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Sound quality of Phonak Marvel vs. Oticon Opn

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In reply to @darylm

Yes. I’m sorry, your’e right. It’s the Made for iPhone functionality that I find so much better than the Android.
With Android, the controllable functions on the locksceen are very limited. Just volume and program change as I recall. But on the iPhone this is merged with control of the streaming volume, radio station selection etc. etc. which I find far better. Personally. I found the ConnectClip to be a real pain to set right and each time I took a phone call or streamed music the volume needed adjusting. But which one to adjust? The hearing aid rocker, the ConnectClip buttons or the phone buttons? They all change the volume but I always finished up in a tangle and hated it.
Another point with ConnectClip which I found annoying is that you have no info as to the charge level of its battery and occasionally it would die on me.
If Android could develop a Made for Android feature and Oticon adopted it, then that would surely be a good way to go. Otherwise I’m stuck with Apple.

Off topic but any will not provide headphone quality audio. I have NX 7 and compared with Philips HA with ANC no match with headphone headphone always wins

Edited

In reply to @darylm

Darylm, They will pay up to $5K for any aid, but if I choose the top model like OPN s1 I have to pay $800. The insurance will cover up to $5K but not the top of the line without a copay. Kaiser makes deals with each company and each is different. So I can get the M70R for free ( they say it’s $4K) and have to pay 800 for top of line M90R even though it’s below 5K. Or I can get OPN S2 for free ( they say it’s 5K) and pay $800 more for S1. They made a better deal with Phonak than with Oticon. The other two manufacturers they carry are Signia and Starkey.
Much has been written about Marvel bluetooth. I tried pairing with both Android and IPhone. Both has tons of crackling at both ends of the line. Then there’s the pairing issue.

My Marvels were in trial so I now have the S2 in trial. I may try the S1 to see if the $800 would be worth spending if it has a big benefit for speech in loud noise

In reply to @alanpalmer7743

Okay, I agree that the does work quite well. However, the connectclip isn’t as complex at you seem to think. The volume buttons on the connect clip have the same function as the volume in the opn app or using MFi. Call it the system volume. The volume on the phone is just for the phone. If you change the volume using the connectclip, you can see it change in the opn app or mfi. You can change the volume individually using the opn app or MFi, but not on the connectclip.

There will be a “made for android” capability, similar to MFi. The specifications are on the android website. Not sure which release of android it will be in, but it will probably only be available on devices from manufacturers who are good about updating (unfortunately, not very many).

In reply to @Volusiano

Music is a whole different ballgame from the ’s main function. Some users reported loving the sound of music through Phonak or Oticon. I don’t know about Oticon because I haven’t had the chance to do music, but Marvel, while sounding very clear, does not have the kind of presence I like to hear with music. It sounds very flat to my ears, such as they are. Much prefer to use my headphones with an equalizer app. There’s no way an HA can faithfully reproduce the recording with that tiny package, as others have pointed out. But if it works for you that’s all that matters.

In reply to @donkramail

I agree with what you said. When I’m watching a movie or listening to music on my desktop computer, I use Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones with a Fiio Alpen 2 headphone amplifier. The sound is much better than the hearing aids.

In reply to @alanpalmer7743

AH! You’ve crossed to the “other” side then - from Android to Apple. :wink: I guess I’m glad I’m NOT a techie user, cuz Android apps seem to have their limitations. I’m surprised that you found the Marvel sound quality no better than the Opn!! Proves that hearing preference is truly unique to the individual.

Um_bongo had posted this about a while back:
"ALL the MPO does is provide a ‘soft-stop’ limit to the peak output of the aid. It doesn’t make anything sound muffled as the same amount of gain is applied as normal, right up to the limit value.

The ‘Screech’ is the aid going into full saturation, during very high input signals the aid has unstable feedback. This ought to be properly controlled by the feedback manager not the MPO, as you want the feedback manager to adaptively damp the feedback rather than let the MPO control deal with it. The reason being that the MPO doesn’t modify the gain of the aid, only the limiting function - this could leave you with a signal that’s still feeding back at high level, but sits below where the MPO kicks in."

So you should not get muffled speech with a lower MPO, but perhaps the maximum gain would not cover a desire for more volume?

Someone please correct me if this is NOT the case.

In reply to @darylm

I think this is a personal preference thing and for me, wins every time. As a septuagenarian, I don’t have the time to wait for Android to release their version of MFA.
But we seem to have drifted off topic here. The original subject was regarding sound quality rather than connectivity, and this, I think is still personal choice.
For me, OPN wins over Phonak Marvel, but only just.
They are both far from perfect and grossly overpriced for what you get including the support.
I have now resorted to self programming with my audiologist’s approval and find that Genie 2 is very intuitive and simple to use.
I’m not saying that I have set everything right yet, but my OPNs are now better than they have ever been.
There are some sound anomalies that only the wearer can appreciate and they can readily be corrected with Genie 2 while they are happening rather than trying to explain them to the audiologist some time later.
Thanks to everyone for their input to this thread.

They are actually not grossly overpriced. Sorry to disagree. Phonak has over 300 scientists working in their research division that goes into the technology. So probably, does Oticon.

I pay £2500 every 4 years for aids. I would actually pay more for what I get - which is participation in this thing called life :slight_smile:

Hearing aids are not televisions or cars. It is not mass market. It is a niche.

You may not like my answer, but these people are highly skilled and have to be paid. It’s an unfortunate fact of life.

Of course, some providers may sell them at a hideous margin, and rip you off for a pathetic service. But that is a different issue. The wholesale price is probably fair, if not well received.

In reply to @1Bluejay

Hi. Just a quick update on the OPN versus Phonak Marvel debate.
I finally settled on Phonak Marvel MR90T and have been using them for 3 months now.
They are so very different from the OPNs in that they pick out the loudest and hopefully most relevant speech in most situations while the OPNs amplified everything and left me bewildered by the noise.
Conclusion. There is no such thing as perfection with hearing aids. It’s all down to personal preference. No two people have the same hearing response which is what makes buying such a minefield to negotiate.
I would recommend any one to always try at least 2 or 3 different types for 2 months before making a final decision on which to buy.
Also, don’t expect too much. These instruments are an aid, not a cure!
I now hear about 80% of any conversation correctly and while not perfect, it’s a lot better than the 5% I would get without them!
Finally, the bluetooth streaming for phone calls and music is a godsend. Both models have their little quirks but they both deliver excellent clear sound for effortless listening. I am using my Marvels with an iPhone 7 but I have successfully used both the Marvels and the OPNs with iPhone and Android models.

Just finished a short trial with the Phonak Marvels and have the Oticon Opns now. It’s only day 2 with the Oticon’s and I find the sound a little hollow or tinny, but I thought the same thing with the Phonak’s the first day too. I was reading last night and my tinnitus was BAD. Noticed when I took out the Oticon’s the sound got a little quieter. This morning again, the tinnitus is worse with the hearing aids in. Is it just me?

I wear OPN1 aids and my tinnitus is always worse with my aids out.

In reply to @debcabell2

@debcabell2 said:

Just finished a short trial with the Phonak Marvels and have the Oticon Opns now. It’s only day 2 with the Oticon’s and I find the sound a little hollow or tinny, but I thought the same thing with the Phonak’s the first day too. I was reading last night and my tinnitus was BAD. Noticed when I took out the Oticon’s the sound got a little quieter. This morning again, the tinnitus is worse with the hearing aids in. Is it just me?

You have reverse slope hearing loss, where most of your hearing loss is in the low frequencies, compared to the more commonly found regular ski slope loss, where the hearing loss is in the high frequencies.

From my understanding of the Oticon VAC+ fitting rationale, for folks with reverse ski slope loss like yours, Oticon found that unlike the normal convention of trying to boost the low frequencies to compensate for the loss, it is actually more effective for speech understanding to actually still boost the mids and highs more and boosting the lows too much for this type of loss may actually impede better speech understanding.

This is probably why you find the Oticon OPN sounding a bit hollow and tinny to your liking, because they give speech understanding priority in their VAC+ fitting rationale for your type of loss. You can always have your audi add another program that uses one of the standard fitting rationale like the NAL-NL1 or or v5.0 Adult and see how you’re liking it compared to VAC+. And you don’t have to choose between them, you can actually have all 4 installed in each of the 4 available programs if you want.

Another option is to leave the regular VAC+ in the default program the way it is and use it for speech, and have another program still with VAC+, but this time have your audi boost up the low more to your liking. Then you still have 2 other programs left for one or two other standard fitting rationales if you like.

@cvkemp said:

my tinnitus is always worse with my aids out.

Same here. I enjoy reading a bit before sleeping and have taken to keeping my aids in while doing so, to help me not hear the tinnitus as much.

In reply to @alanpalmer7743

Your post could’ve been written by me! Only it took me 35 years to realize all this, too. Years ago, audis would simply not indulge a patient in trying out more than the SINGLE brand/model they recommended. Those days are gone, and there are a lot more options out there - Costco being the biggest name in the game.

Glad the Phonaks are working out for you! I have the Marvel 90s and even had my audi boost the SPEECH frequencies in all programs on my aids: the default, the noisy place, and the Acoustic Phone. It’s the best hearing I’ve had with any make or model ever.

In reply to @Volusiano

Thank you for those suggestions. Since this is just the initial test, and these are my first ever hearing aids, its bare bones- on, off, volume control. But I will bring this up to my audiologist next week. I can’t give either of these a really full test because I’m losing my insurance on February 1st.

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