Phonak APD vs. DSL fitting formulas for "ski-slope" audiograms

I have this concern too.

@Neville said:

The guiding ideal of DSL is audibility and the guiding ideal of APD is selling hearing aids.

…i.e., APD avoids harshness or discomfort that might alienate the user – regardless, I suppose, of the experience level indicated for the client. In this regard I note that Philips HearingSuite software for the (Costco) HearLink HAs offers two proprietary rationales: Fit4Speech (default) and Fit4Comfort. Help text says that Fit4Comfort is a non-linear rationale based on Fit4Speech and is most suitable for first-time users.

That’s a tuff question.

A big one for me was tuning each ear independently.

Learning from a pro that most self fitters under fit hearing aids also helped me a bunch. This led me to raise gains until uncomfortable then deal with it for a couple weeks. This was a very carefully done based on environments and frequency.

The last thing for me was frequency lowering. This was a game changer for me. My upper frequencies are gone so frequency lowering brought sounds in I have not heard in years.

Eventually my hearing got much worse in mid and lower frequencies and aids did not help enough for communication. I went the CI route which has been life changing.

how different is the CL setting? compared to hearing aids? I haven’t seen it, so I’m interested in your experience, what you saw when they did it to you

I tried the dsl formula for a week on Unitron hearing aids. Although at first it seems that dsl is louder and I can hear sounds better, but I noticed that I don’t understand speech more often. So I switched back to the Nal nl2. Nalnl2 turned out to be quieter, but speech is better understood, and I noticed that over time the brain learns to listen to those quieter sounds that Dsl amplifies to be louder. They are Unitron hearing aids that do not have the phonak formula… I use another pair of phonak audeo paradise hearing aids, and I use the phonak formula and my impression was that the phonak has better accentuated deeper sounds. But over time, I slightly adjusted both hearing aids, so now the sounds are so similar to me that I hardly notice the difference due to the formula. I wear the unitron for more than half a day and then I wear the Phonak.

question, when buying a new processor, do I need to set it up again from scratch or can I use the old settings from the old processor?

@markoo355 said:

, when buying a new processor, do I need to set it up again from scratch or can I use the old settings from the old processor?

With Cochlear brand processors I have had a K2 processor replaced due to a Bluetooth issue. A new one arrived in the mail within two days. It was programmed and ready to use at that time. My audiologist was not involved at all that I know of.

Just a little more info. Using Naida Paradise P90. Note my loss is profound about 2 Khz and up. My first fit from the audi was APD and Sound Recover. I self tuned for minor improvement including the Sound Recover, but stuck with the APD. I can hear the birds sing and this is the best I have had in the 40 years with hearing aids - half my life.

So, I am pretty much in agreement with what this thread says. Thanks for the info.