I have 8 years experience with an audiologist in FL. Now I need one in MA. I’m in the Meto-West area (Hudson).
Must be proficient with Phonak
Must have experience with custom earmolds
Prefer experience with Phonak Active Vent
I current have Phonak Infinio I90 Sphere HAs which I program. I am quite interested in exploring whether Active Vent receivers would be beneficial. It is my impression from reading online that custom titanium earmolds provide the best Active Vent experience.
I checked Dr Cliff’s HearingUp network and found the closest provider to me is Parkway Hearing (Dr Ulrich) in Chestnut Hill. She/they have excellent Google reviews and the website looks promising.
Hi John. I went to Tobias & Battite in Boston (https://www.tobias-battite.com3). They were very willing to work with a user at a moderate cost. I had them fit me with AV receivers and titanium slimtips. I thought they did a pretty thorough job. Although they do a lot of custom earmolds, this seemed to be their first one using titanium.
When I received the earmolds and AV receivers, I got the same wire length as the standard receivers. I soon realized it was too short. I also found that the titanium earmolds were uncomfortable, to the point of creating sore spots in one ear. So I went back for an adjustment. I also wanted to investigate the universal slimtips, as I had never seen them. I got the longer wire size receivers. And I found that the universal slimtips felt much more comfortable, and seemed to be a good fit. I wasn’t eager to have another round of trying the titanium, so I went home wearing the universals. I love them.
With regard to the AV receivers, 6 months in and I’m still uncertain whether I’ll stick with them. I have been very meticulous about cleaning any earwax, and change the weekly. But one has become permanently stuck open and the other seems to stick. So I have programmed them to keep the vent open in all situations that I have control over. The vent still tries to close for phone calls but it never stays stuck closed, so that’s OK.
I think the fit of the slimtips and the size of the vent, compared with my vented domes, is more occluded - I still get more noise isolation even with the AV open. I program the rear button to mute the mics, and commonly use that feature when streaming. I makes a big difference when background noise is present.
I hope to do more comparative testing in the future. Perhaps with a larger size vented dome to see if the tighter fit would be equivalent to my open AV. Not sure where I’ll end up. But I do love my Spheres compared with Lumity.
It is my impression from reading online that custom titanium earmolds provide the best Active Vent experience.
Regarding ActiveVent (MAV) receiver, it is placed in SlimTips custom earpieces, which is something a bit different than cShell which is kind of canal earmold.
MAV receiver has relatively shorter lifespan - it requires buying new around every half year.
There are also eligibility criteria in PDF in the Phonak website.
Which acoustic coupling do you have? What diameter of vent if you have earmold?
EDIT: I’ve just noticed that I didn’t read last post before mine. Glad you love Spheres.
It is under Device Options - the farthest upper right tab. The volume control functions normally. The mic mute/unmute function requires a two second press.
Poland