Silicone, Acrylic, or Titanium Full Molds for Phonak Audeo Infinio I70 RICs?

@Skip, if you still wonder about this topic about earmolds, I have just written a mini-handbook:

Advices before purchasing titanium cShells / titanium earmolds

EDIT: This is continuation of my topic about my experiences with titanium cShells: END OF EDIT DISCLAIMER: Titanium cShells are not a cure for anything. Please have mercy on your HCPs and don’t insist on titanium if you don’t have experience with acrylic earmolds/cShells (you used domes only) and you don’t have an allergy or a narrow ear canal, because in case of discomfort the waiting period for remake will be too long. Make sure you’re comfortable with acrylic/silicone ones previously. I…

@Bimodal_user said:

@Skip, if you still wonder about this topic about earmolds, I have just written a mini-handbook:

Advices before purchasing titanium cShells / titanium earmolds

Thanks for the link; I believe I’m in for my initial fitting, using my current silicone Beltone molds during the wait for the titanium shells to arrive; we’ll no doubt start with closed domes…

Closed domes with your degree of hearing loss? Perhaps you mean power domes (which looks like double domes in one piece).

@Bimodal_user said:

Closed domes with your degree of hearing loss? Perhaps you mean power domes (which looks like double domes in one piece).

I’m apparently unfamiliar with names; I’d thought the domes with slots in them to be ‘open’ and the one you showed as closed.

e.g. from Phonak:

What’s a closed dome look like?

Thanks for the thought.

As an individual without corporate leverage (LOOOOTTTS more bux from an employer than me), I don’t believe I’d get anywhere. And, at that, I’m about to leave for the fitting of the 70s which arrived yesterday…

But thanks for the idea. Perhaps in the next time (dunno how often I can do this, and it would be another $2500 copay, but perhaps worth it)…

Just a quickie update; I’m awaiting my (high power receivers) Titanium full molds for my Phonak Audeo Sphere Infinio I70 (insurance wouldn’t cover the 90s or that is what I’d have gotten), but I had a mismash of silicone leftovers from prior and most-current Beltone adventures.

The left one previously used with a standard receiver couldn’t take the pressure, and split from my having inserted the high power receivers prior to the current set’s manufacture, but the right one survived.

So, my medium power receiver went very nicely into that one.
And my receiver went into the larger hole left by the high powered Beltone receiver. To accommodate the leakage due to the loose fit, I plugged the vent on that one.

What a difference from the power domes, in a kludge, which isn’t how it will be with the high power titanium molds.

Still mucking about getting used to the new aids, and can’t yet determine that it has Sphere enabled, but it’s a great step up.

Skip, can’t they do a remote session to give you a manual sphere program? Spherical sounds completely different to me than the loud noise program. When it switches, I sure know. If you haven’t had it shift gears like that, I don’t think it has done it. And it makes me wonder if my conjecture earlier that 70 won’t do spherical without a manual program isn’t true.

WH

Welp.

Unfortunately, as I suspected, when I spoke with the vendor, I got “I don’t really know all that much about these; please call the Phonak tech support line” as how to deal with the Sphere.

As I consider it politically incorrect to jump off this just-saddled, UnitedHealthCare funded, horse, I’ll have to go to the one in the town a half-hour further away from me to get the REM/LSM tweak and setup, and pay whatever the per-visit cost would be.

I have an appointment in the same town, on the opposite end of the same street, ironically, as Beltone, to get my former best-yet speech understanding profile restored to them, and I’ll do a drop-in to the REM/LSM equipped Phonak provider after I’m out of the restoration.

(The only point to that trip will be a valid comparison point to the Phonak gear. And if it weren’t for the almost-$1600 surrender cost to trial the current version, I’d give Beltone a shot, too. OY!)

Sigh…

My titanium molds are in; fast turnaround…

My Beltone molds took 3 times before they got them right; I’m praying these work out of the box.

Reports to follow, but my experience with the kludge I’ve done of using previous Beltone molds has been rewarding in speech, but very disappointing (not related to the molds) in music, which will take some tweaking…

L8R, y’all.

First run:
I’ve had them for 2 days.
Other than wearing my Beltones with their silicone molds (used as a kludge for my Phonak medium power RIC aids while I waited to get the high-power titanium molds), in order to restore the previously great (I thought) Beltone setting for speech, done yesterday, they’ve been in my ears non-stop for waking hours.

Unfortunately, and we’ll see if it mitigates or gets worse, the left mold is uncomfortable. But when I was in for my fitting and to pick these up, with some guidance to the fitter, I was able to get some better settings in general.

Tomorrow at church will determine the efficacy of the music setting, for which I asked for flattening of the compression (which distorts the frequencies heard, particularly for percussive sounds like a live piano), but so far, my Automatic setting (and at the advice of the fitter, nearly universally) has done well.

Stand by for whether my left ear gets happy or unhappier than it is currently!

Much further update, see Round 4: Ding! for the current excitement/enthusiasm, as well as Sphere 2.0 reporting…

I was told by my audiologist that. They can add a retention coating to the phonak titanium earmolds. Maybe worth a ask.

Please share because I am getting a titanium CShell with my new Phonak Infinios on 12/11.

@codergeek2015 said:

Please share because I am getting a titanium CShell with my new Phonak Infinios on 12/11.

@Peter48 said:

Yes please…and thank you,

Here it is:

Advices before purchasing titanium cShells / titanium earmolds

EDIT: This is continuation of my topic about my experiences with titanium cShells: END OF EDIT DISCLAIMER: Titanium cShells are not a cure for anything. Please have mercy on your HCPs and don’t insist on titanium if you don’t have experience with acrylic earmolds/cShells (you used domes only) and you don’t have an allergy or a narrow ear canal, because in case of discomfort the waiting period for remake will be too long. Make sure you’re comfortable with acrylic/silicone ones previously. I…