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AI and Custom Ear Molds

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I have been using Costco Hearing aids for over twelve years, and am currently wearing the Philips 9050 with domes. I continued to have issues hearing voices in noisy places and tried the Starkey Edge with custom ear molds. The university audiologist indicated that with my hearing loss customer ear molds were recommended. To get a good comparison between the Starkey and Philips, I also ordered and tried custom ear molds for the Philips. The custom ear molds did worse with both hearing aids and I switched back to domes. The Philip’s did better the vast majority of the time and the Starkey’s only did better only for some noisy situations, but would fail if it got a little more noisy. I am currently trying the Phonak Infinity Sphere and the University audiologist ordered those with custom ear molds. In general the Phonak’s perform better than the Starkey, but not as well as the Philips. For example, I was wearing the Phonak’s while talking with my daughter, in a quiet environment, and took them out to show her I could hear her better without hearing aids than with them. I also noticed that the expensive hearing aids do much worse in a car. While wearing the Phonak’s in noisy situations I can not tell whether it is switching the Spheric mode - they did not provide a manual program for Spheric mode - they thought it best to rely on Automatic mode.

I am curious why my experience with the new AI hearing aids is not what I am reading on the forums. And am also curious why the custom ear molds perform poorer for me than domes. Any insights or recommendations would be appreciated.

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I have been wearing aids for 20 years. Always either custom aids or MiniRite aids with custom ear molds, well accept for about 3 months that I struggled with domes. If your aids weren’t readjusted for the ear molds then your aids weren’t fitted correctly. I wear INTENT1 aids with custom acrylic ear molds and I have no issues with noisy environments. My hearing loss is severe in the speech range of frequencies.
My advice is to make sure the aids are always readjusted anytime you get different domes or ear molds. The least change in the acoustics in the ear canals while wearing aids change how well you hear.

I think that forum members would be able to offer more informed opinions if you would post your . (click on your icon at the top of the page, then profile (last image at bottom) then expand and preferences)

I’m not sure why hearing would be better with the aids out. I suspect the ear molds are not properly vented and/or the aids need adjusting. Hopefully one of the professionals or more knowledgeable wearers will weigh in.

Yes, the Starkey and Phonak were done at a local university. What was strange to me was when the professor was satisfied with the results for each, and turned and asked how she sounded, she sounded farther away than the four feet she was sitting from me and almost like there was a tunnel.

@sybnicholson said:

they did not provide a manual program for Spheric mode

You can do it yourself I think. Play some white noise on your phone (not through your aids!) at full volume. This is from memory (I don’t have the app installed any more). Somewhere on the app it will invite you to adjust the automatic program which should be ‘speech in loud noise’ and when you tap to confirm it should invite you to save the settings as a separate program.

@sybnicholson said:

I am curious why my experience with the new AI hearing aids is not what I am reading on the forums

Different people, different set of hearing issues. When I bought my OPN1 aids years ago, I’d read accounts here from of people overhearing conversations over on the next table in the restaurant. I doubt they lied. Never happened for me.

I wear the Philips, trialed the Sphere. I thought I saw the potential there but for five times the price the improvement I was actually getting wasn’t enough. Maybe the next iteration.

One thing to say here: the user’s previous long term experience and therefore neural preference is for the 9050.

Change is difficult, getting on with hearing aids that deliver ‘hearing by committee’ when you’ve been used to a more ‘stable’ set-up is going to be hard in the shorter term. That doesn’t mean the OP’s preference is wrong or that the dynamic mode settings can’t be made better: however if the OP finds they can’t engage with the dynamic set-up then moving forwards with these type of aids can be difficult.

I note that they haven’t tried the Intent/Encanta so it’s difficult to know whether it’s just the step away from the peculiarities of the DeMant sound that is causing the issue.

@sybnicholson said:

I can not tell whether it is switching the Spheric mode - they did not provide a manual program for Spheric mode

You can perform a self check of the active program , and also setup a special program for Spheric speech in loud noise by yourself.
see here

Phonak Infinio Sphere I90 Review (Another One!)
On Phonak Infinio Sphere you could create a manual “Spheric Speech in loud noise” programm by using the MyPhonak App. In his video this guy explaining how to do it. [I Used the Phonak Audeo SPHERE Infinio Hearing Aid for One MONTH...]
Phonak Infinio Sphere I90 Review (Another One!)
You have to go into an environment with loud noise where speech is present , if the noise is getting over the threshold (which is set by the fitter with the Target fitting-software) the autosense will invoke the program “Spheric Speech in Loud Noise” (this reduces the noise for better understanding speech). You can see and check the current autosense-program if you perform the steps in the MyPhonak App which GaryH and the guy in the video described. Another possibility: Have your fitter s…

I returned the Phonak’s. The Philips work better for me for the majority of situations I am in. The Phonak’s did slightly better in some loud environments, but not always, and then if the situation got slightly louder they did not help either.

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