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Does Phonak AutoSense OS 3.0 work for you?

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I keep trying to find some combination of settings for my Marvels that help my hearing, and that I can stand to wear. I have been trying to wear them as much as possible lately. I was in town the other day, in Walmart doing my weekly grocery run and noticed that everything sounded very strange, kind of muffled. Actually, it is difficult to accurately describe how things sounded in that particular situation. I also have a program, and what I call a music program. The music program has SR2 turned off as well as the other processing functions, attempting to emulate an analog aid as much as possible. Of course with SR2 turned off, I lose the high frequencies, but this program sounds much clearer and natural. Like my normal hearing, only louder. When I first got the aids from the , they only had Autosense and T-coil activated, and I could tell right away that wasn’t going to work. Since the aids power up in Autosense, I always start out with that, but soon, I am changing to the music program because Autosense makes my hearing much worse. Does anyone else have issues with Autosense?

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Yesterday, I just started a trial with the Marvel M90. I’m not having any real issues with Autosense so far. However, a bit of background, I’ve had one good ear, my right, and from some virus when I was a toddler, nerve damage in my left. An audi told me several years back that with a , I could probably hear in my left ear. When I trialed a set of HA’s back a few years ago, I was shocked to find out that I can hear out of my left ear, since I had some loss in my right ear, I ended up with a pair of Oticon OPN 2.

A couple of days before Christmas. I experienced sudden hearing loss to my right ear (my good ear). This left me with my worse ear. I had vertigo with all of this, so it took me a few days to recover. Since I wasn’t in the habit of wearing my HA’s all the time (bad me), I had no idea if my left aid would help. I put the aid in my ear one morning and it wasn’t perfect, but I could hear and converse.

Since I work and I’m still going through all of this, I’m not sure if I’ll end up with a cros or not. I had the idea to trial the pair of the M90 aid. Compared to my OPN’s, I do like the Marvel’s. I like the Marvel’s so far over my Oticon. The Autosense is good in that it automatically adjusts and I’m not constantly adjusting volume. However, there are times when I feel I need some adjustment to volume, speech, clarity. Yes, it can sound muffled sometimes, but I figured it was because my Oticons has a two vent bass dome and the Marvel has a . You might want to see it maybe you need a different dome. I do find I also like using my custom programs where I’be tweaked a bit on the settings. Keep in mind that with my one ear, my sensitivies are now higher. You may also need further programming adjustments that are more to your comfort. When my dogs are barking tge Autosense does a great job at handling the volume and the bark is less irritating. Not sure this helps you, but a few thigs to consider. Don’t go by my , it needs to be updated. Each of us is different and while in general, we have our opinions, but it’s really what you find makes you comfortable.

Thanks for taking time to reply. Our situations are pretty different. I have severe to profound high frequency loss caused by a combination of heredity, shooting without hearing protection, loud rock concerts, and being in the Army. I don’t consider my loss to be service connected, though I doubt that it helped either. I went a very long time before even considering aids, and after I finally got them, I haven’t had any success in wearing them. Another issue is recruitment. I can’t stand loud sounds, and an aid set for anything approaching my prescriptive loss is unbearable. I get by pretty well considering my loss. My biggest issue is speech. I have problems understanding speech by people who speak softly, or indistinctly. I can’t watch TV at all without captions being on. I know my hearing is going to get worse because of advancing age. The beginning of the ski slope is already starting to get bad at lower frequencies than it was a few years ago. I really want the Marvels to provide some relief, but so far, they haven’t. Even when set to uncomfortably loud settings, I still struggle with speech, and if I turn them down to a more comfortable level, forget it. Phonak touts Autosense as nearly a miracle cure, but it seems to make things worse for me. I see a lot of people here who have had great success with their aids, and it makes me wish I could achieve the same. I am beginning to believe that it isn’t going to happen.

@John_Green said:

issues with Autosense?

How long have you been wearing these?

Also: my sonic experience is unusual, a sound-man most of my life.

I’m on my 4th day with a Marvel (left ear). My loss is less than yours. I recruit but seem to have no discomfort with music at 90dB on the meter (so 100+ peaks in room, maybe full 104 in ear).

My understanding is much better than unaided. I hear funny sibilant artifacts and accept that my nerves have to get used to those sounds again.

AutoSense seems OK. It does change itself when it wants to, sometimes I don’t know why.

I find that I am adverse to “Noise Reduction”. I know what it does, it does it very well, I just don’t like that.

I set a custom program with slight treble cut, NO noise reduction, medium directionality. In many situations I like this better. But it keeps going back to AutoSense after a while.

If you strain for soft sounds and cringe for loud, set G80 lower, especially above 1kHz. It may be reasonable to have 3:1 compression from G65 to G80. (However my -30 model does not show separate CR for G50-G65 and G65-G80.)

Yes, the guns and the rock music and many types of drugs (fun and life-saving), but I think there is a good dose of bad GENES in me which hastened my loss relative to other folks of similar exposure. Some folks go grey early, some get wrinkles, and some lose hearing sooner than others. (I’m grey and wrinkled and hard of hearing…)

I hear you about the genetic link. My paternal grandfather was profoundly deaf most of his life. My father had worse hearing than me by far. He actually got some in ear aids at one time, but I rarely ever saw him wear them. As to greying early, I don’t remember my parents with anything but grey hair. I knew from an early age that I would be either grey haired at an early age, or bald. My hair has been white for some time. I started turning grey in my mid thirties. I guess I have about the requisite number of wrinkles for someone of my age. I haven’t seen many folk on here who had Marvels and didn’t like them. Some, when deciding which aid to go with tried Marvels against those of another brand and went with the other brand. I have tried some Unitron aids and returned them, got some Audeo V90s off eBay, and then some B50s from there as well. Then, I got some Resounds from the and returned them. I have been self programming just about the whole way. I got the Marvels from the VA who told me that Autosense was the only program I would need, and that they didn’t fool with Sound Recover at all. If I turn Sound Recover on, I can hear frequencies up to above 8 KHz, but still struggle with speech, which becomes very sibilant and lispy sounding. When I go out into the real world, I have more trouble understanding with aids than without.

@John_Green said:

told me that Autosense was the only program I would need

For someone LIKE me, that may not be wrong. If I were not sound-fussy I could do fine with just AutoSense.

With your steeper/deeper slope, there’s no perfect answer and no software can really know what you are hearing and what you do/don’t want to hear. That fitter’s statement was reckless. IMHO.

Dad was grey/white in early 20s. All the men-folk had to be shouted-at. (But mom’s dad could hear distant thunder better than anybody…)

Using the myPhonak app, I looked at what AutoSense OS 3.0 thought the acoustic situation was during various songs emanating from my computer’s external speakers:

Normal Situation
Dido - Don’t Leave Home
Beatles - Help!
Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz

Noisy Situation
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs - Stay [1]
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Travelin’ Band

Very Noisy Situation
Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs - Stay [2]
Rod Stewart - Hot Legs

Music
Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence
Mickey & Sylvia - Love is Strange

@brec said:

Normal Situation
Janis Joplin - Mercedes Benz
Noisy Situation
Donna Summer - I Feel Love
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Travelin’ Band
Very Noisy Situation
Rod Stewart - Hot Legs

Huh. I might even agree with some of that. Legs is a lot of racket. Benz is solo woman’s voice which is what I need most help with (thus “normal”).

But playing those trax off YouTube on a low-price ChromeBook, my M30 calls it all “Normal Situation”. (I should try in the car where I can get some volume and bass; but most of my life is no louder than the ChromeBook at 75%.)

Autosense must work well for at least some people, or else Phonak wouldn’t have made it the default program. It just doesn’t work for me, and I suspect there may be others who don’t have success with it either.

Autosense works for a majority, I would say.

It’s hard to say “autosense” doesn’t work. What exactly isn’t working? Is it the gain setting? The changes in gain between subprograms? The changes in noise reduction between subprograms? Changes in directionality? That’s a whole lot of variables going on, some of which may work for you and some may not.

In reply to @PRR

@PRR said:

I set a custom program with slight treble cut, NO noise reduction, medium directionality. In many situations I like this better. But it keeps going back to AutoSense after a while.

I noticed this too with AutoSense. I find a setting I like, set it as custom, choose the program, then since My Phonak isn’t always connected to bluetooth, it switches back to AutoSense. What’s the purpose of having different or custom programs if the aids automatically switch back to AutoSense?

It it also very annoying. You’re ears are comfortable with the program switched on, then the aids go back to AutoSense and you definitly notice the switch. My Oticon OPN 2’s done do that, you pick a program and it stays on until you change it. The only difference is the only change you can make in each program is the volume on the OPN’s. I like that you have some freedom to customize tge Marvels…until it switches back to AutoSense.

For me, the AutoSense does what it’s supposed to do, cut down on road noise, bring the sound of the barking dogs to a less irritable level, etc. I don’t have to quickly pull out my phone to lower the volume. Why don’t the aids stay on the program you chose?

In reply to @Neville

Neville,
I can’t say for sure exactly which part of Autosense is causing my problem. If it is changing how it does things, it does so without my knowing it. I don’t detect any change in noise level, or a change in microphone directionality. When I was trying to wear my V90s a while back, I did detect, once or twice, a sudden change in the way things sounded. Not a major change, but a slight one. I haven’t noticed that with the Marvels. I am going to do another programming session in the next couple of days, and I am going to specifically look at the Autosense settings. If I have a revelation, I’ll post my results.

I have the m90s and I agree with the op it does make things muffled and difficult to understand. If you talk with your audi there are some settings that might help. I don’t recall what settings they were. I do know that my audi made some adjustments and things were much more bearable.

I found the Autosense in the 90s too aggressive, switching too often. Before the trial period was up, I exchanged them for the 70s which are just right. I wish the app had a way to lock in the program I choose, though.

Interesting to know 90s were more agressive than the 70s. I currently have SP Naida 70s (2013) and trialed Naida 90s (2017) and felt like the 90s did not have enough gain. It could have been tied in w/ more agressive Autosense.

In reply to @John_Green

Hey - been there exactly where you’re standing. Tried the M90’s a year ago and returned them for the exact same reasons you stated. Autosense had no gain for me, or shall we say strength to pull in soft or even normal sounds. I felt as Autosense was attempting to be all things in all different different hearing environments and not meeting my need. I’m not going to repeat what I wrote a year ago but the M90’s and (lower aids) should work well for someone with a moderate or mid-level hearing loss. For someone with a severe loss or worse - forget it.

Also I think some of these hearing aid companies are making a mistake claiming a hearing aid (M90) can be used for someone with a mild hearing loss all the way to someone with profound hearing loss. That’s too large a hearing gap/range for a to handle and in my opinion dumbs down the hearing aid so it doesn’t really satisfy the severe hearing loss group.

I also thought them M90 did lousy in background noise, but again it might work well with someone with a mild hearing loss. When I used the background noise program, loud noises were slightly softened but so was table conversation. So I struggled to hear what was said next to me, since the M90 program couldn’t separate background noise with nearby verbal communication.

On the plus side Phonak just came out today with a new power hearing aid that should perform better then the M90’s did, for those who need more hearing aid power on a daily basis.

@youbgone, I have severe loss in one ear, almost normal in the other. I had the fitter add a custom Speech in Loud Noise program which works for me. I use the app to modify that program for really noisy restaurants, and for the restaurants we go to often, save it as a custom program.

In my 3rd day of my trial with the Marvel M90. Had some questions, one of which is why do the hearing aids go back into AutoSense automatically.

Found out that the audi can fit your aid with your aid with programs and your set up programs that match the settings in your custom programs, but this will remove AutoSense from your . So for those of you that want it gone from your aid, your audi can do that.

If you want to keep AutoSense because you do use it, just not all the time, the audi can change the default on your list of programs to what you want instead of AutoSense. That way, it’s available to you, but instead of going back to it automatically, your aid will automatically go back to what you have asked them to program as your default program.

I hope that makes sense. It’s not a perfect solution, it still seems flawed, but with your audi, there are a couple of work arounds to the AutoSense dilema.

I am using the M90 as well. The AutoSense 3.0 is too aggressive in backing down the gain in louder sounds, I am going to have to get my audiologist to change that. The program is fine in quieter situations

In reply to @Kaytee

@Kaytee said:

I found the Autosense in the 90s too aggressive, switching too often. Before the trial period was up, I exchanged them for the 70s which are just right.

I notice that the 90’s programs that are not in the 70’s AutoSense repertoire are Speech in Loud Noise, Speech in Car, and Comfort in Echo. Speech in Loud Noise is available on the 70 as an additional program that can be fitted to be user-selectable via button, but the other two are not.

The programs common to AudioSense in the 90s and 70s are: Calm Situation, Speech in Noise, Comfort in Noise, Music, Media Speech + mic, and Media Music + mic.

There is a fitting parameter which controls speed of AutoSense programming switching.

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