First Timer - Going with Phonak Sphere

Thank you. I am considering buying LACE AI Pro from Dr. Cliff’s discount link because of its reportedly scientifically proven additional +6 dB SNR after training, which is massive, but it is quite expensive.

Regarding Resound, I did my research long ago and again after the Resound Vivia announcement, but I have found no benefit from their binaural offering (EDIT: this is in my case, YMMV. END OF EDIT).

Their solution is only binaural streaming, which is not useful in my case, as I want to isolate my HA ear as much as possible.

Cochlear and Resound are way behind AB and Phonak. For example, Sonova products have microphone coupling to enable narrower beamforming.

Other reasons:

1. my main hearing useful ear is still righ (HA) ear

2. Resound Vivia (even if coupled with a Nucleus sound processor) admittedly has AI, but it is very limited without a second Vivia on the other ear. This is simply because Resound AI still relies on binaural coupling and beamforming, which is more like AI-trained AutoSense in Phonak.

DNN in Phonak Sphere is useful even in one-microphone HAs; however, they managed to get additional benefits from two-microphone input, e.g. when you don’t want to hear omnidirectionally with DNN, as @jim_lewis mentioned in another topic.

3. Sphere offers me verified, probably much better denoising than Resound and much better real-world battery life

4. I have Roger On V1 and Roger Select

5. I am really interested in titanium long earmolds with no or pressure vent. Similar to @AudioBlip 's apart he has larger vents:

Phonak Audeo Sphere Infinio (I90) Review

I just tried to see if the titanium cShells (lumity life) can fit in the new Sphere case, and at least mine do. I’m sure the experience may be a little different for others with larger molds. [spheregocase]

Phonak Audeo Sphere Infinio (I90) Review

My cShells have 3.1-4.5mm vents and it has the M Receiver / AV. I’m not entirely sure if they are AOV, but if I had to guess, I’d say yes they are? The cShells are awesome because there’s no itch (as @wkroeger mentioned), they’re durable, and I get better audio experience with them. The rough surface and because of how deep the mold are where it continues past the first bend, allow the receivers to stay in my ears and have better grip. For the new Sphere RICs, I will have to get new titanium c…

6. Regarding earmolds, I also want the receiver output as close to the eardrum as possible. This is more feasible with titanium (due to thinner earmold walls) and the possibility of using a Phonak EasyView Otoblock.

fsn_easyview_otoblock.pdf (322.3 KB)

7. I realized that the race to make RIC hearing aids as small as possible is annoying and uncomfortable for my larger ears especially when comes to battery size. I have also a problem using the rocker switch button on my recent Phonak Paradise because it wobbles medially and laterally. And yes, I also have thin-framed glasses.
   I hope that the larger housing of the Sphere will be more comfortable.

8. I have an Android phone, and Phonak is more well-tried in that case than Resound. Bluetooth Classic is also a big convenience.

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate the detailed reply.

I’ll try a few tweaks, see if it helps me.

I never heard about it. I have only one ear hearing loss, so I purchased the Intent 2 hearing aid.
Regrettably, in my country, the Sphere L70 hearing aid is not yet available for purchase. However, the Sphere L90 is available, but it is significantly more expensive.

@Bimodal_user said:

Not really. I am asymmetrical and Sphere is the only HA that can use unilateral AI.
Oticon Intents, Starkey Edge AI and Resound Vivia seem to require binaural fitting to achieve the full potential of their DNNs. For me Phonak Sphere it’s probably the only option.

@tenkan said:

Really I didn’t know that, do you use it with your CI for other stuff, streaming etc

Yes, that information is firmly hidden; I don’t know why Phonak didn’t enunciate it more clearly.

I know about it from this video (specifically ~6:10):

I think something was also in phonak.com/evisence4 webpages.

I’m waiting for the N8 and Sphere to update to Bluetooth LE; perhaps then the lag will be equal.

My phone also has Auracast broadcasting support.

So, I’m back in here.

After buying the Spheres in February, I returned them during the trial period. I think a combination of lack of acceptance that I needed them combined with misguided vanity led me to cut short the trial period. I survived in work meetings since by positioning myself in the best seat to suit my best ear and heard ‘enough’ to get by. And obviously struggled in noisy situations.

A month ago, I woke up one morning with a muffled hearing feeling in my better ear. Some crackling and bassy noises while driving from road noise and listening to music on the radio, and a distinct drop in clarity. Went to my GP who prescribed steroid spray, suspecting a blocked eustachian tube. Tried it for a week, no improvement - went back to GP, he referred me to an ENT specialist, said I may have sinus issues or an infection and may need a scan. I’m seeing the ENT specialist this Friday.

GP said I should have a hearing test before I see the ENT, so last Friday, I had it and there’s a significant drop in audibility in my better left ear, all now within the cookie bite area, so I definitely have word recognition issues worse than ever now.

So, I guess I am back to needing aids or aid - more so than ever, and not that I didn’t need them before either.

I presume I’ll need to see what’s the reason for my latest drop - when I pop my nose and ears it clears up for a few seconds and then settles back to muffled again - I presume that points towards a blockage of some sort? And I presume also, I’d need to wait to get that sorted before I could get aids tuned up properly?

I think also I just thought the Spheres were gigantic and noticeable - are the Resound Vivia 9s sleeker and as good performance wise?

So today I ordered the Signia Silk iX 9 Charge and Go in a Cros configuration. But wondering should I chance 2 aided Phonak Infino Spheres instead?

So far great. At this point I don’t have pain or itchiness. I don’t even know they are there. The streaming sound quality is night and day better. The ability of these units to make changes without input is great. Now I only really tried 2 units. I am not sure 20 hours with the nonspheres counts. But either way these seem as good as expected. My issues, at this point , are probably genetic. So my tinnitus has become worse. Both while using the aids and without. I have always had tinnitus and yes it has gotten worse, but it never really bothered me. I am 100% sure it’s the main reason I have hearing issues, because I now find I am hearing the tinnitus instead of my surroundings. Maybe it was always like that and now just more obvious. I have downloaded and used the belltone app and honestly it makes it much worse. The audiologist suggested I go back to the ENT, but I am not hopeful. Anyway the spheres seem great. Haven’t had many issues or need to adjust settings except in quite environments I need to make them louder to compensate for tinnitus.

Great feedback on your phonak assimilation. Your right on. Patience is key. I’m 20 days in. My audiologist just took my prescription level from 85% , ( his initial setting on shipment ) , to 90% and what a difference. Automatic setting working better. He said a small 5% jump might be my best setting . The 95-110% ramp up could be overkill and damaging to eardrum. He said use it and evaluate in different scenarios. Did you step up to 100% and keep getting more improvement with each incremental increase? More the better?

Things continued to improve incrementally for me over time due to a number of factors: my own brain’s adaptation to the new inputs, fine-tuning by the audiologist to address specific “issues” I had in certain challenging situations, and then after about a year a switch from open domes to Power Domes to provide a somewhat more closed fitting. I’m now 15 months into life with Spheres and haven’t yet been in to the audiologist to do the firmware upgrade to Ultra. But yes: I’m now at “100%” and things got better along the way including my mild tinnitus.

My un-aided audiogram and speech recognition scores haven’t changed appreciably since the beginning, but continued (if not continuous) adjustment has given me improved performance. Generally, I let the aids do their thing automatically with good results. My more closed (than at the beginning) fitting is giving me a much better experience in loud environments (restaurants, pubs, crowds, parties, etc) since more of the aids’ processing power is controlling what gets into my ear canal and more of the unprocessed ambient sound is blocked. That dome change has provided the single biggest improvement in my own experience, and especially in loud noise I feel I’m getting much more of the value these not-inexpensive aids can provide through the processing power I paid for (if that makes sense). I haven’t personally had issues with occlusion, so it is tempting to me to try molds even though my audiogram doesn’t completely indicate I’m a natural candidate.

More specialized or specific to my situation: The more-closed fitting has also improved my experience with streaming music and podcasts - those things sound more natural to me now with more ambient sound filtered out/blocked, but it still falls short of the audio fullness experienced with, say, completely closed inputs like earbuds. I’ve tweaked the e.q. at the source (my music streaming app, Spotify) to boost the frequencies that seem missing before that sound hits the aids and that has helped with the fidelity I experience while streaming. I’m also an amateur guitarist and the audiologist and I have worked through some settings specific to Making music since that experience is quite different than simply Listening to music. Not to get side-tracked, but that’s a completely different set of challenges since the aids’ anti-feedback strategies and pitch-shifting (among other things) can really mess with the sound of an instrument to a musician. But over time, through programming intervention at a pretty granular level (at least to me) that has improved too. It’s a pretty tough nut to crack and required some experimentation and good communication with the audiologist to figure out what to tweak.

One last specialized sidebar: I’m a near-daily solo birdwatcher through a local forest where I walk for exercise and I’ve found that I can use the app to adjust the noise/focus/dynamic sliders pretty radically to be able to hear small twittering things seemingly 50 yards into the forest. For me that’s a pretty wild side benefit, though it took my brain a while to be able to determine directionality using that user-created specialized setting.

‘Hope some of that early morning/not enough coffee yet jabber helps.

REM is part of the service my audiologist provides. Apparently helpful to him to gauge starting parameters and prescribe, but I think tweaking on top of that along the way has ultimately been more helpful to me. Everyone’s situation is so different: hearing deficit, insurance, the audiologist, technology levels, the aids you trial/buy, what’s included in terms of follow-up… there is no “magic” or one-size-fits-all solution, it doesn’t seem to me.

I think members of this forum (including me) tend to assume that their own situation or experience is universal when there are so many variables in play and the language to describe that experience is so imprecise it can be quite challenging to diagnose a problem or describe a potential solution - to just try and help each other. That’s as true here (in my experience) as it is in an audiologist’s office.