Phonak Marvel: DSL 5 Adult to Adaptive Phonak Digital

I’m not sure what they’re doing in this paper either. It almost sounds like they’re seeing how close the
First Fit comes to taget. If so, seems pretty meaningless.

I too, had never heard of the terms until last May. I have Phonak Naida V90up since Dec 17 long time phonak ha wearer. Have worn Phanak Naida since 2014 was not fitted right. Word recognition was terrible. My audi added a manual speech in noise program in April of 2019 because the phonak auto sense programming was terrible which helped to stabilize my ha in different listening environments. But I still had terrible word recognition. Read about the different ha fitting formulas on this forum. Tried NAL-NL2 did not help but one poster said the DSL v5a really helped him so I switched and my word recognition really went up. This forum has proven invaluable to me and countless others who want to improve their hearing health.

@MDB said:

I’m not sure what they’re doing in this paper either. It almost sounds like they’re seeing how close the First Fit comes to taget. If so, seems pretty meaningless.

Yes, that seemed like a strange thing to do. The real issue is how does that target sound? Does it improve speech recognition? They did do some of that, but it seemed to be lost in all the reporting of fit accuracy. The paper certainly has a worthy objective, but the report was poorly written. It seemed that the report got sidetracked into trying show the value in REM, when the objective should have been to determine the value of the specific formulas.

Hi folks

Tis very interesting and for me tis likely I will keep on trying different setups… I do enjoy tinkering with my aids, but unfortunately I lost all my settings on my Laptop last week, when it died on me! I had to buy a new Window’s laptop as everything else I have is Apple! Yesterday I did a fresh installation of Target, did all the updates and decided to try my audiogram again instead of the direct version, seemed fine but definitely it was not perfect, so today I changed to “NAL-NL2” and that made a big difference in overall clarity, so I will try this for a while hopefully and see how it goes… With my inquisitive nature I will probably try every setting at some point or other? Meanwhile, I have still to face my audiologist next week, and I am likely to get my knuckles rapped for their settings no longer appearing in these marvels! Cheers Kev

I’m sure you audiologist will have all the various settings and formulas saved and backed up. No sweat for them to restore them. That said it is a crap shoot just changing formulas with the software and not doing the REM adjustment to target. You basically don’t know what the levels actually are in your ears.

@Jthomas said:

I’ve been using the same audiologist for at least 20 years and he has never mentioned that to me.

I suspect most audiologists think it is over the head of most clients and don’t want to take the time to explain it to them. And unfortunately some want to get you in and out with the least time expended on their part. And to be fair they also have a lot of experience in what formula may be best for you. That however is their judgement, and can’t hear what you hear. There is always some merit in trial and error.

@Sierra said:

I suspect most audiologists think it is over the head of most clients and don’t want to take the time to explain it to them.

I don’t think that is the case with my audiologist. He knows I am a retired engineering professor. He once loaned me his Noah interface box over a weekend to let me experiment with my own settings in a classroom. But that was quite a few years ago.

Annnnnd… Target’s “Feedback and real ear test” (FARET) seems to have a repeatability problem, at least for me.

For your viewing convenience, here’s a copy of the NAL-NL2 gain prescription I posted above in this thread, based on the FARET from a few days ago:

I’m unaware of any ambient noise or physical insertion differences between the original and new test results.

The fitter at Costco that does my KS8 aids uses the Critical Gain test to determine feedback potential, but does not allow it to limit the gain. She limits the gain manually based on my input on when I have feedback. She knows pretty much where it will be based on what the Critical Gain tells her.

Target allows the fitter to tune gain beyond the feedback threshold.

I mentioned in my original “four fitting formulas” post that there was an unexplained difference in feedback threshold between APD and DSL. I’m guessing that there’s some factor in the feedback test that is as yet unknown to me.

I need to follow this!

DaveL

@orgullodemexico said:

FWIW for every audi that swears by it, I can find 4-5 that laugh at it.

I mean, it does take some skill. As a clinician if you suck at it, you may struggle to see the benefit.

@orgullodemexico said:

I was told it might be time to consider a C.I., to which I am opposed.

Why, out of curiosity?

The M.D. was quite frank, which I appreciate.

1. There is a learning curve and training involved to re-learn how to hear
2. There may continue to be difficulty hearing speech in high noise environments, but does vary from patient to patient.
3. Equipment malfunction would require another surgery
4. I don’t want to wear the head piece on top of the scalp

Okay, but. . . all that being said, if you’re going from 10% to 80% speech clarity is it worth it?

Sometimes I think people are a bit unclear on what it means to “re-learn” how to hear. It’s less like learning a new language and more like strengthening a muscle. You have to work at it, but once your brain figures it out things sound pretty normal again.