Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Phonak Sphere hearing aid whistling even when no one talks

This topic is closed.

9 replies480 viewsLast reply

Link to this topic
Edited

I got my Sphere late last year. There were feedbacks, so my audiologist did re-image for new custom molds with lock last month. Yesterday my husband noticed that hearing aid whistled constantly when we talked. I have tried pushing it in deeper to my ear, but it didn’t solve the issue. He then noticed that even when we didn’t chat, he could hear the noise from my left hearing aid.

I then put the hearing aids back to charger and took them out without wearing them. He could hear electrical noise from the left aid(right one is normal). I have tried a few times and the sound is still there.

I am wondering if my left aid is defected? Have you seen this before? Any suggestions? Thanks.

5 people in this conversation3 min readJump to latest

This can be arranged by the Target software. It will reduce the gain for the frequencies that cause the feedback to occur.

It does sound potentially like feedback but it’s impossible for us to know for sure. For what you should do? Return to your audiologist and tell them what you told us. It is possible the aid is defective. Edit: Your would potentially be useful. (Top of page on right. Click on your icon. Click on bell. Click on My Audiogram and enter data.

In reply to @Michelle_L

I’m attaching a pic of a feedback curve (purple) and gain/threshold curve (blue/left, red/right) from Phonak’s fitting software.
If the two curves are too close (at a certain frequency) then feedback can occur.
In the pic below, there could be an issue at 10Khz and 4Khz (right), At 10Khz, the software automatically reduced the gain (that’s why the curve looks flattened after 7Khz). In this case, the hearing aid wearer experiences (rarely) feedback at 4K when the hand is waved in front of the right ear).
This software feature does not always work perfectly and the fitter can also turn off this feature during the fitting process.
So yes, the software can show where the potential problem is happening.

IMG_0117

Unlikely imho the are defective. Target will adapt the gain curves fully automatically. When this was done initially the earpieces had probably been sitting in your ears in a way that does not quite correspond to the day-by-day situation, which varies a bit with changing moisture/cerumen situations and domes. Just walk into your audi office with your HAs sitting in your ears as they are now, and ask Target to run its feedback routine. Then take out your HAs and reinsert them as you usually do and test if the feedback is gone but amplification is still OK. Your audi can also tweak the curves manually- in my case, too, Target struggled to get rid of the feedback (and I modified the curves myself).

Just FWIW, the feedback manager in Target can be a fraction aggressive in killing all the high frequencies.

Possibly better to get a response with no stimulus running to see where the actual primary harmonic of the feedback sits and then wind that channel down first.

These kind of issues practically guarantee that wasn’t used at the fitting.

It’s a form of Real Ear Measurement where the overall response of the aid is measured in the canal.

Normally you’d play a stimulus sound to elicit a target response or use speech. However if you use it with no input (and be quiet) you can illustrate things like the noise floor of hearing aids and if the aid has feedback instability issues.

Related discussions