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Phonak Naida comfort in noise, what is it used for?

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My audiologist gave me one program to try comfort in noise but I am not sure what benefit I have from it. I have been frustrated with SoundFlow then tried manual programs calm situation and speech in noise which didn’t help with my noise. Is comfort in noise only one way I should use it daily? Thanks.

My understanding of the comfort in noise program on Phonak aids is that it is for times when you are in a noisy situation but there is no speech you want/need to hear. It just reduces the noise right down. My Phonaks go into this sort of program when I am walking on my own down a busy shopping mall for example. Speech in noise is for when you need to hear someone in that environment.

Interesting to learn something new about it. I wonder if manual program comfort in noise itself will decide whenever it needs to be reduced or not during quiet or noisy situation like automatically noise block reduction. It is hard to explain but I will do my best. When I am in really quiet place chatting with my fiancée at home, it is soft. When go outside with some noise. The sound becomes more sharp little bit and easy for me to communicate with someone. I feel like it has automatically noise block reduction. What I have is Phonak Naida UP III.

If it is a manual program it will just work to reduce noise. Unfortunately some speech sounds overlap with noise frequencies so it is not designed for understanding speech. It also depends on whether your audiologist has altered the program eg. Levels of noise reduction. Sometimes with manual programs the audiologist designs a program but has to base it on the best type available in that hearing aid to suit what they are trying to achieve. Did your audiologist tell you how/when to use the program? Did you ask for the program to be able to deal with a particular environment for example?

It is not that easy for me because my audiologist said it’s up to my decision whenever I should choose SoundFlow or manual programs. More likely follow what I like. Problem is that I have no idea if I should stick with SoundFlow or go for manual programs only: calm situation and speech in noise. Looks like I will ask audiologist to start a new fitting due to too much changes and messed up on SoundFlow with a lot of whistling and annoy sound.

About SoundFlow, I am not sure if SoundFlow will give me better benefit than manual programs only. I assume that I should stick with just two manual programs: calm situation and speech in noise. I have no idea if I should stick with prescribed, semi-linear or linear. Prescribed sounds soft and linear sounds too sharp so I guess I should go for semi-linear.

If you feel that I should be on SoundFlow all the times and stay on prescribed, let me know what is your recommend. Many thanks.

You may need to start again if you have had a lot of changes but first try to keep a diary of where you have problems - how much background noise, what type of background noise and any problems you have with speech or other sounds eg. distortion. It sounds like you are trying to listen to speech in the comfort program in quiet environments and finding it too soft. The standard comfort program is not really meant for speech. Also it is not meant for speech in noise. In noisy environments the aim is for the to boost speech and reduce noise to improve the ratio of signal(speech) to noise but it will still be noisy and will not cut out all the noise like the comfort program does. Perhaps you need to speak to your audiologist about what to expect from the performance of your aids in both the soundflow(automatic) program and in the manual programs you have been given.

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