Phonak introduces Marvel platform and Audéo M hearing aids

The Phonak Marvels do deliver audio in stereo. Remember that the streaming goes from your source device to the side that your audiologist has set as the dominant side, such as the right ear. From there the M devices talk to each other and the stream is split into right/left and the left channel is delivered to the left. It works flawlessly.

Try again making sure you have all other devices that you have paired with has Bluetooth turned off. You should be able to pair them with the PC.

Thanks for checking it out. I have every expectation it should work of course. It’s just nice to confirm these things and not just go on trust alone.

What’s that site that you found?

Stereo can be tricky to detect. Early Beatles stereo had a couple instruments on the far left and a couple on the far right. Modern simpler stereo songs generally sound like they’re coming from the center. You might hear subtle little things on the left or right. And then there are things like Pink Floyd where some sounds are swirling and panning from left to right crossing center in the process. Like say the running guy in Dark Side of the Moon or the bomber.

Mono can kinda sound like stereo because it sounds like it’s coming out of both sides but it’s really just the same thing copied to both sides and then it sounds like it’s straight down the center. Center is when it sounds like it’s directly in the middle of your head (with HA’.s or headphones on )

How’s it going with phone calls? Have you had a chance to try that yet?

If you google songs for testing headphones and soundstage, you’ll get lots of good suggestions. Have really enjoyed this with my recently acquired earbuds.

I was directing that question to Keithr. I think he has an Android.
Thanks for the update.

I’m not an Apple guy so I was interested in your difficulties and am quite pleased with Phonak for not drinking the Apple koolaid and not getting in with mfi.

dbmtx@ the stream is binaural for audio maybe the stream for phone calls works that way.

Check out the link from cision quite interesting.

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Hi,

If you just google “stereo test,” you’ll find a lot of them. The one I used was "Left / Right Stereo Sound Test (Online) - AudioCheck.net1 . The exact URL appears to be Left / Right Stereo Sound Test (Online)6 .

Yes, mono and stereo sound very similar nowadays. In the ones I mentioned, most of the music was in the center but I found the occasional instrument on one side or the other. I’m going to have to track down some Pink Floyd, because you make it sound really interesting.

As for phone calls, I haven’t had a chance to test them yet. I don’t get a lot of phone calls, but I’ll see if I can get my wife to help me test sending and receiving calls.

Sorry. Assuming your avatar was something resembling you, I had imagined you’d be very familiar with early Beatles and Pink Floyd. And certainly Dark Side of the Moon as being a wildly popular Pink Floyd album. I chose those two for their popularity. There’s lots of other music that can demonstrate stereo.
The early 60’s was the beginning of stereo so the recordings were rudimentary and also the sounds were recorded and then overlayed on each other as there were barely 4 tracks available to use and then finished out on two for left and right. Some so-called stereo was actually mono with a slight time-delay echo or reverb on the other side that gave it a slight stereo-y feeling.

@Keithr said:

I’m going to have to track down some Pink Floyd, because you make it sound really interesting.

Now I come from a punk rock/new wave background, and have grown into an appreciation for classical, but I have to say, you haven’t lived if you haven’t listened to Pink Floyd.

@Neville said:

Are you connected to you phone AND tablet? I was told by a Phonak rep that the Marvels could not be connected to two things at once and would have to be unpaired and repaired, but that seems like it shouldn’t be the case.

Sooooooo… Currently, my Phonak Audeo B-Direct aids are paired with my Samsung S9, and by 2 separate TV streamers to our big-screen TV and the laptop where I’m sitting.

Are you saying that with the Marvels, I can only be paired to ONE out of these three devices, and that every time I want to stream to my phone, (which would definitely be my default!), the laptop here or my TV I’d have to run around and re-pair the aids to that device (requiring me to manually remove the aid, open the battery door, close it and put it back in my ear).

If that is truly the reality, I am beyond S T U N N E D. That would be (once again) like the perennial “bad joke” of new HA releases where the manufacturer offers ONE improvement (i.e., being able to stream to both ears on the phone) by removing MANY other necessities (like staying paired - even when not using - multiple devices).

Please tell me this ain’t the truth … cuz I’d seriously cancel my Marvel trial.

No no, It’s some faulty information that I got from a rep (given to a whole room of very puzzled audiologists, frankly), which sounded outlandish to me and turns out to be untrue. I should just go back and delete that post, really, so that no one else is confused.

Had some time to play around with a set today. Streaming sounds great. Car is shockingly quiet (I have to mute the HA mics when I’m streaming in the car with the Opns). Cannot find a dome that is comfortable, but that’s normal for me; I’ll just yank my tips off of the Opns and jam them onto these. Phone call in quiet no problem for the other person (slight echo), phone call in noise difficult but that doesn’t seem unreasonable. Zero connection issues with iphone 7. Nice volume buttons, but the volume itself is doing something bizarre with the expansion when I turn it up.

I’m glad you’ve been successful connecting to iPhones, but I have not had that same kind of success with Android or Windows. I don’t know if “unstable” is the best word, because they work well (and are stable) once you get them connected. Getting connected has been my issue.

I’m not ready to blame the hearing aids completely, because I’ve had issues with Bluetooth and other devices. My old streamer drives me crazy trying to connect to the TV adapter. There are times when I try everything – multiple connection attempts, turning the streamer off and on and trying again, cycling the power on the adapter, re-pairing the streamer and the adapter – and I end up just giving up, because nothing works. If I try a day later, usually it connects immediately. And I have had ongoing problems connecting to two PCs.

As far as pairing to “hundreds” of devices simultaneously, you’re probably right, and I hope you are, but this is what the manual says on page 21: “Your hearing aids can be paired to one device at a time.” No wonder the reps are making this claim.

For me, as frustrating as this has been, it’s not a deal breaker for me, because I don’t have a choice. I absolutely need new hearing aids now (after putting it off for two years while I waited for Android compatibility) and the Marvels are my only choice with Android. If I couldn’t hear or understand with them, that would be another matter.

Here are my latest (very strange) results. My Bluetooth settings show a connection to the right hearing aid (only) and the Remote app does not connect to either. But I listened for a couple of hours to Pandora music, and I heard through both hearing aids, and it definitely sounded like stereo.

Unfortunately, that is true. Apple updates all iPhones right away any time an update comes out. We have to wait for the manufacture to make their modifications to the new OS and send it on to the provider, who then makes it available to us poor end users. As much as I like Android, that is a big disadvantage (unless you have a Google phone, in which case the process is streamlined).