Your friend is most probably on the spectrum then @Neville… Hypersensitive Hearing, is a known spectrum condition, not that is a major issue, I am a tadge OCD myself, and I am dyslexic, numbers can also be problematic, there are loads of folks on the spectrum, some are extremely gifted individuals, but lots of folks don’t realise they have a spectrum issue… I have read, Hypersensitive Hearing has many drawbacks, but folks adapt, as we all do, with the opposite problem of not hearing enough… Cheers Kev
I think it may be an attentional thing. In a way kind of like tinnitus. If you focus on it, it can drive you crazy. If you can largely ignore it, no big deal. My son who is on the spectrum used to find the sound of pouring cereal painful. No issue now.
That being said, speech is crazy clear and it doesn’t matter where the speech is coming from. It truly was game changing for me. I wouldn’t mind hearing from someone else that is trialing these hearing aids to see if they experienced the same thing.
I’m currently trialling Sphere’s and had a different experience with a group in a noisy bar. I could hear the person directly across from me, and I could hear the person on my side. But if the person on my side was having a conversation with the person directly across from her, I couldn’t hear either of them. And if the person across and third down tried to talk to me, I couldn’t hear her at all. I envy your experience with Sphere in noisy situations, Jordan, but I haven’t had the same revelation, possibly because my hearing loss is way worse than yours.
I had an “Oh, WOW!” speech experience with my Sphere I90s today. I went to Walmart to get a COVID booster and a flu shot (I also found if you’ve had an RSV shot, you don’t need another one).
The pharmacist who showed up to shoot me up had a pretty deep voice, and the edges of it blended in with the background din of Walmart, making his speech a bit muddled for me. Even though I’d set the noise trigger level for DeepSonic processing to kick in at only moderate noise, it didn’t kick in, and nothing happened (maybe I didn’t let him get enough speech in). I switched to my manual Spheric Speech program. Bingo! Big improvement. I could understand him, but his voice didn’t stick out amazingly from what was left of the background din. So I tapped Adjust Program down at the bottom of the screen and tapped the SPEECH option. His voice then clearly stood out from the background remnants, almost like Speech Enhancer had kicked in. I saved the Spheric Speech with the SPEECH option as a new program. And I felt, “Oh boy! These I90s are worth the price I paid!”
My experience was hardly a controlled experiment; maybe some variation in the background noise led to the pharmacist’s enhanced speech. I had another experience in the same visit, standing by the entrance to the Walmart store. My were in the Automatic program, probably in Calm or Calm in Noise. A bunch of Hispanic guys walked in, talking loudly in Spanish. Bingo! Sphere noise reduction automatically kicked in (the first time I’ve ever been in the right environment for that), and I could clearly hear the Spanish above the din. It made me wonder what ranges of speech to noise can automatically trigger Sphere noise reduction. There must be a Goldilocks zone. With an SNR that is too low, speech probably can’t be detected by the HAs in the noise; with a speech volume that is too high, you have a good SNR and don’t need Spheric processing.
it might be useful to trigger the Spheric AI even in sound situations that are not bad enough to automatically turn it on. Maybe you are at a coffee shop reading a book and you just want to dial down the background sounds for some peace and quiet.
I’d suggest you wouldn’t want to turn on Spheric in those situations, since it chews up battery. I think a simpler solution would be to create a comfort in noise program that just makes everything softer.
Clarity boosts mids and highs. That helps me hear voice better.
FYI:
Me: In the Adjust Program settings for the Phonak MyPhonak app, what is the difference between the Speech and the Clarity option adjustments?
ChatGPT said:
In the myPhonak app, the Speech and Clarity options in the Adjust Program settings are designed to enhance specific aspects of sound for different listening situations, but they serve distinct purposes:
Speech: This option is generally intended to enhance speech intelligibility by emphasizing frequencies and dynamics that make spoken words clearer. Adjusting Speech typically enhances mid-to-high frequency sounds, which are important for understanding consonants and nuances in speech. It’s most useful in conversations, especially in quiet or moderately noisy environments, where picking up on speech details is the priority.
Clarity: The Clarity adjustment usually aims to make overall sound sharper and less muffled by focusing on broader frequency adjustments, enhancing the crispness of sounds rather than focusing solely on speech frequencies. It may make non-speech sounds (like environmental noises) clearer, improving the general sharpness of sound. This is helpful when listening to a variety of sounds rather than just conversations or when you need to discern subtle details in different environments.
In short, Speech is optimized to make spoken words more understandable, while Clarity provides a sharper, more balanced sound across different frequencies, which can be helpful in diverse listening situations where you want more definition in all sounds, not just speech.
I have UP receivers and custom molds. I can’t believe how giant the Phonak custom molds are. The Oticon molds, which I trialled just before this, were about half as big and fit really well
Thanks Jim. I am impressed with how useful ChatGPT is! I could see what changes Speech and Clarity made in the equalizer, but I still wasn’t sure when to choose which.
Oh, thanks very much Jordan. I had been ignoring the Health tab because it required you to sign up and create an account, and I really didn’t think Phonak needed to know how many steps I did in a day.
Blows my mind how many responses and “views” there have been for this thread and others.
“Artificial intelligence” is a powerful marketing tool.
The wonderful review has restored my faith after all the issues I’ve had getting my 3 year old Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R hearing aids setup. They’re finally “acceptable”.
Scottish Highlands
