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Phonak Paradise problems

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HI,

I have moderate hearing lose and have been wearing for about 4 years. I started with Siemens NHS HAs but soon bought a pair of Widex Passion. I love the sound but fear for their reliability as they approach the end of their 4 year warranty. I am trying out some Phonak Paradise 90/312 which were fitted 2 days ago. I’m struggling with many aspects. The sound quality on default is sharper than I’mused to. The domes don’t stay in my ears and finally the supposed brilliant Bluetooth connectivty is very flaky. Sure they connect to my phone for calls and streaming but they also have a mind of their own. When I’m on the default program and I pick up the phone, they will change to Bluetooth streaming and stay on that program until I manually switch them back to default. When I set them up for a custom music program they will revert to something else as soon as a message comes in or an email pops up. So for the time being I have turned off all Bluetooth connectivity in the hope that I will start to appreciate their qualities rather than their Bluetooth flakiness. Has anyone else experienced such?

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This is a long-known mistake with Paradise, Phonak promised that the problem will be solved through the next application that comes 5.0
Watch a recent video about the Naida bte hearing aid, Cliff aud mentioned about the problem.

If the sound is too sharp, you can mention to the Audiologist that it will soften sharp sounds and amplify, for example, deep sounds and set it to be so default.
But you have to try it, to see if the speech will be equally intelligible.

Hi Keith, Get your Audioligist to switch the Fitting Formula there are 7… Today my Audi switch me to
NAL-NL 2 to try out, it was rank rotten so I switched back to " Adaptive Phonak Digital Contrast 2.0" once I got home… What a relief :grinning: Good Luck, Cheers Kev.

Thanks for your input Markoo. I spoke to my audiologist this morning and he said it’s the first he’s heard of these problems. I have my next appointment in a month’s time. I’ll live with the sharpness as I think the month is time for me to adapt. I had a really good session listening to my stereo through speakers so I’m appreciating their sound quality. Streaming direct into the is fine for speech and video but quite hopeless for music.
Meanwhile the is switched off except when I stream radio during dog walking. So much for the hype which clalms its BT as the most advanced available. Phonak need to go back to the BT drawing board.

@KeithL said:

Streaming direct into the HAs is fine for speech and video but quite hopeless for music.
Meanwhile the BT is switched off except when I stream radio during dog walking. So much for the hype which clalms its BT as the most advanced available. Phonak need to go back to the BT drawing board.

These are all tuning issues. Your fitter should be able to fix you up.

Hi Raudrive,
What are tuning issues… streamed music and problems?
I have never come across that when streaming music directly sound better than pound shop ear buds. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great for spoken word and TV steaming. Speech is clear. Just very limited dynamically for music when I’m used to quality ear buds and headphones.

I cannot imagine my audiologist can “tune” out my BT problems when these problems are a known issue for Phonak. I hope i’m wrong.

@KeithL said:

Just very limited dynamically for music when I’m used to quality ear buds and headphones.

This could also be down the the type of dome you are using. Open domes are the worse for streaming music.

Edited

The type of dome changes the sound quality dramatically, advice that is seldom given by the audiologist.

I’m using large tulip domes which are just short of fully enclosed power domes. In the last 4 years I have built up quite a collection of domes, ranging from open, partially vented, to double power domes. I’m happy with the sound quality and comfort of my large tulip domes. Equally important is the fact that they stay in my ears, a problem seldom discussed… am I the only person with oily ear canals?

I have just read this from another post…
“In late spring, the myPhonak app’s 5.0 update will include the myPhonak Memory feature, which has been requested by consumers and hearing care professionals. It allows consumers to save a custom program from the app to the hearing aids, access last used custom program using the hearing aid’s multi-function button, or access other custom programs via the app. This update eliminates the need to remember a custom setting after a notification alert.”

Once custom programs are saved to the “myPhonak” app need not be used. This may solve my problem of the programs within myPhonak changing by themselves.

In reply to @KeithL

@KeithL said:

spoke to my audiologist this morning and he said it’s the first he’s heard of these problems

If you were talking about issues I’d strongly recommend to find another fitter, since obviously this one never fitted anyone who use BT with marvels or paradises. It’s several years long and very known issue. Just search on this forum would give you bunch of explanations and workarounds. And if they don’t know this, I seriously doubt their expertise.

And it is actually not phonak’s fault. It’s default behaviour of how android works, how BT intents are sent and received and so on. Some apps are using workaround to keep focus on themselves (eg podcast players), so I my guess is that myphonak will do the same. But it is not easy thing to push into the existing code, especially if that code is of average ‘quality’.

Also, yes, streaming programs can be adjusted per your complaints.

Waiting for a month if you have issues with comprehension or irritating sounds is 3.5 weeks too much if you ask me.

They can be remotely tweaked, if visits are rare due to corona.

My wild guess is that fitter didn’t follow best practices?
If you haven’t already, I suggest getting some basics through these two sources

best practices summarised by dr cliff27

https://blog.valuehearing.com.au/news/must-hearing-aid-features

https://blog.valuehearing.com.au/news/do-i-really-need-expensive-hearing-aid

And they have article about listening in noise, also recommended to read.

Both sources have youtube channel if you like that media instead.

I have paradise P90 rechargeable . They’re great. But Phonak phone app is sadly unsatisfactory. Every time I access the app, I have to reestablish connection no matter whether I’m using the default Autosense OS 4.0 or using any of the other programs. I’ve tried reloading the program but the same problem.
When I had Oticon OPNs, my phone app stayed connected to my hearing aids all day…never a problem. I’ve contact Phonak support about their app but have not gotten any response.

Hi Johnsoles, The app is improving all the time and is basically like all apps a work in progress… In comparrison to 2 years ago it is a delight, they will get it right eventually or perhaps nearly right. Cheers Kev.

Thanks Blacky for the interesting reading. connectivity is not the main reason for me changing . I was getting distortion which I think was linked to compression in the higher frequencies with my old Widex HAs. These Phonak HAs seem to be much better.
So for the time being I have BT disconnected most of the time, only hooking up when I want to stream radio during dog walking. I will press my audiologist for more information from Phonak. I still have a 90 day no quibble returns warranty which I have used before with this company 2 years ago, when I tried getting in canal HAs and failed miserably.

I have had my phonak p 90 for a week now. A hearing aid wearer for 20 yrs. Sever to profound hearing loss. The Paradise are wonderful. I can hear again. Bluetooth connects and works flawlessly. I suggest you go back to the orthaligist. Sarge

That’s good to hear Sarge. What phone are you using? I’ve just installed iPhone iOS 14.4 and have reconnected . Let’s see if my problems persist. The Paradise 90s are wonderful, giving a very clear high quality sound. BT connectivity is not that high on my list of wants.

Don’t know about you but I am 85 and pretty set in my ways. Hard to learn the new tricks with cell phones and hearing aids. Will take time to get adjusted. My last pair of were Resound, Nothing but trouble. The Paradise are great. I new my mouse had a clicker, but now I can hear it also. That and many other new sounds are showing up every day. There are still many features that i do not understand about , But I am so thrilled to hear BT is a minor thing and will pick up in time. good hearing, Sarge

In reply to @johnsoles

@johnsoles said:

But Phonak phone app is sadly unsatisfactory.

You’re being very polite :rofl:

I trained myself, if I need it, open and don’t look at it and count to 10 or so, then look at it and be happy that it’s connected :rofl:
Also, it takes somewhat longer if you’re using bt/roger/tv connector connection, or just stopped using it a second ago.
My guess is that chip/antenna isn’t capable of doing proper multiconnections between it and BTLE, but is switching or something, and it takes insanely long.

Wild guess is that proper chip/design wouldn’t cost much more but they didn’t realise before release how buggy is it.

Actually, with marvels BT stability is bad in some situations, with paradises they did significantly better that part with general BT connection stability, but they made classic <> LE switch terrible. On marvels it was bad, on paradises is worse in my experience, same phone.

So maybe with next gen chip, so 2 gen aids from now they’ll figure out both things.

Regarding the bluetooth switching, i went thru Phonak customer service about this, & they helped, tho it is still annoying. If you use an alternate program, it will revert to standard setting each time you get a call, text, alert, etc. unless… You go to phone settings, bluetooth settings, and turn off media audio. So basically you can enjoy alternate program OR bluetooth, but not both at the same time without interruption.

The issues are here the same regarding the app. Utterly annoying. The connection itselves however mostly is fine. I guess it’s merely an apple problem instead of a phonak problem. I love the paradises when it comes to using my phone. My good, finally no more hesitating to send or recieve calls anymore.

However there are serious other issues which cause me to doubt if I will keep these.

Hi ontrackmusic,
You must be using an Android phone. Apple iOS doesn’t allow you to turn off media audio. You have to disconnect R-Phonak hearing aid. I am sure when I tried this myPhonak custom programs still changed on their own accord.
However I found that the program didn’t change when using the factory preset music program, as opposed to a custom music program.
As mentioned before, myPhonak 5 release, due this spring, should help because it will allow you to save custom programs directly to the , instead of saving to phone.

Hi kl59, you are correct that i am using an android phone. Sorry about the iphone issue, but i will look forward to the upgrade in the myphonak app.

I have only used for 4 months, & mostly i am positive on the experience. However, when i play musical instruments, even the custom program i worked out with audiologist is unsatisfying, and only slightly better than just turning the HA volume way down.

I found that the custom programs are only for sounds “in the air”: they don’t function as an EQ for streaming sounds. Still, I am enjoying streaming audio at a comfortable volume without disturbing others who may not want to hear it.

I hope you can find a happy sound and thanks for sharing.

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