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Self-Fitting the Phonak (Ultra) Sphere I90 Infinio

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Edited

(I know there is a long thread already on user’s experience with the Phonak Infinio with the latest Ultra firmware update. I’m starting this thread to share my experience so far with mine given I use Target to self-program my HAs.)

I received a pair of new I90 Infinio Sphere’s a few day ago from FitHearing, LLC out of Nashville. These are my third purchase from them and I’ve sent quite a few friends to them as well. I recommend them to DIYers.

The “Utlra” update took just a few minutes. I ran the feedback test, ran AudioDirect then made adjustments to all the settings to replicate what I had with my Phonak Lumity L90-RLs.

With those settings - which were perfect in my Lumity’s - I definitely noticed a more “artificial” sound. Meaning slightly more “shrill” or “sibilant” sound overall. Remember - no , yet.

After some experimentation I have found I’m getting the best overall sound when I return all settings to their defaults. This wasn’t the case with the Lumitys. With those I found raising Gain levels a few dbs in the mid to upper levels turned up the “crispness” of speech overall. I also backed off the NoiseBlock settings to allow for a more “present” sound in my environment.

I’m finding with the “Ultras” that to get that same experience the “First Fit” settings already achieve that same sound - for my hearing.

I will be getting REM performed in a week or so with my local audiologist. It should be interesting how much of an improvement that might make given my personal ear canal anatomy.

Overall I’m pleased with the performance of the I90 Infinios compared to the L90 Lumitys. Not night and day - the Lumitys are great HAs - but enough improvement to justify an upgrade. (My Lumitys are 3 years old and I just had Phonak replace the batteries. So they will make great backup HAs.) I can’t comment on the Spheric Speech in Loud Noise feature yet because I haven’t had enough experience with that. The seems better quality and more stable than the Lumitys for sure.

I would be curious how other DIYers have modified their Ultras from First Fit with respect to “Gain & ” and “Program options” settings.

8 people in this conversation22 min readJump to latest

I will be interested in seeing any changes that are made in your aids after . Like you, my Ultras pretty much mirror first fit.

I’m looking forward to more on this thread, since I’ll almost certainly be going the route with my Spheres.

I’m also curious how much I may (or may not) be missing without , given that (A) my hearing correction is pretty mild anyway, and (B) I’m trying to deliberately overshoot a bit on the high end to deal with my tinnitus (which has a dominant frequency of around 8600 Hz). REM exists here, but it’s not treated (yet?) as a standard - and when I finally persuaded my provider to bring their REM setup from their other branch, they couldn’t get it working properly. For now, I’ve decided to let the issue rest, and just anticipate adjusting things to my own liking once I’m set up in Mad Scientist Mode.

By way of updating this thread, unfortunately it turned out that my local audiologist does not possess equipment (despite the front office assuring me she did, lol). While there I did agree to have a standard sound booth hearing test done. I must say on that front the audiologist did a thorough job - much better than (seemed more accurate than) the last one I had done in Dec 24 at my local hospital. She then programmed my Ultra’s with a First Fit with a “how does that sound” check on the results and sent me on my way.

Once home I input the hearing test results, ran the feedback test and ran AudiogramDirect. The in-situ results were close to the results - actually the same in a few spots and one click “worse” in others. After a few days of testing a few options and slight modifications to gains here and there I have the Ultras programmed as well as I can get them given I’ve been doing this for nearly 15 years.

Overall, I’m very happy with the Ultra’s performance. They are producing a crisp sound with as “natural” a sound as I can get (in other words balancing “crisp” with “natural”).

I would like to have been able to have a competent audiologist use REM and TargetMatch to get a better baseline given whatever peculiarity my ear canals might have but I’m yet to find such an audi where I live willing to do that. Part of the deal when buying online and self-programming.

Hello. I was going to ask whether, with the added complexity of the spheres, a self fit of these aids is feasible. Thank you Platypus, for your feedback. It is good to know that the default settings that the aids produce from Direct gives an acceptable starting point for a self fit.

I started doing self fit many years ago when I got a Belong B90 pair from Ebay. Since then have moved onto Marvels, (M90s with a medium power ) and was now considering Lumity L90s as my next step. However, I often struggle to understand speech in an ‘Echo’ environment - eg. a hall where a PA system is used or in a theatre - and I am tempted to go for a pair of Spheres given the generally good reports on this and other sites.

I have not tried Lumitys and, while I would expect them to be a lot better than my M90s, would really appreciate any recommendations to help me decide between Lumity or Sphere.

If there are any UK members reading this, I wonder whether you have had any experience with the online provider Wholesale Hearing who currently have offers for I90 Spheres including first fit and then remote tweeking. A similar offering from a Canadian provider Hearing Shop. (the Canadian company promises to pickup all tax and duties to UK and other countries). Both appear to be kosher organisations, replying to emails and queries.

I have had Marvels, then Lumity, now Sphere Ultra.

  1. Recommend you skip the Lumity. The I90 Sphere is superior in every way.

  2. Recommend you find a competent Audio to help you get custom ear molds. These alone make a night and day difference IMHO.

  3. Since you , consider buying used I90s on eBay or elsewhere. Just be aware that they WILL NOT have any warranty So if they break you’ve lost your investment. I saw a pair sell last week for about USD1,400 - the most I would pay for non-warranteed .

  4. Lastly, definitely consider buying online as you described. Just be absolutely sure they are being sold by an authorized Phonak distributor that provides a valid Phonak warranty (verifiable through the Target app once you receive them). A good question to ask the seller to verify to you BEFORE you order them is if a few months before the expiry of the warranty that your seller will have the batteries replaced under warranty. This is something currently that only Phonak can do. I buy mine here in the USA through FitHearing.com7 - look them up for price comparisons to what you can get there.

Good luck!

Yes, the Phonak ones. Found an Audio with a 3D scanner. Impression molds would be fine they are just more finicky to make for the Audio and may require more than one try to get them right. I have the “half skeleton”. They NEVER work their way out.

As a further update to SELF-programming the Ultra Sphere I want to report that these are by far the best hearing aids I’ve ever had.

The improvements in speech understanding and general hearing are definitely a marked improvement over the Lumity and all prior models. They are so good that I find I no longer need to make special custom programs for TV or restaurants or whatever. I find the Automatic program - once I got it tuned to the way I like it - covers all environments quite well. I moved the slider for program changes to the fastest setting. The only custom program I have is for Spheric but I am not sure I even need that with Spheric activating in fairly moderate loud noise. I find it kicks in just fine on its own.

Bluetooth 5.3 is amazing. Music sounds as good as wearing any earbuds that I can remember ever wearing. Listening to music is such a joy again.

I did spend a fair amount of time dialing in the gains and ‘s using my laptop in certain environments and fine tuning them in real time. This worked out quite well.

Spheric Speech in Loud Noise is somewhat helpful - happy to have it - but not mind blowing the way some have reported. But I’m sure this will get better and better in the future.

Good luck friends.

Edited

I had a new hearing test on 12/1 and the audiologist said my right ear was worse than my left. I mentioned that was surprising because for both of my previous sets of hearing aids the hearing test showed my left ear was worse. I had my Sphere I90 initial fitting on 12/18, and immediately noticed the right ear sounded louder than the left ear with that new that was entered into the Target software. I asked if perhaps my right ear might have been a little clogged up (even though it didn’t seem like it was to me at the time) and maybe that caused the hearing test results to be off. She didn’t think that was the case, but she then made some adjustment in Target that reduced the perceived volume level in the right ear to be fairly equal to the left ear. After explaining some things about the hearing aids, she didn’t want to make any more changes until I had tried them out for a few weeks. I really wasn’t happy with sound from the hearing aids - especially in music and louder and/or noisier situations. I tried making some adjustments in the phone app, which helped a little but I was still quite unhappy.

I went ahead and got the Target software installed on my PC, got a Noah Wireless device and connected up the hearing aids. The audiogram loaded up with the fittings from the audiologist, which was great. I compared the audiogram to the one I had from 6 years ago and the original one from 12 years ago. The new one just didn’t seem like it could possibly be fully accurate, so I tried running the Phonak in-situ audio direct hearing test. Sure enough, that showed results similar to the previous tests - with some additional hearing loss in both ears, but with the left ear still being worse that the right ear. I then had the Target software use that Audio Direct audiogram that I did myself instead of the one from the audiologist (it was nice that Target showed both superimposed over each other). Target readjusted the curves and I saved off those settings. After testing the hearing aids for the last few days, music sounds significantly better. It could still use a bit more adjustment, even with the sound recover function turned off, but it is now much richer where it used to sound like I was listening to a super cheap transistor radio with a 2” speaker. Speech sounds more natural and is overall better as well. It still needs improvement in loud speech, and speech in noise and loud noise environments though.

One thing I noticed while looking at the overall curves for each aid showing the recommended gain at low, medium and higher sound levels, is the configured gain levels for the left ear are set just under the Target recommended levels (I have the gain set at 94% of recommended for both ears at the moment). Yet the right ear shows configured gain levels are quite a bit lower than the Target recommended levels. I am thinking these lower levels could have something to do with need to make more improvements for speech, and I am wondering if the changes the audiologist made at the initial fitting to reduce the sound levels for the right hearing aid have persisted with the fitting after switching to the Audio Direct audiogram. Does anyone know if this would be the case?

If that is the case is there a way to have Target recompute the fitting so that it does not keep any changes the audiologist made - while still keeping both audiograms and just using the in-situ one that I ran? I would like to keep both audiograms stored in the hearing aids so that I can have the audiologist seem them both in Target when I got in for my first follow-up on the 13th.

If that is not the case, then does anyone have any thoughts on why the configured gain levels for the just the right hearing aid are a fair amount lower than what Target computed they should be?

What you describe could be caused by any number of things. But it doesn’t sound like the behavior you would expect so something’s not right. Unless your audiologist uses best practices and , you probably have no reason to go back to them at this stage. The other thing you haven’t mentioned is whether you’re using rubber domes or custom moulds. If your audiologist can make custom molds for you I would highly recommend you do that.

Personally, I save the settings that the audiologist set up just so I have a reminder of usually how bad a job they do. Then I set up a “new client” in Target and reset the hearing aids back to factory then do your direct. See what your gains look like after that. They should be what you expect.

I then recommend you try audiodirect a few different ways. Find your midpoint for each frequency, but then go one click worse or one click better across the range and see what affects that has on your hearing comfort. There is a point where you can just hear the beeps and a point where you definitely hear the beeps and a point where you’re not sure you hear anything at all. For me I find one click better than where I can just hear it is ideal for me - your mileage may vary.

Just be sure to try one of these experiments at a time and then give yourself listening time to get used to the differences.

Once getting your audiogram direct set to your satisfaction you can start playing around with other settings if desired. The beauty of is you can make adjustments by the hundreds until you get it just where you like it.

Edited

Thanks for the thoughtful response @platypus. I have a few follow i[ appointments available to me at no additional cost, so I figure I will at least see how this next one goes in a couple of days. The audiologist has not performed yet but it is sounding like she will charge $175 extra for that - as it is supposedly not covered through the insurance I used. I would like to have the hearing test redone at a minimum and if I am not happy with how the appointment I may decide not to go back. Even Costco performed REM at no charge when I got my first pair of hearing aids. It was also performed with my second pair through a different audiologist as well as part of the initial fitting. Seems like using Audio Direct is pretty much doing the same basic thing as REM so maybe that is good enough?

I am not using custom molds at his point and have the Phonak vented domes - which as closed off with the exception of two very small vent holes.. I would like to see how good I get things working with those first before venturing into custom molds. From what I have read on this forum, custom molds can make a big difference depending on one’s hearing loss so I will keep those in mind.

I have the original settings from the audiologist saved off and did start a new fitting session, but I did not set the aids back to factory. Instead I used that session data stored in the hearing aids as a starting point for the “new client”. That is why I was wondering if it kept the audiologist’s changes to the right ear aids even though I had the software switch to using the Audio Direct . If I do the factory reset, do you know if I can restore everything back from the original audiologist settings by somehow reloading that data from that original session? I would like to be able to go back to that before going to my appointment this week.

That is a great suggestion about going +/- one click for each tone in Audio direct. I had wondered for a 2-3 of the frequencies if the super faint tone I was “hearing” was helped somewhat by knowing I had just pressed the button to sound the tone, and wondered if I should have used the next louder tone level instead. I will have to try out your suggestion with that after my scheduled session. :+1:

Edited

I believe I have managed to answer my own questions now. After some more googling:

1: When you switch the source, Target recalculates the initial fitting targets and gain settings from scratch using the in-situ thresholds and the selected fitting formula. This new calculation will overwrite the initial gain and values in the fine tuning screens with values appropriate for the new Audiogram Direct thresholds. Other settings not directly tied to the base audiogram calculation (custom program configurations, SoundRecover settings, and advanced feature settings like NoiseBlock levels), if manually adjusted from their defaults, are generally preserved.

2: If the actual gain settings for one hearing aid are significantly lower than the target settings, while the other matches, it is usually due to Target automatically limiting the gain to prevent feedback - which could be due to acoustic seal of the dome/earmold (too small, wrong shape for ear canal, too much venting, …), ear canal obstruction, etc.

It is my right ear hearing aid that has the significant difference in actual hearing aid gain vs prescribed gain, and that ear came out as not having as much loss as my left ear. Since that ear needs a bit less gain, it seems surprising to me that the gain was automatically reduced based on the feedback test for that ear but not the left ear that needs more gain. I am currently using Phonak medium vented domes in both ears. The right ear dome seems to take a bit more effort to insert and stays in place better than left one which backs out a bit over time. So it seems like that would indicate my right ear canal is smaller than my left one which would imply it should have less feedback. Maybe the right ear canal has a different shape to it, making it more prone to feedback? At my appointment tomorrow with the audiologist, I’ll go over that and the mismatch between the office conducted audiogram vs the Audiogram Direct one that I did myself and see what she has to say. Hopefully some progress will be made towards dialing things in better.

It is possible that you need different size rubber domes in each year if your canals are different.

I cannot stress enough, how worthwhile it is to get custom-made ear molds. I waited several years before doing it and regret the lost opportunity of better hearing earlier. My particular audiologist had a 3-D scanner which meant less likely problems in the fitting. She was able to email the electronic impression directly to Phonak and they worked out perfectly.

In the meantime, you could try different sized domes in each ear and see which ones you’re the most comfortable with. If you have issues of them working out, you definitely want to add the keeper tails.

Any changes you make to the rubber domes or anything else be sure to redo the feedback test and I would redo the direct each time as well.

Let us know how you go with your audiologist. Some embrace the approach by their customers - some don’t. I am still looking for one that will work with me to use and Target Match to see what we could do together.

IMG_9118

A 3D ear scanner sounds like a great way to get a more accurate fit. I didn’t know there was such a device, but I am not surprised. I will definitely keep that in mind if I cannot get the standard domes working well for me. I have used the same sized domes in both ears in the past, but these Phonak ones are a bit different shape for me so that may be part of the issue, and it could well be I need a different size for each ear. Maybe I can get a few different sample domes in different sizes to try out tomorrow.

Yeah, I am not sure how the audiologist will feel about me second guessing her settings, doing my own hearing test and recomputing the fitting formula to use those results. She may be happy about it if she thinks it will reduce the number of times she has to see me, or she may be unhappy thinking I will screw things up and it will take more appointments rather than less. I’ll report back on how things go.

It is pathetic how secretive Phonak corporate seem to be with their own network of Audiologists. Either secretive on purpose or just really bad management.

Edited

Thanks for posting that video @Bimodal_user. Wow, Phonak should have thoroughly communicated that information about how to install the update without losing your settings. Thankfully when I got my Spheres last month, they already had the Ultra update. Fortunately, there is a way for people to have their settings restored even after performing the update using the first method described in the video. I will have to keep that in mind for any future updates they might release, so that I do it using the second method.

I lucked out when I went in today for my first follow up appointment after my initial fitting, as the regional Phonak rep just happened to be there at the time! I was a bit worried about her finding out that I had a copy of Target and had run Audio Direct and changed to that to recompute all the settings. They had to know so that I could talk with them about the results from running Audo Direct and they would see that when the connected the aids up anyway. I told the rep I wasn’t sure she would like what I was about to tell her, but she said she had heard pretty much everything over the years, so I told her I had installed Target on my PC to take a look at all the settings for my hearing aids. She said, yes, I could see all the available settings but could change anything without connecting the aids up. I then said that I had bought a Noahlink Wireless and did connect up to the aids which seemed to surprise her a bit, but I said I was an engineer and this is part of that mindset. I mentioned that with the initial fitting the Spheres were worse than my 6 year old hearing aids, and that based on my audiograms from 6 and 12 years ago, I did not think the hearing test that I had done last month was completely accurate - so I wanted to run Audio Direct to do an in-situ hearing test myself and found the hearing aids were significantly better for me after having Target use that audiogram. I mentioned that I hadn’t made any other permanent changes other than adding an additional manual program and setting the all the info tones to the lowest possible volume for program changes and such. Fortunately, she did not seem too perturbed about all of that, and we continued the session.

I brought up the issue with the feedback test causing quite a bit of suppression of some of the higher frequencies for both ears. I realized you can override that, but first I wanted to verify the domes I had were of the right size and type for each ear and with my new audiogram. The rep said I had the size and type she would recommend. She then had me hold my hands over each ear as the audiologist slowly bumped up override levels of each aid until the actual levels matched the target levels for those higher frequencies - telling me to let them know if there was any squealing. There was no feedback so now the aids are producing the volume levels to match my target levels. That should help quite a bit.

The other thing I wanted adjusted was music. I had a music program created from the first fitting that had the Sound Recover feature turned off, but I mentioned that there was some distortion (clipping) going on and that it sounded like there was too much emphasis on the speech frequencies vs a more even spread of the wider ranges of music frequencies. The rep had the audiologist make another music program with no Sound Recover, but she had the levels able to max out and flattened the curves for more even amplification across all the frequencies the aids can cover. She said that would remove all compression and clipping for what should be a more natural sound. I haven’t tried that out yet but will later tonight.

The only other change the rep wanted to make was drop down the db level were Spheric Mode kicks in to the lowest level allowed - which she highly recommended.

Anyway, I was very glad the rep was there, that she and the audiologist did not get upset and my using Target at home, and I am hoping the changes made today will prove to be beneficial.

In reply to @platypus

Are your molds acrylic or silicone, @platypus?

@dandyt said:

The other thing I wanted adjusted was music. I had a music program created from the first fitting that had the Sound Recover feature turned off, but I mentioned that there was some distortion (clipping) going on

I don’t know about your tonal , but clipping can be avoided by choosing more powerful receiver (for example, from M to P).

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