Widex Allure

Sounds like your audiologist forgot to add it. You have to back and ask them to do so.

Thank you. I just sent her an email. My trial ends this Thursday so I hope to hear from her today & she can add it today. I like these Widex. They were really good. Then went to a very noisy family doing & after that, they were terrible! Can’t explain that. trying again today with them.

PureSound is a program that is added in the software. It is not indicated for everyone, though, as it has its limitations. Therefore, it might not be accurate to say that your audiologist “forgot” to add it, but it certainly has improved from where it was on the last platform.

True, maybe it wasn’t forgotten. However I remember reading somewhere that with Allure the PureSound program needs to be explicitly added, vs before it was part of the default programs.

So I returned the Allure trials this morning & asked about the PureSound. She advised PS is not for me. She advised it is for moderate & I’m not that. I really liked the Allures. Sound was natural. I heard pretty well when with up to 3 others at a table! Not good though in small crowds. Retaurant is questionnable but usually not good. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never find any HAs that will help me in crowds & I need to be thankful for what help I can get. I’m torn between the Sphere’s and the Allures.

Could you tell me more about Compass GPs, Compas Cloud, etc. I haven’t heard about that so don’t know what it is.

Most providers and audiologists don’t know how to program for musicians and often refuse to disable feedback control and compression and other features that were developed precisely for speech. The so-called pre-installed muscian program in the Signia Ax7s I wear had feedback control turned down but not OFF. It needs to be off. The warble I experienced in that pre-installed program was unbearable. The audi of course assumed I was a know nothing obnoxious patient. And there are many! I insisted the feedback control be turned OFF. once that was done the warble went away, and I found another audi in the same office who understood my musical needs for further adjustments. programming is everything.

Really having a difficult time trying to decide if I want to go with the Spheres or with the Allures or just keep using my K10s. I’ve used the Phonak brand for many years but never had any luck “hearing” in a group or crowd or restaurant setting. Restaurant wasn’t too bad with just one person but other than that nearly always struggling to hear well enough to engage in a real conversation. The Sphere’s improved some of that in a restaurant or small group somewhat. The Allures just about the same issue. Having said all that, now that I’m back in my K10s, the other two are an improvement in day to day situations but group/restaurant still not so good. Just don’t know what to do; very expensive to just “give it a try”! Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If hearing in noisey situations is what you want, the spheres in my opinion are the best at doing this. However, you will have to play with the program. The default setting does not do this very well. crank up the noise block and set the focus to almost as narrow as it goes and you will cut out a huge amount of noise. You might also consider changing your domes as well to get isolated. It will sound weird and artificial you will hear artefacts as it processes the noise, but you should be able to hear, at least as best as you’re probably going to be able to. You can also get a remote mic if you’re in a fixed location in the form of a Roger device

the warble must be caused by the feedback mananger, I just cannot think of anything else that would do this. I’ve used Puresound on the older Widex models and it is all very clean. Too clean one might say, and a bit sharp, but no warble. I suggest you ask her very directly if she can disable the feedback and then maybe you can tweak/play around with the eQ in puresound a bit if needed.
Music probably is a bit equalised but no more so than a music program on any other HA. I’m guessing music is based on the processing delay of their universal program which, if you’re a bit away from the soundsource should sound ok.

So for the phonak Spheres, you can create custom programs, based on programs that already existt in the HA.
first, get your audiologist to create you a sphere program.
go to a busy place and manually switch to this program. You should hear the difference streight away.
I cannot recall exactly how to do this next part in the Phonak app, but you can essentially create a new program and hear the changes in real time. you can turn up the noise suppression so you hear the background noise drop away and you can increase the focus, which has the effect of narrowing the bubble that the sphere effect operates within. Think of it this way, if the bubble is big, you will pull in more unwanted speakers. The same is true in reverse if small.

I have done this in real time whilst in a busy cafe so I know it works really well. The problem is that by default, Sphere mode in my opinion was not aggressive enough.

You will need to save this program as a new program once done.

To make it even more aggressive, you could change your domes for sealed or ear molds, so that even more sound is isolated.

Hope that makes sense.

Even mighty Widex, it would seem, have some way to go before music-lovers can take full advantage of the superior fidelity offered. Hesitant or warbley auto-switching between music and speech is no help to a music director, but you don’t want to be continually
scrabbling at your ears!
C’mon Widex - and the genius Mr Chasin - how about a very simple wrist-worn remote that will quickly flip between speech and music option? No, not via clunky great smartphone!
Here in cash strapped UK, only a minority can afford quality aids. National Health has a limited range and one is lucky indeed to happen upon a music aware audiologist. I did - but it took 30 years!

IN fairness Widex do make a remote which was compatible with the last generation, probably will be with these as well. I think Warbly isn’t to do with the program though my guess is it’s feedback manager, something which in the past, widex haven’t been very good at handling. I’ve used Puresound a lot and if there is one thing it does not do, it’s warble.

@user490 said:

If you haven’t already tried could you try programming Allure with Compass GPS to confirm it is not possible? What happens - Allure does not connect?

Sure, it just says that the device requires Compass Cloud.