EQ modes, using pink-noise stimulus and smoothed to 1/12 octave, compared with a JVC HA-FW01 wired earphone (blue trace).

Figure 6 shows the effects (smoothed to 1/6 octave) of the Universal mode, the Directional mode set to “front,” and the Directional mode set to “rear.” The upper set of traces shows the hearing aid’s effects on sounds coming from the front, while the lower set shows the effect on sounds coming from the rear. The Directional mode set to “front” did boost sound from the front by 1dB to 3dB between 2.5kHz and 6.5kHz, while the same mode set to “rear” had a similar effect on sounds from the rear. (Incidentally, I kept trying to find a way to measure this because I could clearly hear a directional bias of about 3dB when listening to two smart speakers playing different Internet radio programs from in front of and behind me.)

Figure 7 shows the frequency response of the Moment (as configured by Widex for my tests) when used for audio playback from a Bluetooth-connected source, in Music and Speech EQ modes. For the stimulus, I used pink noise from my iPad, smoothed to 1/12 octave. For comparison, I show the response of the JVC HA-FW01 earphone, a passive model that has a fairly typical response for a dynamic-driver earphone. Because of the tuning of the hearing aid and the open-air tip I used, there’s little bass, and it’s obvious that the design/tuning intent of the hearing aid is much different from that of the earphones. I’ll have more to say on this in my subjective notes.
 
Photo 1: The reviewer’s real ear with the Widex Moment in place (a); and the device-under-test in a GRAS KB5000 anthropomorphic 
pinna equipped with the RA0402 high-resolution ear simulator/coupler (b).

Subjective Testing
Although due to the pandemic I’m not traveling or even interacting with people face-to-face all that often, I was able to use a pair of Moments while conducting typical errands (e.g., running to the grocery store and grabbing take-out from my favorite diner). For someone who’s used hundreds of earphones, almost all of which include silicone tips that completely seal the ear canal, it was initially off-putting to have a couple of spindly balanced armature drivers on wires inserted into my ear canals, but I got used to it after a while and often forgot I was wearing them (Photo 1). One big, but hopefully temporary, downside of a behind-the-ear hearing aid such as the Moment is that it tangles easily in the ear loops of a face mask. Feedback has traditionally been the bugbear of hearing aids, as the wearer’s ears are momentarily tortured by an eardrum-splitting, high-frequency whine while donning and doffing the hearing aids.

DSP has made feedback much less of a problem, sometimes by using compression to clamp down on problem frequencies, and I’m happy to say the Moments only squealed twice, and both times only fleetingly: once when I was putting on a face mask to go into a store, and once when I was putting one into the ear/cheek simulator.

Even with the “typical” amount of boost Widex had programmed into the units, I had to crank the level up to or near maximum (it’s easily adjustable via the app) to clearly hear the differences among the modes. I focused on Universal, PureSound, and Music. All of the modes did a terrific job of boosting voices so they were easier to understand, and I was surprised that the sound didn’t seem particularly unnatural; it was clear I wasn’t experiencing my normal hearing, but I was able to get accustomed to the hearing aids effects after a few minutes of wearing them.

I wasn’t sure what difference I was supposed to hear between the Universal and the PureSound modes, but I did hear a difference. With the Moments’ level of boost set to maximum, the Universal mode produced a constant, low-level “whooshing” sound, as if I were sitting right next to an HVAC vent. With the PureSound mode, I’d estimate that about 80% of this effect disappeared.

Meanwhile, the PureSound mode didn’t seem any less effective at enhancing my hearing. Surprisingly, I didn’t note a major tonal balance shift when switching between the two modes; any shift I heard was fairly mild and not, to my ears, consequential.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, my opportunities to hear live music are practically nil until probably well into 2021, so to try the Music mode, I played some favorite albums through my high-end audio system, comprising Revel Performa3 F206 speakers and Parasound and Outlaw Audio electronics.

With the Universal and the PureSound modes, the sound of the instruments and the voices was thin; the bandwidth sounded about like AM radio, although the sound quality was otherwise much better. The Music mode seemed to fill in some of the lower midrange, which allowed instruments and voices to sound fuller.

Listening to recorded music through the hearing aids themselves, using a Bluetooth connection from an iPad, was less satisfying, although I’m hesitant to judge because while we all know what it’s like to have problems understanding voices (due to poor telephone connections, poor acoustics, etc.), I don’t know what it’s like to experience recorded music as a hearing-impaired person.

With the standard open-air tip, and no seal in my ear canal, music from Spotify was fairly low in level and had limited bandwidth. It sounded something like a good 1”, full-range driver playing at a distance of a meter or so. The midrange was clear and seemed reasonably natural, but there was little or no body to the sound.

Open-air tips are the norm with hearing aids used for mild to moderate hearing loss. The general concept is that hearing loss in low frequencies is rare, so it’s best to let the wearer hear low frequencies naturally and boost only the midrange and high frequencies. The downside of this is that it’s probably impossible to get full bass from a single balanced armature floating freely in the ear canal. I noticed that Widex’s website shows the Moment with larger tips that seal the ear canal.

These tips are typically used for patients with severe hearing damage and/or damage in the low frequencies. I thought that they might sound fuller for music listening, but they didn’t to any significant degree, and the sound seemed a little better with the open tips—more like a fairly smooth, haystack-shaped response curve centered at 2kHz or 3kHz, while the closed tip made the midrange sound less clear.

The bottom line is that a conventional hearing aid, with a balanced armature or a long, thin sound tube suspended in the ear canal, probably can’t provide the kind of full-range music listening experience that even a good $50 set of earphones delivers. Even when fitted with silicone tips that seal the ear canal, the hearing aid doesn’t seem to have enough mass and bulk to prevent low frequencies from escaping. Of course, those $50 earphones will likely not deliver a good experience for someone with significant hearing impairment unless a great deal of EQ (more than available through typical smartphone apps) is added at the source.

Music playback is an area where the hearing-aid industry — and the practice of reviewing hearing aids as multiple-use devices — is in its infancy. Whether hearing-aid designers can find a way to deliver the kind of music-listening experience that good earphones provide, and whether someone with healthy hearing can predict how a listener with hearing impairment perceives that experience, remains to be seen. There’s a lot of work left for all of us here, but you gotta start somewhere.
 
Photo 2: The Widex hearing aids with the charging module.

Conclusion
Based on my subjective testing and my measurements, the Widex Moment seems quite effective at its basic task of making voices easier to understand, and the more natural, free-of-artifacts sound of the PureSound mode may be enough to get those with hearing loss to buy these.

In my experience, the PureSound mode sounded natural enough that the hearing aids didn’t bother me, and that I sometimes forgot I was wearing them. The Music mode also had clearly beneficial effects — something that I, as a frequent denizen of jazz clubs, will likely find appealing when age degrades my hearing enough that I need help. Although I found it cumbersome to control the tiny units with my big fingers, it was easy and convenient to control them through the app. 

As far as listening to recorded music over Bluetooth, all I can say is that this function works. To come to a firm conclusion on how effectively it works, I’ll need more experience with other hearing aids that offer this feature, and I’ll need to persuade a few people with significant hearing impairment to give me their impressions … or to wait a decade or two until my hearing declines enough to make me a better test case. aX

This article was originally published in audioXpress, February 2021.


About the Author
Brent Butterworth has been a professional audio journalist since 1989, and has measured and evaluated thousands of audio products. His headphone measurements and reviews currently appear on soundstage.com and wirecutter.com. He has served as editor-in-chief of Home Theater and Home Entertainment magazines, contributing technical editor for Sound & Vision magazine, senior editor of Video magazine, and reviews editor of Windows Sources magazine. He has also worked as marketing director for Dolby Laboratories, and as a consultant on the design and tuning of speakers, subwoofers, and headphones.
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About Brent Butterworth
Brent Butterworth has been a professional audio journalist since 1989, and has measured and evaluated thousands of audio products. His headphone measurements and reviews currently appear on wirecutter.com. He has served as editor-in-chief of Home Theater and H... Read more

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