How does the Sphere mode perform at the cinema, in a car or in environments with a lot of echo?

“A little disconcerting”…good description….the difference in the Spheres compared to a more traditional HA is very apparent. No more just amplification with a bit of frequency shifting…AI is (sort of) in these things….it does feel a bit “bionic”. I switched from a pretty loose fitting small mold to a medium to basically reduce ambient sound…big difference..I turned the initial volume down, and the “bionic” feel is definitly more pronouced….it feels a bit like Star Treks “7 of 9” taking off one of her implants when I take them out….

@PeterH said:

As far as I know, neither use the deepsonic chi

@damonhill I was responding to Peter’s comment. I’ve had both speech in noise and spherical speech in loud noise on my added program list from when they were being fit, first thing. (Sometimes I don’t want spherical)

WH

@DamonHill you have similar loss to @SandraN,

@Simplicity said:

it’s a bit strange, I did feel like i was in a bubble, and the voices sound different

Do you have Sphere 90 with Ultra firmware upgrade? I ask because that “strangeness” is less after that upgrade.

@Simplicity said:

when I got my spheres they changed the domes to easyguards

To get 100% target gain, you will probably need the power domes (I recommend from Unitron, not Phonak, because the former is stiffer and give better feedback threshold).

Seeing your reverse slope part of hearing loss, you need acoustic coupling pretty occluded - power domes or even cShells with no vent or pressure vent (0.5-0.8mm diameter).

Power domes should be deep placed, which sometimes requires downsizing the dome size (in my case from L to M).

cShells should be from deep impression, when silicone reaches at least 5mm past 2nd bend of ear canal.

I think the UP receiver in cShells with no vent or pressure will be the most optimal for you once you get used to the 100% target gains.

@WhiteHat said:

(Sometimes I don’t want spherical)

Same here. I found that even “normal” Speech in Noise with traditional non-AI noise cancelling is much better than the same program in Paradise 90-RT with the same adjustments.

I am not able to get Speech in Loud Noise with Paradises, because it requires Paradise on each ear (I have only on my right).

@RobHooft said:

Similar comment as for movies- no HA on Earth will help you in cavernous places with awful acoustics, like churches.

I am curious what about Spheric noise cancellation on maximum + maximum directionality of the mics. It is possible to set that in myPhonak app.

Traditionally, the narrowest directionality is a bit of a solution for echo or reverberations. Obviously, the best is external microphone like RogerOn, EduMic, MiniMic2+, etc.

I’ve actually used my Sphere’s in a movie theatre a few times and they actually work ok. Reason is…movies typically have either action scenes with lots of sound effects and music OR conversation scenes where the actors are speaking. You don’t typically see action/music/sound effects at the same time as speech. This kinda works ok with the Sphere’s and I was able to understand speech and enjoy the movie without really moving out of the automatic (AutoSense) mode. The other thing to consider is that movie theatres have tons of high end speakers everywhere and this helps quite a bit.

What doesn’t seem to work as well is live theatre. I recently went to see a live theatre performance called “The Life of Pi” at the Fort Lauderdale Center for the Performing Arts. For some reason, the Sphere’s struggled with live theatre. The theatre was extremely large and we were seated on the ground level halfway back. Unlike a cinema, live theatre sound seems to come from the front of the theatre only and tended to bounce around the theatre. Perhaps reverberation was why it didn’t work as well as the cinema. I tried flipping into Spheric mode and it only helped a bit. I’m thinking a live theatre is a use case best served by the new Auracast technology.

Jordan

Thanks for the welcome @Neville
I had adapted to lip reading, but to be honest I really don’t know how I was managing it, the HA’s are a life changer and I wish I had gone down this route much sooner.

I have now started to tell some of my work colleagues who are clearly struggling to go get a hearing test done.

@Bimodal_user thanks for the advice, I will keep it in mind, if I have issues as they add more gain. As this is quite early in my HA adventure and the fact that even at 90% gain the Spheres are amazing, apparently the easyguard vents are the same diameters as the power domes, slightly larger than the other domes and unfortunately my ear canals are small sized. I already get the receivers as deep as I can as it does improve the sound quality.

The reason we went easyguard is that my right ear is a wax candle factory and blocked the receiver very quickly.

I am wearing Infinio Sphere 90

CINEMA

I’ve not been in a cinema with the Spheres, however I had no problem hearing the film when I was wearing Lumity 90. In fact I had to turn down the volume of the HAs.

DRIVING

My Infinios transition to Speech in Car program and I don’t have a problem hearing the radio or conversation when I’m driving or a passenger. I have had a problem with Uber when I’m a passenger in the back seat and the driver is talking toward the windshield. I don’t think any HA would overcome that.

ECHO

I’ve not been in an environment with Echo. Phonak removed Comfort in Echo program from AutoSense 7.0

On the echo question specifically: echo (reverberation) is a fundamentally different problem from noise, which is why even the AI mode struggles with it. A noise canceller works by telling speech apart from things that are not speech — but an echo is just a delayed copy of the speech itself, so the algorithm has nothing to subtract. That lines up with RobHooft's and WhiteHat's points: the extra chip only engages for speech in loud noise, so in a quiet-but-echoey church it's effectively a regular hearing aid.

A few things that do help in reverberant rooms: sit closer to the speaker, since the ratio of direct to reflected sound improves fast as you close the distance; ask your audiologist for a manual program with the narrowest directionality and moderate rather than maximum noise reduction (aggressive processing can make the smeared sound worse); and for rooms you visit regularly, a remote mic or a streamer to the venue's hearing loop will beat any algorithm. I wouldn't expect the Sphere's AI mode to fix echo — it was built for competing noise, not reflections.

Really? Did they really eliminate the echo program from Autosense 7.0?

Is there a chance that the echo control is now available in every program instead (up to Autosense 5.0 only the Comfort in Echo program used to come with a slider to manage echo)?

EchoBlock is non-existent since Infinio generation. IIRC, Phonak justified it by the fact that APD 3.0 is "good enough" 5o manage echo.

I read that it's still possible to activate it as a separate program even on Eon... Is that true?