I received my Phonak Spheres, not updated to Ultra, and Roger ON3 this morning. Not had much time to evaluate yet. Here is my first impressions. WOW. That sound great, they make my Oticon INTENT1 aids sound like everyone are talking like 2 year olds, and with the Spheres everyone sound clear and more deeper voices. @WhiteHat I believe you are right I don’t think I need the TV streaming. The TV program works great. My wife can even talk to me while the TV is playing. The sound system in the Jeep sounds great and I can still hear the road noise and engine.
We have a pair of Parakeets and they nolonger drawn out everything else. Went to the grocery store and it sounded more calm and natural. Went to a drive thru so my wife could get a happy meal and I could hear the person on the other end even with the terrible speaker.
Connectivity is great and I can even do text to speech from my Kindle without the need of an extra device. I can stream from my Samsung S25FE phone to my aids without any issues. I left my phone on my lamp stand and walked in every room and even outside with out any connection issues. And our house has cinder blocks walls.
WOW. That sound great, they make my Oticon INTENT1 aids sound like everyone are talking like 2 year olds
That’s astounding, Chuck. I never thought it’d be possible for Phonaks to sound better, of course I expected Spheric mode to be a WOW, but that’s great for you.
My audiologist has worked wonders for me since we met. I am not sure how he did it but he set my Spheres up by copying or mirroring my INTENT1 aids. But actually the Spheres sound more base sounding than the Oticon INTENT1. And I am sure if I hadn’t gone through the therapy that I did so I could understand speech I would find the Spheres harsh sounding. Honestly I believe the Spheres sound more natural than my INTENT1 aids. Now I need to wear my INTENT1 aids since the ear molds were changed today because the vents are about half the size as before. Which matches the vents in my ear molds of the Spheres.
I don’t think I mentioned that my custom ear molds are full skeleton acrylic, and Phonak has created a much nicer fit than the Oticon acrylic ear molds.
I downloaded Amazon Music and played some of my music I used to listen to and it sounds great, and much fuller sound than the INTENT1 aids.
Something I didn’t expect is that powering on the TV automatically enables the Roger ON and puts the Spheres in streaming of the TV, not sure I like that.
Battery life is also great and I did a lot of streaming and pairing to my devices.
The Spheres sound crisper, deeper sound, and speech be it live or streaming has a much better clarity.
I am not sure if I am saying this correctly but I am setting in my living room with my two 4 legged children and our parakeets in their cage across the room. I for the first time since moving here almost 8 years ago feel like the house is a live and not a sterile place. It isn’t that I am hearing new sounds, but that the sounds are a live and not dead. The birds sound natural not like a device is making the sound. My 13 year old Min Pin is laying beside me gently snoring and not sounding like a train engine or diesel truck. I can actually hear the wind chimes that are in the front yard tree. And the house is closed up due to it being cold outside. I just feel so much at peace and not on edge. Even my heart rate is lower and my blood pressure is lower. This is a strange feeling to me after so long feeling edgy and ready to pounce.
I actually enjoyed watching TV last night, no streaming required. I also found it so easy to stream from my phone then switch to my Kindle and have it read a chapter of a book to me, then switched to the Fire tablet and listened to audible.
I know what some have said that switching from the Oticon sound to Phonak was a rude awakening but I am actually enjoying the change in sound. I cannot honestly say what is normal sounds and what isn’t because I haven’t been able to hear normal sounds in many decades. But to my brain things sound normal again.
Keep posting your observations. I always thought Oticon’s “open” paradigm allowed you to hear the environment in a more open and natural way but this didn’t seem to be the case with you. My audiologist doesn’t like Oticon so I’ve never been able to trial any of their products.
It does but so do the Spheres, I think the difference is the deeper, crisper sound. To me it is more natural to others it may seem harsh and unbearable.
Don, my provider is having difficulty programing derpsonic spheric program which we call restaurants. Wonder if you or other Ultra users know what needs to be enabled, or turned off so the Ultras are 100% effective in the manual base program for Deepsonic spheric program. Thanks Tony
Don, my provider is having difficulty programing derpsonic spheric program which we call restaurants…
I’m not sure I’m the best resource for this particular question, since I’m a relative / newbie rather than one of the veterans.
That said - I don’t believe that the “restaurant” program the Spheres come with is a Spheric Speech program; I believe it’s just a manual version of one of the conventional automatic speech-in-noise programs, possibly with some minor tweaks. A lot of people (including me) delete that program.
It’s generally recommended to have your provider set up a new manual program for Spheric Speech in Loud Noise, so you can trigger Spheric mode at will. (Some people also recommend asking the provider to lower the threshold for AutoSense to trigger Spheric mode by itself.) Once you have a manual Spheric Speech program, you can, if you want, create variations of it - for example, I’ve got the default one, plus “wide” and “narrow” versions for particular situations. (Personally, I actually spend almost zero time in noisy environments, so this is largely overkill for me.) Creating this manual program in Target is pretty easy, as I recall - if necessary, I can get into the program and give the precise series of steps. But your provider should be able to do it without help, unless s/he is even more of a Target newbie than I am.
Another approach you can use doesn’t require help from your provider, but does require an environment that’s noisy enough for your aids to switch to Spheric mode on their own. While you’re in Loud Noise Hell, do the following:
Go into Target and make sure the current program is “Automatic”.
Tap the word “Automatic”, and on the next screen tap “Adjust” (on the bottom right).
The new screen should say something like “Spheric speech in loud noise” at the top - the key word here is “Spheric”. (If it doesn’t say that, you need to leave this noisy environment and find an even worse one. I feel your pain.)
Now tap “Save as new” at the bottom-right of the screen; and when MyPhonak asks you for a name for the new program, use “Spheric” or whatever else will be clear to you. I suggest that at this point, you should leave all the other parameters unchanged.
At this point you should have your manual Spheric mode option available any time you want it - and you can clone it with changed parameters if you want. (Note that since this was a program that you created, its parameters are not “protected”; if your provider sets it up for you, it will be locked and you’ll have to make copies if you want to change parameters.)
I think these instructions are accurate, and I hope they’re at least reasonably clear. Let us all know what happens. And all you non-newbies - chime in if I missed anything!
P.S. Since the “restaurant” program the Infinios come with is a “user” program rather than a “provider” program, I’m not sure if it even shows up in Target. I deleted mine long before I got Target installed, so I don’t know for sure. But that may possibly be part of the confusion you’re having with your provider.
I have researched and read on how several users here have two base programs, one of which is for full deepsonic voice in noise in super loud condition. My other base program is automatic and deepsonic activates in fairly loud noise, but Phonak has several 2.0 elements that need to be set to enable the manual speech in nose program that’s said to be the most effective. I will call phonak tomorrow. I will confirm what my provider doesn’t appear to know. The platform is incredibly powerful and so far is the best device I have ever had. I aim to maximize all it can offer us. Thanks for the response. If anyone else has thoughts please share.
I have researched and read on how several users here have two base programs, one of which is for full deepsonic voice in noise in super loud condition.
Right - that’s the “extra” manual Spheric Speech program that your provider can add.
Your provider should really know this already - but if you want, I can give you the exact sequence in Target to create the new program.
Note that all this is independent of the Ultra upgrade and Spheric Speech 2.0 - the options and the setup sequence are the same. However, with the upgrade, Spheric mode is less of a battery hog, and may also work a bit better. (AutoSense is supposed to be more accurate after the upgrade, but I still find its taste in music to be super-stodgy.)
I’d greatly appreciate you sharing the exact sequence in Target to create the manual program. I think I have it, but it may not be accurate. It’s a bit frustrating when we ending up knowing more than the provider:). But advocating is nothing new as a necessity with all health in my opinion. Leaving the providers office knowing they did not make all requested changes, or were not certain how to set up these programs ends up wasting valuable time and delaying the optimization of the platform/2.0. Thanks again in advance.
With my INTENT1 aids, now my backup aids, I gave my audiologist number of suggestions that I saw on this forum. I don’t thing I will have to for the Spheres as Phonak is used by most of his patients.
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