Phonak introduces Marvel platform and Audéo M hearing aids

It sounds like your Audi does know how to fit them correctly for you.
But after taking another look at your Audiogram with your hearing loss OPNS more than likely are not a good fit for you.

@jfenton said:

the right HA “rattles”

This happened to me with my old HA, it turned out the microphone was faulty. Might be worth getting it checked out.

I am confused. There is obviously pairing issues switching between phone and laptops but does this also include the TV Connector? How is the switch between watching TV and answering a phone call for example?

Yes… if you whistle at a pitch that’s above 1500Hz, it will likely sound sort of fuzzy, or odd. If you were to get a tone generator ( there’s free phone apps) , it becomes very obvious that at least in the problem I was having, it starts at 1500Hz, and for me, I could hear it on any sustained tone all the way up to 4000Hz. It seemed to go away, or lessen to the point were I didn’t notice it above 4000Hz. I’m very convinced this is due to Phonak’s SoundRecovery feature. (it’s now disabled on my hearing aids).

I don’t have any rattling of either of my hearing aids. However, now that the SoundRecovery feature is disabled, and more steady tones sound more normal. I do believe I’m also hearing other sounds that make it seem as if the overall fidelity of sounds I’m hearing, is not as good as I would hope for . But I may actually be hearing for the first time in many years, actual poor quality sound from speakers and such, so at this point I’m not saying the Hearing Aids aren’t reproducing sound accurately, but I am saying I am no noticing some odd sounds that I perceive as distorted. I will end with saying, i do not expect perfection with regard to restoring my hearing to what it was when I was say 12… and from the start my audiologist and others have said , that hearing aids don’t completely restore you to perfect hearing.

One last note about SoundRecovery… my audiologist had said that due to the nature of my hearing loss, that feature really wasn’t needed, and she could see that from my real ear sound readings and such. So, I will stop short of saying everyone should get their SoundRecovery feature disabled… apparently for some people that feature has real value and should not just be written off as a bad thing. Just for me, I much prefer the sounds I get from my Phonak Marvels with it turned off.

All in all, I’m now quite satisfied with the current level of sound quality I’m getting through my hearing aids. But , then I haven’t played guitar yet since I’ve had the changes made. I’m optimistic that I will enjoy that when I get a chance to play around with it tonight.

TV Connector works perfectly, independent of all the other BT issues. So basically, a TV Connector and a single BT device will be awesome; adding other BT devices is kind of a pain (forget device, reboot HA’s, pair device, etc.)

TV Connector uses a different technology, not Bluetooth Classic.

Thank you for clarifying the TV Connector. It sounds like the phone/TV Connector work together seamlessly.
And I just noticed in the Audeo M User Guide states “The TV Connector can be connected to any audio source such as a TV, PC or hi-fi system.” I wonder if using a TV Connector with a PC helps some of the bluetooth switching problems others have mentioned in this thread.

Well, it turns out , I was probably overly optimistic about how much the warbling was reduced by turning off SoundRecovery. I do think it helped some, but I still get similar odd warbling at times.

Music program really didn’t help the odd sounding high notes coming out of my guitar amplifier/speaker. It might be better than it had been previously, but still not very good.

Strangely, one of the programs that was added, was ‘Speech in Noise’, and that program actually sounded better while playing my guitar than the Music program. I know the audiologist had made some sort of change to that program, it seemed to narrow the field that the mics used to pickup sound. I’m beginning to wonder, if the odd sound artifacts are related to there being multiple microphones on the hearing aids and that maybe because the sound is hitting them at different times, that it’s causing odd harmonics or something of that nature. I found further improvement for my guitar sounds after turning the volume down on the hearing aids, so I also wonder if the difference between natural sounds hitting my ear through the vented domes and the sounds from the receivers.

Either way, I have seen some improvements to the sound problems, but they haven’t totally gone away either, so I’m still not 100% sure what the actual cause is.

As a new user ( 1 week) with Phonak M70R & just the autosense program right now & I’m an acoustic guitar player. So, I’ve been very interested in this conversation. Fellow guitar players with HA’s have always complained to me about the change in the sound from their guitars with HA’s.

As of today, my limited experience has been that I do get some harshness from the guitar strings but no odd notes. Thus far, I’ve been able to tone down the harshness by turning down the volume of the HA’s.

Tomorrow, I go in for the 1st review and possible changes / additions to my programming.

Dave

Can non-rechargeable batteries be used in place of the rechargeable batteries in the new Phonak? (in case they run low)

@dan92886 said:

I wonder if using a TV Connector with a PC helps some of the bluetooth switching problems others have mentioned in this thread.

I have one, and it helps in the case of adding an additional streaming device without replacing a Bluetooth pairing, but it doesn’t support 2-way for things like phone calls. My biggest gripe with the TV Connector is that they have limited the Marvel to pairing with only 2 TV Connectors. It’s like they don’t want to sell you these accessories! I was hoping to keep one at the office, and 2 or 3 at home and even considered putting one in my church so I could hear the speaker better, but that idea was a bust with that limitation. I have no idea why they would constrain such a thing.

Sorry if this has been asked already, which one is better. Streaming through Bluetooth or streaming through a TV connector, or is it the same?

Someone else can speak to the sound quality but there is far less battery drain streaming through the TV Connector than through Bluetooth according to Phonak.

I don’t have experience with the Phonak, only with the OPN. But in general, the sound quality should be the same if both are working fine.

But in terms of the reliability of the sound delivery, it should be more reliable with the TV connector because the communication protocol between the TV connector and the hearing aid is solely in control of the HA mfg because they own both devices.

However, streaming via Bluetooth, if via direct MFI streaming from an iOS device to the hearing aid, the HA mfg only has control of the protocol on their end (the hearing aid), and Apple has control of the iOS protocol. So there may be miscommunication between the two sides more easily, unless eventually both sides work out all the kinks on their ends then the reliability is improved.

In terms of Bluetooth streaming via an intermediate device for Android phones, while the HA mfg owns both the intermediate streamer and the hearing aid, making the link between these 2 devices more reliable, the Bluetooth link between the streaming device and the Android phone is again subjected to the risk of miscommunication since 2 separate companies manage the communication protocol on their side only. It’s easier for them to blame the mishap as non-compliance by the other side and not try to investigate the issue truly.