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Phonak Infinio Sphere I90 Review (Another One!)

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@ellisonvoice said:

And… if you happen to be new to highly directional devices, do take care in traffic! Three times I came near to death walking on country roads when
vehicles approached from the rear, totally
unheard. And they were petrol/diesel, not super-quiet electrics.

This is why extreme noise reduction isn’t safe. You can’t block the outside world.
That’s fine inside a noisy bar or restaurant. Not so in train stations and airports, as you’ll miss the announcements.
For this reason, I asked my audiologist to create a Universal program based on the Live Music program (Signia). It allows all sounds in but with the automatic adjustments of universal. If it’s still too loud, I manually change to the noisy environment program.

In reply to @ellisonvoice

Live music is the one area I haven’t been able to assess just yet and is super important to me. I did however go out with some friends where music was playing over the speakers and I could actually hear what was playing. That was a first coming from my other . I know Paul Gilbert (guitar player) is wearing these and one of the faces of the HAs. I’ve seen him in a bunch of non HA related interviews and he is wearing these so that gives me hope that they do okay with live music. That said, I think the music thing is more of tweaking the settings than a manufacturer type of issue.

In reply to @pmc1978

100% This. My audiologist actually set up a specific default for this that doesn’t block any direction. I was also looking through the Phonak Target software and its pretty straight forward to not kill background noise or to not block it from the sides/rear. But by the default out of the box settings, these are pretty terrible for that and seem to block out quite a bit to the point where I wasn’t comfortable wearing them in areas where a car could come up behind me.

In reply to @Ryan_D

Guess I have to add, as indeed do others here, that success with music isn’t necessarily a manufacturer thing: it is clearly an audiologist kind of thing. A prominent UK tutor agreed with me - and undertook to revisit curriculum.
Just last week, I was called back to the NHS clinic for a review of my ancient Phonak M70s. Two new audiologists - not the brilliant young woman who set me up so well originally - stared at one another when I asked about the traditional ignoring of tones below 200 Hz. They were aware that music goes down to 41 at least, but then said ‘Anyway no hearing aid can reproduce that low’. Not true, of course! We had to navigate around terminology: compression to them meant frequency shifting, to me dynamic reduction. Then we tiptoed into the difference between comping and peak limiting. I explained I work in sound: allowed to be a bloody know-all!
Fortunately we stayed friendly and cheerful, learning from each other. And, wonder of wonders, I have a further session with the original audio. I think it might be a booking error - but I ain’t sayin!

Wow, this a great review - packed with insight and observations. I can relate to many of your comments on Phonak aids - too aggressive on the background noise reduction, which includes someone talking to you in that very background of noise.

Also the SIZE, my gawd, the SIZE! I could not wear them. it makes me wonder if an aid with so much power would be better designed like some kind of Apple AirPod? After all, these AirPods are ubiquitous and almost “stylish” to be seen wearing. O’course I’d opt for a much brighter color than the typical WHITE ones folks wear.

But maybe Phonak needs a paradigm shift. Not everyone even WANTS to wear a bean behind the ear! They can be heavy. They can interfere with eyeglasses/sunglasses. My Lumity Life aid give me all kinds of hair rustle - so much so that I sometimes consider just SHAVING that hair off over my ears - like give them an inch of bald margin to avoid the rustling.

I’d also find the Sphere’s “shifting” noises very annoying. If there’s static or some obvious signal that says, “HOLD ON! I’m about to jack up the SPEECH for ya, laddie!” I’d find that very intrusive and almost stressful.

Kudos to Phonak - and other makers - for continuing the quest for our Holy Grail: speech comprehension in loud noise. Do keep us posted! TONS of detail here to puff a bubble pipe over.

In reply to @ellisonvoice

@ellisonvoice said:

And… if you happen to be new to highly directional devices, do take care in traffic!

Ditto for me! When I switched from old Phonaks to a newer Oticon OPN, I got the programs befuddled and accidentally put my Oticon aids into full directional “Speech in Noise”… which ended up cutting out all the noise from behind. Just a few strolls on a quiet mountain road convinced me: I DONE SOMETHING WRONG! I called my audi, who reminded me that the Oticon program lineup (and how to cycle through them) is different from what I was used to with my older Phonaks.

In reply to @Ryan_D

I had my KS10s warranty serviced almost at the 3 year threshold. Based on the inscrutable description of what Phonak did, my audiologist concluded they had either been heavily rebuilt or were basically new .

I even got a brand new charger and, best of all, the used battery pack I bought off eBay came back as a new box fresh unit. I guess Phonak maybe had a storeroom full of them.

In reply to @1Bluejay

Take care! As well as the deaf-to-the rear feature, some progs include ‘gating’ that drastically reduces the volume of any sounds deemed irrelevant by our little earhole bots. It obliterates the sweetest parts of classical music!

In reply to @Ryan_D

I had this exact same question on a Facebook forum. I walk my dogs in the street every day and need to hear cars coming up behind me. I can reognize the sound now with my old hearing aids but was wondering about the Infinio and Infinio Sphere, whether this is a concern to discuss with my audiologist when I eventually go to discuss which of these hearing aids I will go with. Is this the kind of setting you could change on the phone app when out walking?

I have been waiting for a review by a person with moderate to severe hearing loss. Thanks ! I will definitely get the new Infinio Sphere I90 hearing aids. I would like to ask if anyone knows if the receiver sizes are different from the Paradise P90R aids. I have custom earmolds, and am wondering if they could be used with the new aids.

@ramarvin said:

I would like to ask if anyone knows if the receiver sizes are different from the Paradise P90R aids. I have custom earmolds, and am wondering if they could be used with the new aids.

No, the Paradise has a 3-pin connection, while the Infinio has a new 8-pin connection. See Dr. Cliff’s review on YouTube and another topic of Infinio Review with :maple_leaf: (very like that marking).

Regarding the receiver size, I do not know. I doubt there are any changes in size.

In reply to @1Bluejay

They are pretty big, I won’t even try to downplay that but I felt that they gave me enough benefit to just deal with it. Being able to go to a loud bar/restaurant with my wife and hear her is worth having a bigger aid IMO. I didn’t notice it being any heavier but they are fatties for sure.

The sphere shifting noise only happened a few times so its intermittent and lasted about 1/8th of a second. So not a huge deal but probably a software bug they need to address.

Lots of benefits to these but they’re not the holy grail. They certainly are a big step towards the idea of a holy grail though. I thought they were good enough to not get the new 9050 (Oticon) from Costco and shell out the extra money for these.

In reply to @PCamp

There is a 360 program they can add that turns off the directionality of the mics. I also dove into the Target fitting software and there are tons of options in there to kill background reduction, crank it up, apply it to the sides/back, etc. Out of the box, I think Phonak is crazy to make these so restricting sounding but it seems very easy to open them up and avoid the noise reduction issues.

Also, they do have accelerometers in them that can tell when you’re moving and they will kill the beam forming if you’re walking. Lots of settings to tweak but you shouldn’t worry about this too much.

I also bought a Noahlink 2 the other day so when I get my order in for the Spheres, I’m going to self program and will post an update on how much you can open these up compared to something like an Oticon

In reply to @ramarvin

They changed the way the receivers connect and they have more pins now. So unfortunately, you have to get new molds made I believe unless you have the slim tips where you can swap the receivers out? My audi wasn’t too sure about that yet but from my trials, the reciever ends don’t look any different but I really have no idea.

Same parent company, same tech, same shell, same as all the Costco brands… they’re just under a different name but the same . KS10s were the Phonak P90s, Rexton is Widex, etc. None of this is new news

Correct, Rexton is Signia. I misspoke. But the point remains. You can argue tiny details all you want, and I’m not going to continue in this debate but for all intensive purposes, the 9050s are the Intents. Maybe there are small insignificant differences but thats the same argument is the K10s were not the P90s because of xyz thing that have no impact on the performance of the .

Maybe I’m completely wrong here but it doesn’t matter. Keeping this on the topic of the Phonak Spheres which blow away everything I’ve tried for Speech in Noise. The rest is really to be determined :slight_smile:

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