Phonak Lumity vs Oticon More

@Baltazard (post edit to the succeeding post just below me) → I’ve noticed from this forum that many folks with moderately severe hearing loss in the lower frequencies to severe to profound hearing loss in the high frequencies don’t tend to do well with Oticon and find the Phonak aids much better suited for them.

I’m just guessing here that the heavier hearing loss limits the wide dynamic operating range rather severely, and with a much narrower dynamic range, there’s simply not enough room for nuances for the open paradigm to work as effectively. You end up having too many sounds in play due to the open paradigm, competing with each other in a much narrower dynamic range, and things tend become a cacophony that’s nearly impossible to sort out. The Phonak more aggressively isolates out the noise and give more weight to the speech, which nicely eliminates and alleviates the competition between too many sounds.

@jonifoz That’s Marvel(ous), we need More reviews like yours
Joke a side, I am puzzled, such a stark difference between More and Lumity, I guess each one is different.

Good to hear you are happy with Lumity, that’s what most users are saying in here on this forum.

I hope that @John_R can make an informed decision.
@John_R What Oticon do you have at the moment and what is your audiogram look like?

I think your analysis is plausible, but can it be absolutely true based on the empirical knowledge of what we know about Oticon wearers out there? Or put it this way, if it was ineffective for everyone with a severe to profound loss in the high frequencies, this would be well known in the industry and nobody would fit patients using Oticon with those losses.

I think personally that something else is going on here in terms of the ear physiology, by way of explanation.

Despite my guessing analysis, I must say that I have also seen folks with moderately severe to severe and profound hearing loss who stick with their Oticon aids as well. So I wouldn’t say that my guessing analysis is universally common that it would almost always hold true in most cases.

I fully agree that there is also something else going on as well. I think one’s personal preference to the listening approach, or one’s expectation of what their hearing aids can do for them, would also play a big role in the suitability of a hearing aid. If you have moderately severe to severe hearing loss, but you really want to be able to hear more sounds, and you adopt a positive attitude and really give it a try with the Oticon hearing aid, maybe you’d have a better chance of making the Oticon aids work for you, as compared to someone who prefers to hear less sounds and just wants to understand speech better, tries the Oticon and the Phonak, and instantly like the Phonak because it meets their expectation better.

But there’s probably also some physiological hearing limitation as well. I remember @bluejay as an example. She tried the Oticon OPN and really wanted it to work for her, so she definitely gets points for having a positive attitude and really wanted to try, but in the end it just didn’t work out and she switched to the Phonak Audeo B Direct (IIRC), then Marvel and Paradise later, and it works out much better for her since. IIRC, she has moderately severe hearing loss, even at low frequencies.

Actually, I thought it was @1Bluejay that tried the OPNs and they were unsuitable. She has a severe to profound loss across the board.

@Volusiano said:

I remember @bluejay as an example. She tried the Oticon OPN and really wanted it to work for her, so she definitely gets points for having a positive attitude and really wanted to try, but in the end it just didn’t work out and she switched to the Phonak Audeo B Direct (IIRC), then Marvel and Paradise later, and it works out much better for her since. IIRC, she has moderately severe hearing loss, even at low frequencies.

Ow, you’ve got an encyclopedic memory! That is me on all counts except for the level of hearing loss. Once I swapped in my audiogram from 2022 I was AGOG to see how low it goes. Not much left to play around with … and I sleep BEAUTIFULLY every night not able to hear a bomb going off.

@glucas said:

Actually, I thought it was @1Bluejay that tried the OPNs and they were unsuitable. She has a severe to profound loss across the board.

Yep! You get a gold star for that summary! I simply could not comprehend speech in ANY kind of enviroment as I recall. I think the Oticon OPN is perhaps made for a brain + ear connection that I simply don’t have. Luckily, Phonak Lumity Life aids have worked out, but like all of us, I’m ever pining away for that better, better, BEST solution!

I’m pretty sure that the open paradigm extends to the More and Real. Oticon’s BrainHearing philosophy started out with the OPN. Below is the screenshot of the Oticon whitepaper on the DNN, just capturing the conclusion of the whole whitepaper. It clearly said that its DNN (the MoreSoundIntellegence) is built on the BrainHearing philosophy and gives access to the full sound scene…

Yep, small flock of 2 I think? I WIN in the cinderblock category.

I agree that the FULL sound scene Oticon delivered was just way too much for my weary brain to process.

@Volusiano I’ve noticed that too. Something to look forward to. I wonder if the quick replacmentt of the Paradise HA’s was because of performance?

I have had Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s for going on two years… I thought they were terrible. It was the setup that was bad. Now they are acceptable…Couple of months ago I was cursing my HA’s.