Phonak Infinio Sphere: A review from a musician based in France

My first hearing aids were from Resound but I’ve been a Phonak user now for several years: Marvel M90 progressing to Paradise P90, and now to Infinio Sphere I90 which I signed a cheque for last week (after a 2 month trial). I started out with domes with the Resound aids but moved to acrylic vented custom moulds with the Phonak M90s. The current receivers are type P.

I have suspected Cogan Syndrome, a rare auto-immune disease that attacks my inner ears which is being treated with cortisone tablets and injections.

I’m a photographer (running photography workshops) and a guitarist/singer (playing in a local Blues band) and I’m pretty tech savvy. I’ve just passed my 80th birthday.

So, with my background out of the way, here’s my take on the Phonak Infinio Spheres:

They are for me, as many others have said, a real game changer. By the summer of this year, I had got to the point where I no longer enjoyed being in cafés, bistros, or restaurants. Here in SW France, most of these establishments have tiled floors, plastered ceilings, and either plastered or brick / stone walls, so with all those hard surfaces they are an acoustic nightmare. Two years ago I bought a Phonak Roger On IN which helped somewhat in those environments but I didn’t much like the quality of the sound when used as a microphone and I found that, by this summer, I was having to use it in ‘Pointing’ mode in order to hear someone speaking to me. So, as soon as I saw that the Spheres had been launched in the USA, I contacted my audiologist and so was one of the first on the waiting list when they became available here in France.

So, here’s my take on them…

I find that the Sphere I90s, in all circumstances bar two, are no better than the P90s.
The two ‘Pros’ are:

1. In noisy environments like the ones I described above, they are absolutely brilliant. They have cost me almost 4,000 euros BUT, for the first time in several years, I’ve been able to enjoy eating out with friends like a normal human being and, for me, that makes them worth every cent.

Two restaurants we particularly like are extremely popular but they both have absolutely diabolical acoustics and even people with normal hearing find conversations difficult in them. Now, with the Spheres, I can hear speech as well, if not better, than my wife and friends can! We were having lunch in one of them yesterday and there was ‘background’ music playing quite loudly. My wife (who is much younger than me and who has almost perfect hearing) asked if the music bothered me and should she ask them to turn down the volume. I said, “No, I can hardly hear it - just a vague quiet ‘thump’ from the bass”. However when I switched the aids out of Spheric Speech mode, just as a comparison test, I found that the music was indeed really loud and intrusive, as was the noise from the other diners, and conversation was truly impossible for me.

So, I no longer use the Roger On In as a mic, but have it sitting permanently in its docking station, streaming sound from my PC.

2. As soon as I get in the car and drive off, the Spheres switch into ‘Car’ mode, cutting out almost all the engine and road noise, leaving speech perfectly audible, even from passengers in the rear seats. This is way better than the Paradise P90s. It seems as if the Spheres aren’t switching into some form of Spheric mode in these circumstances because I don’t see the battery life numbers changing. Nevertheless, however Phonak have managed it, it works really well.

The Bluetooth connectivity of Phonak aids is renowned and I love it. The app has improved radically over the last few years although there is still room for improvement. I’ve had no connection issues with the M90s, P90s, or the Spheres. The aids connect immediately to my phone, my laptop, the Roger On IN, and my TV connector. The BT range has increased immensely with the Spheres which, ironically, leads me to the cons.

Cons:

1. I live in a 350 year old stone-built farmhouse with thick walls and a living space of 400 square metre (4,300 square feet). Previously, the Paradise P90s would connect automatically to my TV adapter whenever I walked into the lounge where we have a 63" Sony TV, and would disconnect whenever I left the room. However, with the Spheres, I have had to ask my audiologist to set the TV connection to manual because, if the TV is on, the Spheres connect to it (or stay connected) even when I am upstairs or a couple of rooms away from the TV. It’s a little thing, but it’s annoying.

2. As I said earlier, I’m a member of a Blues band and I need to decrease the overall sensitivity of the aids when we’re playing. With the M90s and P90s, this has never been an issue but, with the Spheres, the level I choose (between -1 and -5) does not stay consistent and will hop around in that range, even with different levels appearing randomly between the left and right channels. I’m going to take up the issue with Phonak.

General comments:

The size of the Spheres is not an issue for me, even though I wear glasses. They are not in the least bit uncomfortable and my wife says she can’t tell I’m wearing them, except when she’s standing behind me (which I think is the case for any aids).

I have custom acrylic moulds and they fit in the case without any problem when charging.

Battery life is easily on a par with the Paradise P90s and will last all day and evening, even with me doing a lot of streaming. I do tend to take a little siesta in the afternoons for 30 - 45 minutes and I put my aids on charge during that time (along with my phone and watch) so, for me they’ll run from 8 a.m. to way into the early hours of the following day.

Do I regret buying them? Absolutely not; as I said, the clarity of speech in noise has changed my social life around and I’ve gone from not wanting to go out to restaurants, parties and functions, to living a normal life and having fun wherever I am.

Would I recommend them to you? If you’re like me and enjoy socialising and eating out, then YES, definitely. If not, then no, they’re not worth the upgrade from the Paradise P90.

Footnote
Despite the excellent BT streaming function of Phonak aids, it’s frustrating not to be able to adjust the frequency range from within the Phonak app when streaming. For me, this can lead to streamed music sounding odd and speech sounding slightly muddy. However, I found a perfect cure for this by using an app called PowerAmp when playing music from my phone, using another app called VRadio to listen to radio broadcasts, and using a separate small ‘Headphone amplifier’ when using the TV adapter. The two apps incorporate an equaliser ( 8 and 5 band respectively) and the headphone amplifier (which I bought for 25 euros on Amazon) has a 7 band equaliser, together with a volume control.

Here is my audiogram from last January. For non-French speakers, Oreille= Ear, Droite = Right, and Gauche = Left

Excellent review. Out of curiosity if you are comfortable to respond:

1. What is diameter of your earmold vent? There is discussion about proper “closenness” of the acoustic coupling.

2. Have you had Real Ear Measurement during fitting?

I just tried it and it works perfectly! Brilliant! Thank you so much!

@firenzel said:

The behaviour you describe is AUTOMATIC.
In Target try to switch the “TV Connector activation” to → Manual (with beep)

Aw, yes! I messed that setting up. thanks
Ray