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Phonak Sphere I90, constant tinny, sharpness sound

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Despite many tweakings on my hearing aids, my audiologist hasn’t been able to make any improvements. If anything, this time - last tweaked on Friday 30 January 2026, - the aids still sound too sharp/metallic etc. I am thinking about giving up on these, as I feel that after several months of using these, perhaps these aren’t the aids for me. Before I do though, is there anything I can do on the MyPhonak app before I go down that road? Thank you for any advice.[1]

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4 people in this conversation5 min readJump to latest

You can adjust the equalizer to see if that helps. The questions I have are can you share your and do you have domestic are custom ear molds. I have been wearing aids 20 years, Oticon aids for 15 years and just got my Phonak Spheres about two months ago. I love the Spheres. The sound so good to me. I have acrylic custom ear molds.

Thank you cvkemp. Can you let me know where I can find the equalizer please? I’ll ask the audiologist for my next time I see her. So pleased to hear that Phonak Spheres are working so well for you. By the way I have ear moulds and have been alternating between vented and closed ones, neither of which have made any difference.

In the Myphonak app the very bottom you will see home icon tap it. That will give you the the ability to adjust volume, and to mute aids. Also, you will see the program you are in. Tap the program and you will see the autosense program you are in. At the bottom you will tap the adjust and you can make changes. Watch this YouTube video

As cvkemp said, knowing your is crucial to assess your problems. Perhaps you need more time to getting used to? Did you have ?

What about your recognition of speech in quiet and noisy conditions?

Tinny sound may be from amplification of high frequencies. However they’re very important to recognise consonants and speech in noise as well as in assessing source of sound.

Edited

In the original post, it says

@Judi_L said:

as I feel that after several months of using these, perhaps these aren’t the aids for me.

that Judi has been wearing them for months.

Using the equalizer is a good suggestion as to where to start.

Judi probably doesn’t know what is and should understand that some folks like me are not impressed with it. However, for some folks it makes a big difference.

In reply to @Judi_L

Use the equalizer as suggested and bring the settings to your hearing aid fitter.

You can then have your hearing aid fitter use one of your program settings to make you a comfort setting by reducing the gain in the high frequencies and perhaps increasing the low frequencies if necessary.

Understand that there are tradeoffs when you lower the gain in that you may not hearing as well.

However, the hearing aids do you no good if they wind up in the junk drawer. So some benefit is better then no benefit. Plus you still have the other programing settings to use when you need to hear better when you are struggling.

In reply to @user990

The is a good starting point but it shouldn’t be the last adjustment made. I have been wearing aids for 20 years. I had an audiologist that depended on the REM and I couldn’t understand speech at all. Luckily I moves and found my saving grace audiologist that listened to me. I know have fully functioning aids an I can understand speech so much better than I ever thought possible. It will never be perfect but as good as I can ever get. The key is an audiologist that listens, is willing to try things out side of the box. It doesn’t happen quickly or cheaply but it is well worth the extra effort.

I have the Samsung Galaxy S25fe myself and it works great

Edited

In reply to @Bimodal_user

Hi Bimodal_user, Yes I did have - ?Real Ear Measurement - some time ago when I started using the Phonak Sphere Infinios. I can’t think how much more time I need in order to get used to the aids; I wear them every day so I would have thought that after a good few months my brain would have become used to this by now. It doesn’t help that I have ear blockage from TMJ and have now decided to go ahead with Botox injections to see if this is a problem with the TMJ muscle or if it is hydrops or both. :cry: Has anyone here had endolymphatic hydrops and if so, how do you manage this?: I don’t have Menieres.

Edited

Hmm, that’s strange. Did you change the receivers or have the possibility to perform in another place?

What diameter of vent do you have in your earmolds? Perhaps you have had without microphone calibration or it has been performed like REM with closed couplings (I’m not sure if the latter wouldn’t give rather too little gain, maybe @Neville would correct me).

Or perhaps you have tensor tympani muscle not functioning properly? I suppose it is checked by . Is it problem with both ears?

I have been wondering about getting a second opinion and having a complete re-assessment with another audiologist in an entirely different practice. Something isn’t right. I don’t know what diameter of vent I have. I didn’t have when the ear molds were changed from vented to closed. No idea if the tensor tympani muscle isn’t functioning properly. One thing was that interesting was when I asked the audiologist if I had had the full range of hearing tests and she looked startled when I asked her, which is making me wonder. And yes, the problem is with both ears.

@Judi_L said:

I didn’t have REM when the ear molds were changed from vented to closed

That may be a source of problem. Closed earmolds are generally narrower (because no vent takes space), ao it probably fit deeper in ear canal, so less volume of it remains between earmold tip amd the eardrum.

Due to the Boyle’s law, less volume adds additional few of “free” gains. Perhaps there is a source of problem

You simply require new after changing of acoustic coupling, e. g. earmolds.

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