My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

May I ask which provider?
I’ve had experience with oogvoororen, but they’re are others as well such as onlinehoortoestel.nl

Does the myPhonak app do that with Lumity devices as well? My Phonak Lumity devices always stay in the automatic program unless I manually change it.

I was fitted yesterday for the new Phonak Sphere 90’s. The appointment went well. Though I’m working with a “Licensed Hearing Instrument Specialist” rather than the audiologist under whom she works, I have so far found her thorough and knowledgeable. After the initial fitting I asked about real ear measurement, and she volunteered to do that. After the REM, we increased the high frequencies a bit. I also asked her to bump up the power some, as she initially had me at about 85% of full amplification, and I was finding things to be not quite bright enough. We bumped it up to about 90, which sounded good to me. She didn’t want to go higher until my follow up appt in 2 weeks, even though I’ve been wearing HA’s for about 12-14 years.

As I’m sure you are already aware, the Spheres are bigger than most other HA’s. It’s noticeable when handling them, but once on the ear, I can honestly say it’s been no issue whatsoever. I wear glasses all the time. If anything, I find the larger size a bit easier, since my hands are on the larger side, and the larger HA body makes it easier to locate and press the rocker switch,

My wife and I had dinner scheduled for last night, but our client had a migraine, so we postponed until tonight. I put on the Sphere’s this morning at 8am. I streamed music for about an hour, and used the ‘Spheric speech in loud noise’ program for just over 2 hours at dinner. It’s now a bit after midnight, so I’ve been wearing them 16 hours so far today, with 1 hour streaming and 2+ hours Sphere. The battery levels are now at 48 and 46%. I think it’s safe to say battery life will absolutely not be an issue for me on these aids.

Now, for the question on everyone’s mind - how did they do in Sphere mode? I have to admit, based upon other reviews, I was expecting a little better. Having said that, I was still very impressed. I briefly swapped in the Signia Charge n Go 90 HA’s I’ve been trialing, and they didn’t compare, even when I alternately adjusted the directionality and tried the speech in noise program. Despite many hours reprogramming and trying different settings, I just don’t care for the sound of the Signias, and I’ll definitely be returning them. I also swapped in my Oticon More HA’s, which I’ve been wearing for 3.5 years. I’ve tweaked the programming on them so they are set more or less optimally for my hearing. While they performed reasonably well in the restaurant, they didn’t come close to the Spheres.

What about the Spheres didn’t live up to my expectations? As some others have mentioned, I had minor difficulty hearing my wife’s voice, while our male dinner guest 5’ away came through loud and clear. At least some of this I attribute to my wife having been sick for the last 10 days or so. Her voice is nasal-sounding right now, and she’s speaking at a lower volume than normal for her, so her enunciation is diminished. I’m curious if or how much this improves after her voice returns to normal. As well, I had to bump up the HA volume a bit, which I suspect is due to the 90% amplification level vs full prescription.

While the Spheres didn’t eliminate or reduce the background noise to the degree I expected, they did do a great job of bringing up the speech levels and (especially) clarity. I’m wearing vented domes, so I’m sure custom molds or power domes would likely improve the reduction of background noise. I was definitely able to follow the conversation much better and with less effort than usual.

I haven’t yet connected the Spheres to my Noahlink and Target software to look at the programming, as I wanted to test the original fitting first. I’ll probably start tinkering tomorrow.

Another big question for me was how well the Spheres would work for me while playing guitar and other instruments, as well as listening to music. I am happy to report the Spheres do live up to my expectations in this area. They sound soooo much better to me than the Oticon Mores do for music. There’s no trace of the Oticon ‘warble’ or pitch shift, not even in the autosense program. They sound very natural (for hearing aids) for music in a way I could never get the Oticons to do. I don’t even need to switch programs, as the default program sounds great, as does the music program.

I’m sure I’ll have more observations as I settle into wearing the Spheres, and again when we increase the amplification level. I typically wear HA’s roughly 18 hours a day, so I should get a good feel for these pretty quickly. I’ll report back later.