Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Anyone have any issues using their Phonak Marvels outdoors?

This topic is closed.

81 replies12.6k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic

In reply to @focusandearnit

I agree with Yarrow’s comments. I am just over one month in and I find the Marvels to work very well outdoors for phone calls. I was golfing on Wednesday and my iPhone 7Plus was on the other side of the green about 30 feet away inside of my golf bag. I was getting ready to putt and my phone started ringing in my hearing aids. I hit the toggle and began speaking (i saw on my Apple Watch that it was a call I had to take from my mother’s nurse). I proceeded to putt while talking to the nurse and the other three guys on the green were freaking out. They had no idea I was wearing hearing aids and couldn’t figure out who I was talking to until I filled them in after the call. Call was flawless. I get calls all the time while golfing and although I generally don’t answer, when I do I don’t have any problems. Haven’t tried streaming music while outdoors but the quality of the music streaming when I use it is outstanding.

So I just finished washing my car for the past two hours (yeah I’m a detail nut). Had my phone in the garage along with my keys, etc. so as not to accidentally scratch the car. Anyway, had the iPhone streaming music to my Marvels for the entire two hours without any problem and at times I was at least 25 feet away from the phone and outdoors. No issues. Music streams and sounds great!!

In reply to @yarrowgordon

yarrowgordon, I’ve only listened to music with these Marvels in the default program (with music playing on SUPER home hi-fi) and with the Sennheiser headphones (with music running off the home server but played through my Macbook Pro). Both forms of listening are SUPERB!!!

I’ve got a list of things to ask my aud-guy about when I return, cuz from what I know, he just copied the program from my Phonak Audeo B-Direct aids over to the Marvels. There are SO many other features that I should look into tho, as I’m not even sure what they do (Sound Recover being one of them).

I used to have a dedicated “dumb ears” program for music that would NOT dampen down (as done by Noise Management), but I haven’t had to use that with Phonak aids at all for over a year now. The default does a really good job of delivering rich, full sound - and I’m SO very happy about that!

Last week I was in a internal-walled storeroom at the office about 30 feet from my phone, and suddenly I got a phone call through the Marvels. Almost jumped out of my skin. :slight_smile:

I have streamed music and podcasts while on the subway, no doubt surrounded with lots of other Bluetooth, not to mention all sorts of other interference, with zero problems. And also zero problems with streaming on the 15 minutes of walking to and from the subway twice a day.

In reply to @MDB

@MDB said:

Another thing puzzled me. It stated that only Signia and Brand X (Phonak) offered direct binaural streaming (there were more words and I didn’t catch the significance of details). I thought Resound, Oticon, Starkey and Widex all offered direct binaural streaming? Can anybody offer an explanation?

The key words here are DIRECT and CLASSIC Bluetooth

My KS6 Resounds & KS8 Rextons use Bluetooth LE, not Classic to directly to connect to my iPhone. They require a separate device, with a larger battery to connect using Bluetooth Classic.

Bluetooth LE was designed as a lower power, more battery efficient variant of the Bluetooth protocol.

That’s what the study is in essence comparing, but not the thing that puzzled me. I’ll quote the passage:

“While research clearly supports the use of bilateral processing, until recently, Signia was the only major hearing aid company to offer both the full exchange and processing of bilateral audio signals along with bilateral direct streaming. Today, there is a second manufacturer who also employs both of these processing features, which we will refer to as Brand X.”

Don’t Widex, Resound, Oticon and Starkey offer these two features?

ReSound offered that way back on the Linx / KS6 Bluetooth LE to Apple iOS devices worked well in bpoth ears.

Apple came up with the protocol that works well Google did not step up to mandate something similar for Android devices.

You cannot blame manufacturers for using Apple’s protocol and minimizing Android. The blame rests with Google & the Android device manufacturers.

With the newest micro circuit technology in Phonak Marvels, most any Android device can stream to both ears in stereo. The new technology is much more energy efficient and allows all day use from rechargeable ’s even with several hours of streaming music. I stream several hours of music every day from my Google Play Music subscription and still have 40 to 50% HA battery remaining at day’s end.

This opens up a whole new market for HA’s that will be using the same micro circuit technology since Android now has more than 80% of the market share in smartphones. When I discovered that Phonak would stream directly to my Android Pixel 3 XL using Bluetooth Classic, I dropped my order for a competitor and went with the Marvel’s instead. I’m extremely pleased!

TraderGary,

Just out of interest, is audibility and hearing in noise high on your list of priorities? I mean, what if the Resound or Oticon aids were to perform better for you? Are you not concerned that by choosing the Marvels, you might be sacrificing other aspects of your hearing?

My Marvels work very well in noisy conditions. I also recently had my one month follow up with my audiologist and she put me in the booth with my Marvels in and then proceeded to test my word comprehension with crowd noises. The test had the background noise gradually getting louder compared to the phrases I was supposed to identify and I scored very well.
Others on this forum have complained about the Oticion OPN performance in noisy environments. Comments I’ve read regarding the Marvel performance in noisy conditions have been positive.

I for one love my Oticon OPN1s in noisy environments and maybe they are too good at removing noise. I can be out hiking and can’t hear the wind at all. I have been in a fairly noisy restaurant and not hear what I call noise, but can hear and understand everyone talking around the area. I am going to the clinic tomorrow and I am going to ask for a music program or a program to allow me to hear nature in the outdoors.

I apologize if I offended OPN1 users. I was responding to the question from glucas in which he was asking if hearing in noisy environments was a priority for Marvel users. My main reasons for choosing the Marvels over the OPN1 hearing aids was the fact that the technology for the Marvels is current whereas the OPN1 technology is almost three years old. Also, I wanted the lithium rechargeable battery. I narrowed my search down to the Resound Quattros and the Marvels as both had latest technology and lithium ion rechargeable batteries. After I read Warneral’s experience with the Quattros and that she switched to the Marvels and found them superior for her, that impacted my choice to start with the Marvels. My experience with them has been so outstanding I decided to stay with them. I also watched almost all of the Dr. Cliff Olsen videos prior to making my decision to help me get better informed and he recently ranked the Marvels as the #1 hearing aids for 2019 (the Quattros finished second). I believe the reality of which is best is more a factor of the audiologist you work with and mine has been very very good. She personally wears the Widex Evoke hearing aids but sells Oticon, Resound, Phonak as well and is still testing the Marvels with favorable results. She also has switched a Quattro user and Oticon users over to the Marvels just in the last month.

I am not offended, I understand that everyone is different and it is always a personal choice or need. We come from different environmental backgrounds and that makes use different in defining what is noise. I grew up on a farm and love nature. But went in the service and lived in some very big and noisy cities. And worked in very noisy work environments. My hearing loss I’d due to traveling the world in the cargo hole of cargo jets. My wish is to hear all I can in nature now that I have retired and liv in a beautiful Natural Forest.

In reply to @glucas

Please understand that I’m brand new to hearing aids. (My hearing is close to normal up to 1.5K and then rolls off sharply after that so I have a significant high frequency loss.) I’ve gone for a good bit of my life knowing that I couldn’t hear the top one and a half octaves of my piano. I knew that I had lost the ability to hear that sweet shimmer of the violins in a symphony orchestra. I thought that I had lost this forever. I thought that hearing aids just blasted things louder for somebody that was hard of hearing. That’s where I’m coming from. I finally decided that I needed to do something because I was always asking people to repeat themselves and I was constantly accusing family members of mumbling.

So I started doing research on hearing aids on the Internet. I listened to every video that Dr. Cliff Olson has on YouTube. I decided on buying the Phonak Audeo Marvel as I have an Android Pixel 3 XL phone and Dr. Cliff said that this was the ONLY maker that streams high quality stereo directly to Android phones. So the ONLY HA I’ve ever used has been my Marvels and I’ve only had them since Dec 26th. All I can tell you is that I’m delirious to be able to hear the top octave of my piano (I majored in performance on piano and violin in college many years ago.) I can once again hear that luscious shimmer of a violin section. I can understand everything my wife and family members say. I can hear and understand people talking at tables around me in noisy restaurants. Streaming music from my Google Play Music subscription is in gorgeous high fidelity and rivals my best headphones (of course largely because my streaming is contoured to my hearing loss by my Phonak Marvels).

Anyway, everyone please excuse the overt enthusiasm of a new HA user who is suddenly able to hear sounds he hasn’t heard in decades!

In reply to @SaratogaLefty

@SaratogaLefty said:

Also, I wanted the lithium rechargeable battery.

Does anyone know what the lifespan of a rechargeable battery is? I understand that on a given day, you may have x% charge left, but after three years, will you need to toss the HAs (an exaggeration?) because the batteries no longer last through the day? This question applies to all brand HAs, not just Phonaks.

Thanks.

Phonak says that their rechargeable batteries in the Phonak Audeo Marvel are good for 6 (six) years. I can use my Marvels all day, listen to several hours of streaming music, and still have 40 to 50% battery left when I put them back on the charger at day’s end. The latest battery technology is apparently quite good.

Related discussions