Phonak Lumity Naida 90 UP BTE Review

About turn! Ten-Hut!

OK. I have seen the light, and for me it is not APD 2.0. Drove into Cambridge, at speed, well, on the motorway, as once you get into the city centre, the traffic crawls to a Cambridge university mafia slow speed regulated by rigged traffic lights designed to discourage you going into the city. On the way in I am having misgivings about my comprehension of the radio. There is too much bass, even in the speech in noise program.

I get to French class and whilst I am impressed on the way, being able to hear voices along the pavements and the general ambient noise alongside the traffic, the problems begin. It’s a new class so I introduce myself to the French teacher. Typically French, her voice is devoid of consonants and I am having difficulty understanding her speech. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the sensation, but it’s like waves of pure mid tones where clarity is lost and the whole thing is unintelligible. We are in a classroom and the acoustics are not great, and I am really struggling now. Ironically I can understand her French better, but her English instructions are lost.

We get into groups and the noise gets louder. I put on the speech in noise program and I am really struggling. This is poor. I have forgotten my Roger, so I have to muddle through.

OK. I come home and in the morning, decide to make some adjustments. I go to Target and in “Automatic Fine Tuning” there is a setting where you can fix problems if you are encountering women’s voices if they are unintelligible. I select that and then listen to “Peppa Pig” in French on youtube. I am still having the same problem. Children’s and women’s voices sound very elongated, without bass or crispness.

I go back to NAL-NL2. The default recalculation based on my audiogram is way too soft. I am a bit sad about abandoning APD 2.0 at this point, because I liked the music and general depth. However, I have to persist with NAL-NL2. I put up the loudness 3 or 4 times, using the “Automatic Fine Tuning” and wondering why I have to do this, as the REM procedure should have been more accurate here from Specsavers, but then I realised that REM wasn’t performed on the BTE, it was performed on the Ric and the audiologist was just using the audiogram captured. I go downstairs and listen to music and I am not getting the same vibes as before, so I am feeling at this point really nervous, as I cannot use APD 2.0 and music is sounding rubbish with NAL-NL2. I am having thoughts at this point of Oticon Xceed and Cochlear implants and cursing the whole thing. I get out my Oticon Dynamo and listen to the music on the Alexa and it is FANTASTIC, and I wonder what the hell is going on. The Oticon Dynamo fitting formula is NAL-NL2, the Lumity SP fitting formula is NAL-NL2, but the music, specifically the drums etc, the sharpness of the Dynamo is just brilliant. Last ditch attempt, I go upstairs, this time I decide to just keep putting the volume up (using the Automatic Fine Tuning) - repeatedly, and going downstairs to check. Eventually it is too bassy. Then I realise the difference - it is the Mids !!! The Mids on the dynamo are on steroids! So I go back to the Lumitys and reduce the lows and put up the Mids. BINGO!!! The music now sounds similar to the Dynamos.

Next challenge. The tennis club again. I meet up in the car park with someone and walk to the club. I am thinking this sounds clear - I am really surprised. Get into the clubhouse and a usually challenging acoustic environment is suddenly clear as well. Wait, not only can I easily hear the 2 people I am talking to, but I can also hear the people a couple of metres away talking, and can switch between them in terms of comprehension. What the hell! We walk into the indoor bubble, again I am comprehending people easily, not just up close, but my comprehension has improved at a distance, somebody said they want their ball back - “it’s a number 1” I can hear, from a diagonal position on the other side of the neighbouring court. What the hell! I don’t think I have heard something with that clarity from distance before.

So now, I am sticking with NAL-Nl2. I am not happy with the whole REM procedure now of Specsavers and wonder why it has taken me 3 to 4 weeks to arrive at this point. However, I am now a lot more optimistic for next week’s French class. I will try and go to a pub and hopefully the speech in noise should be less of a problem this time around. Will report back.

Apologies for the long rambling details.

@glucas said:

Last ditch attempt, I go upstairs, this time I decide to just keep putting the volume up (using the Automatic Fine Tuning) - repeatedly, and going downstairs to check.

Is it the MPOs you adjusted?

Peter

As per my eBay link, that’s allegedly for 2 aids @danka… As with all things on eBay, you pays your money, and takes your chances! I don’t advocate for this seller or any others, it was by way of example, to demonstrate that price difference… Now, having read a few of this sellers feedback/reviews (not all) they would appear to be legit, but if I were thinking of buying from them, then a more serious investigation would be in order! Trial aids, can I believe be set to any level, 30/50/70 or 90 for assessment purposes, the trial is timed, a month or 6 weeks might be the longest, so the clock would have to be reset, after each trial period, I believe you get an annoying intermittent beep, until you take them back to an A.uD or HIS, in this case, you would reset them in Target, most likely a 5 minute job, once a month or so, so no great hardship… Cheers Kev

Well - it was via the “Automatic Fine Tuning” tab - increase loudness of all sounds. I believe this would adjust the gain - not the MPO. I would have to check. It may do both.

Edit: No - this did not adjust the MPO, just the gain parameters.

@kevels55
Very much so! I’ve just noticed that I’d removed the dampers on the Nathos Autos!

I appreciate your post very much.

I started with HA’s over 20 years ago.
I would never have thought that it would be more stressful replacing my Phonak hearing aids with new Phonak hearing aids than getting the first ones.

I made real headway one day when the owner of this site posted a Phonak program which compensated for the use of masks. The instructions were easy to follow. They boosted mid and high frequencies using the myPhonak APP. I still use that today. It’s magic with my hearing loss.

Your long rambling details really help me. I want my Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s to work better. Seems like two steps forward, one step back. On bad days it’s just two steps back.

DaveL

Thanks for the support as this is a minefield. I totally empathise with your last comment.

The problem, and I think this must be true for a lot of others in our situation, no matter what the aids, is trying to achieve optimal performance, and wondering just how much capability there is left in the aids to achieve that. But it’s difficult to assess this capability and what tweaks have to be made because there are various situations and one has to experience them all and then make the tweaks, and then re-evaluate. And if one tweak has a knock on effect, then you have to think again.

So I think personally that the consultation times (in my case - I can’t speak for others) have been woefully too short before I walked out of the door and in the case of my last 2 to 3 fits (with the first aid I trialled - the Specsavers Advance - Unitron) they have resulted in poor performance in noise and/or for me a belief that I have to accept a trade off i.e. poor music in the case of the original ric to achieve better comprehension overall.

It has taken, in my case, a conversion to the BTE, to realise that there is a better solution out there, but even in doing that I was given a fitting formula that did not work, so I had to switch. God knows what this whole procedure is like to the uninitiated, as I am an experienced wearer. It makes me think that most people who reject their first fit hearing aids end up switching just because of poor programming and just get lucky with their eventual hearing aid choices because it happens to be better programmed just by chance, nothing to do with the capability of the original aids. I read so many posts like this on here. Obviously, a really skilled audiologist who is au fait with their products will do a much better job.

@glucas
I agree.
Setup is paramount.
I blamed my hearing aids when I couldn’t hear.

Last night, I had to pick up paint and some tools up from Inverness (Screwfix) prior to the last game of the pool league season, so I traveled up with one of my diesel vans, on my own, it’s a small van, Vauxhall Corsa Eco Sport 1.3, it isn’t particularly quiet though… On the way back, I had to drop off one of our team members, a young lad whom I coached, he is a fine player now… Anyway, I’m thinking, this is going to be difficult having a conversation over the 25 miles to his place, simply because, he is quiet, extremely so, quieter than the proverbial church mouse, it’s almost a whisper… To my utmost surprise we could converse, quite surprising really, as I usually struggle badly with Mark in a perfect environment… Now, I wasn’t catching everything, that would have been virtually impossible, but that is the first time I have had a rudimentary conversation in any vehicle, with Mark (unless I put a Roger ALD on him) and we normally travel a fair bit together to various pool comps, but he is usually at a slight distance, either in the front or in the back, away from me! These Naída Lumity UP’s are excellent in noise, but I believe, the removal of the dampers has made a noticeable improvement… Cheers Kev

It’s going to be the first thing I do when the Naida’s arrive
Peter

@danka said:

Buying online has to be very careful. Once the money is in the other pocket, it is very hard to get back.

@danka
had ordered the Phonak Naida L UP Trials in January from this seller brownstore_18 and the seller is defenitly legit. As Import tax in Germany i paid 65 Euro. The parcel arrived very well/secure packed. The Aids were in original Phonak packaging. Seller also included a dehumidifier.
The seller already set them to level 90
With the new Target fitting software you can choose no maximum 10 weeks for the trial period !
Here a photo

@firenzel said:

All phonak Trial HAs have an Roger type02 receiver pre-installed !

That’s a big saving on its own @firenzel … Type (02) Roger Receivers cost around £600 each, new here in the UK, and they are pre installed, 10 weeks to reloading a trial setup, seems fairly reasonable thank you for that confirmation… Cheers Kev

The scam is he’s stating “BUT THESE ARE MANUFACTURE UPGRADED DEVICES AS A FULL VERSION FOREVER NOT FOR A TRIAL PERIOD” so upgraded by Sonova just for him…

I think we all know @tenkan hearing aid manufacturers, and some sellers tend to be somewhat liberal with the truth, to me that’s not a major issue… To my way of thinking, the issues are, is the seller shipping these aids out, do you get a set of new aids, are they functional, it would seem they are, and at about a 6th of the UK price, that brings them into a lot of folks price range, with the proviso, they have Target & Noahlink Wireless, @firenzel tells us they also have 2 x Roger X Type (02) Licenses pre installed, that’s a massive bonus, Type (02) licenses work with any Roger device, and you don’t need the Roger X Installer, the installer’s are very difficult to come by, 2 x free licenses is around a £1200 saving, this might prove a slight temptation for some, if you are a Roger ALD user, a 5 minute resetting the timer every 10 weeks, seems to me like a reasonable trade off, when you consider the massive savings… At the end of the day, these Naida Lumity Trials, give folks a viable or perhaps affordable option, and I am all for affordability… Cheers Kev