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Edited

The hiss is only present during streaming (music, calls), across different sources (phone, media box).

It is not constant — it depends on the sound:

- very noticeable with piano (especially lower notes)

- present with certain male voices

- not noticeable with female voices

In normal environmental listening, I don’t hear it.

Because of this pattern, it seems frequency-dependent rather than a general noise issue or hardware fault.

This makes me think it’s related to streaming processing / gain in specific frequency regions.

On the right side, the sound doesn’t just have hiss — it feels smeared or “dragging”, and as a result it actually sounds slightly duller compared to the left.

So it’s not just noise, but a loss of clarity in that ear during streaming.

Check both of the streaming subprograms. There’s a low frequency boost in the music subprogram that can be the culprit of a lot of pumping or boominess that sometimes just needs to be manually removed, but sometimes you can see some wacky stuff in there too–make sure the gain looks similar to your regular programs.

It’s the most obvious solution.

But I kind of hope it’s NOT that because if it is. . . come on audiologists, :man_facepalming:.

Thank you for the suggestion! :folded_hands:

I already have the hearing aid microphones fully muted during streaming — this was done directly in the Target software by my audiologist (not just in the myPhonak app). The external mics are basically turned off, so the hiss I’m hearing is internal circuit noise / self-noise from the device itself, not from the environment.

It only appears (or becomes very noticeable) during Bluetooth streaming when the mics are muted and the signal is clean. In normal acoustic mode it’s almost non-existent.

We’re currently waiting for a 1S receiver on the right side to see if lowering the gain there helps reduce the internal noise. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try an ActiveVent trial next.

Have you or anyone else experienced internal hiss that persisted even with mics completely muted? Any other settings that helped in your case?

Thanks again for taking the time to reply! :heart:

@Eleinor said:

We’re currently waiting for a 1S receiver on the right side to see if lowering the gain there helps reduce the internal noise.

They can reduce the gain in target without needing to resort to the lower power receiver. Just because the receiver is capable of using more power doesn’t mean it has to use it.

WH

Thank you for the reply! :folded_hands:

You’re right — in theory we could just lower the gain in Target on the 1M receiver instead of switching to 1S. My audiologist did try that before (he reduced gain and balance on the right side), but it made speech understanding and overall volume worse, so we had to revert.

That’s why he suggested the 1S receiver — hoping the lower power hardware itself will produce less self-noise without needing such aggressive gain reduction.

Thank you for sharing your experience! :folded_hands:

Yes, I have a Samsung Galaxy A56 (Android). The hiss is only on the right side and only during Bluetooth streaming (mics are fully muted in Target).

It’s interesting that it disappeared with iPhone for your patient. I don’t have access to an iPhone right now, but I’ll keep that in mind as a possible factor.

We’re waiting for a 1S receiver on the right side. Did your patient also have side-specific noise, or was it both sides?

Both sides if I remember correctly, and happened on 3 different Android phones, and nothing on an iPhone.

Maybe if your Hearing Care Professional has an iPhone or iPad, you can try it. Sadly, no solutions were found for my patient, even when switching the hearing aids. We went for another brand with

Thank you very much for sharing your experience! :folded_hands:

In my case the hiss is **strictly one-sided** (only right ear), even during phone calls and media streaming. The microphones are fully muted in Target.

It’s interesting that it was bilateral for your patient and only on Android. I don’t have access to an iPhone right now, but I’ll keep it in mind.

We’re waiting for a 1S receiver on the right side. If that doesn’t help, we’ll consider an ActiveVent trial or other option.

Thanks again!

I have genuinely never been happy with Phonak hearing aids themselves, but know tons of people who enjoy them. You might want to consider changing to another brand IF that’s an option you’d like. My favorite has always been Oticon followed by Resound :slight_smile: Another thing would be asking your audiologist to adjust it as it’s really not difficult and doesn’t take a lot. If none of these work, consider even taking another test to see if something changes in your hearing to certain tones. I’ve had hearing aids since I was 3, so 10 years now, and have found out the best option is just working with your audiologist and making sure you tell him/her exactly what’s going on. Hope this helps some!!

Thank you for your reply and for sharing your experience! :folded_hands:

I understand many people like Oticon and ReSound, but I’d prefer to stay with Phonak for now (my device is still quite new).

I’ve already been working closely with my audiologist and two Phonak reps for months, and we’ve tried many adjustments. The issue is very one-sided (only right ear) and only during Bluetooth streaming/phone calls, even with mics fully muted in Target.

Thanks again!

Huh, that’s very odd! Has anyone talked to the manufacter? Otherwise, fully resetting wouldn’t hurt at all, using the data you have your audiologist should be able to re-set it up quite easily! I would f’s recommend resetting at this point

Your concern that may not have been done correctly is a bit of a red flag. Does your audiologist have a test box to confirm that the issue is not with the hardware? There is a known issue with the receiver connection with the Sphere’s. I have also noticed with my Spheres (compared to my Marvels) that auto sense seems to shift much more in a noticeable way….and not for the better. Good luck!

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to come back and thank everyone who took the time to reply to my original post.

In the end, my audiologist and the Phonak representative both agreed that the best approach was to start over with a completely fresh First Fit based on my current and receiver settings.

I’m glad we did. After so many adjustments made over several months by different people, it really helped to get back to a clean and consistent baseline. From there, we only made a few small, targeted changes instead of continuing to build on previous tweaks.

It didn’t solve every issue overnight, but it gave us a much more coherent starting point and made further fine-tuning much more logical.

Thank you again to everyone who shared your experience and suggestions — they really helped me make the decision.Looking back, I don’t regret choosing the reset. It was much easier to evaluate small changes afterwards because we finally knew exactly what we were changing.

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