Do your Phonak hearing aids sound different after the Infinio Ultra upgrade?

Ever since I upgraded my Sphere I70s to the new Ultra firmware, they sound markedly different without having changed anything in Target. Other people have commented on that as well, for example @jim_lewis

Phonak Launches Infinio Ultra and Ultra Sphere: Improved Processing, Battery

Might be just the placebo effect, but my initial impression of the update is the following. Everyone has different hearing and different hearing aid settings so my impressions are relative to what things sounded like to me under the original firmware with no change by me of my previous settings. I hear a bit more high frequency sound. Sounds seem a bit cleaner and crisper, including speech. Because I wear a very occlusive fit (cShells with no vent to facilitate noise removal), my voice with …

I posted my first impressions here:

New Phonak Target update, New firmware available for Infinio

I upgraded my Sphere I70s a few hours ago, and indeed they sound very different now. Everything sounds a lot louder. My own voice sounds different. Not bad though. It’s possible that the regular non-spheric noise suppression works better now, but I feel it’s too early to tell. The only data point I have so far was driving while listing to someone talking on the radio. Autosense correctly switched to ‘Speech in Car’, but I experienced more high frequency noise than before. I changed ‘Noise Reduc…

I’m curious how other people perceive the new Ultra firmware compared to before. If you notice any difference, please post here!

@orgullodemexico, I’m using NAL-NL2 and there was no change to any of the settings in Target when I compared before and after the upgrade. So I would expect the HAs to sound the same. But they don’t. I also did a new feedback test, but again, it didn’t alter any of my settings.

Like @jim_lewis, I’m using fairly occluded molds for better performance in noise, so maybe the effect is less pronounced for people with more open fittings. I can echo your comments about more high frequency sounds and a generally fuller, crisper sound.

Yesterday I went to a restaurant where the ambient noise was around 70dB. Spheric mode kicked in automatically (I have it set to kick in at the lowest noise level possible) and I could hear people on my table with no issues. But 70dB is also not super noisy.

Of course these things are always extremely hard to compare, but so far I don’t have the impression that anything is worse than before. I might try and increase the default ‘Noise Reduction’ settings in Target to counteract the increased high frequency sounds that came with the Ultra upgrade.

Again, I’m curious to hear from other people as well. @raylock1, what kind of domes/molds do you have?

@wtolkien said:

Again, I’m curious to hear from other people as well.

OK, I’m probably the worst possible person to answer this, but I’ll do so anyway just to make everyone else look good. Here’s why:

1. My hearing loss is fairly mild (I haven’t posted my audiogram yet - but take it from me, it’s not very exciting), and I got started with HAs only in September, more because of tinnitus than because of the hearing loss itself. (I was starting to have trouble understanding my wife if she wasn’t in the same room, or if we were outside and she wasn’t facing me. My wife is originally from Texas and owns three chainsaws; not understanding her is a poor survival strategy. OTOH normal face-to-face conversation was not a problem even without the HAs, although I do notice that it’s easier with them.) ==> UPDATE: OK, OK, I posted my audiogram. Boring, right?

2. My lifestyle is such that I almost never will need the Spheric Speech in Cacophony program - nothing to do with hearing loss, I just don’t go in for crowds and such. I’m a software developer, and much of my waking life is spent in quiet spaces. At home, my wife and I are both avid readers.

3. My appointment last Thursday was the final tune-up appointment, and it was just a lucky coincidence that (A) Phonak came out with this update just a day before, and (B) my hearing-aid provider happened to have upgraded to Target Version 1.11 even though they didn’t know about the upgrade until I showed up and told them about it. My initial goal for this appointment was to make a couple of changes in the built-in programs for “Calm” and “Comfort in Noise” - taking down the noise reduction in both, and also giving a little extra amplification to faint sounds in “Calm”. The main reason to change “Calm” was to get more high-frequency “stuff” to my ears when I’m in a quiet room (which is most of my life) or sitting in our back yard, since actual quiet is the enemy of the tinnitus sufferer. “Comfort in Noise” kicks in frequently when I’m driving, and before the change it was killing the high frequencies from my car stereo. So I can’t properly isolate the effect of the Ultra upgrade from the effect of the program changes I requested.

4. My most demanding post-upgrade test of the HAs so far was Thursday night’s poker game. I lost around 200 shekels, which is obviously Phonak’s fault.

All that said, I think the HAs are a bit more responsive than they were pre-update; I’ll try to pay close attention this week (including time in quiet rooms, time in traffic, poker games, singing-group rehearsal, etc.) while leaving the Spheres in Automatic mode full-time. I’m also going to be looking at my battery usage; before the upgrade, I was typically at 60-65% when I took the HAs out before going to sleep, and I’m curious to see if there’s any change. (Again, that’s with basically zero time in Spheric Hell Mode.)

P.S. A question: Without going the full DIY route, is there any reasonably easy way to know how much time AutoSense is allocating to the various built-in programs? The statistics under “Health” aren’t exactly detailed in this regard, and I don’t see anything anywhere else in MyPhonak.

@DonRadlauer said:

But I’m having difficulty justifying the expense to myself. Hmmm…

But you can use it for future use and on any other brand/models if you decided to change, look at like having that OBD scanner in the toolbox.