Has Anyone Gone from Naida to Audeo for the Infinio?

Sorry @Bimodal_user, I never got the chance to try them, although I wanted too… The Specsavers Audiologist, didn’t think they would be powerful enough for my level of loss, so she basically declined to go ahead… Strangely enough, I have been wearing my old Marvel 90 RIC’s with 13 batteries, for approximately 6 months now, they are around 5-6 years old, and still function perfectly, I was having horrendous problems with my moulds, for the Naida Lumity 90’s, and no one was willing to make a set of Titanium BTE moulds, 3 times I tried different other combos of moulds, hard acrylic, soft acrylic and hypoallergenic silicone, always to fail… So in the end, I just gave up, tis a PITA, to change Bluetooth regularly, but apart from that, the marvels work okay, they aren’t on the same level as the Lumity’s, but needs must! Cheers Kev

Thank you both, @Kevels55 and @Bimodal_user!! Much appreciated.

So the titanium cShells are made not by Phonak, but by another private manufacturer? Interesting. I though titanium is 3D printed, but maybe it is something I don’t know.

I believe Vietnam for Titanium moulds, I could be wrong? Here in the UK, Phonak recently opened a mould making Lab, suffice to say, according to my info, returns have been horrendous, this would also be my experience, it isn’t just ill fitting moulds, the moulds come back to you looking nothing like you actually requested, order full shell with no vents, and you’ll likely get half shell with 2mm vents, it would appear, no one actually reads the instructions, and just make the ill fitting mould, in whatever style they feel like, and they will throw in a couple of large vents for good measure, it doesn’t appear they have any QC…Or perhaps, the Quality Control are learning as the go along, getting a good set of moulds, that fit correctly, and they are what you requested, is a shot in the dark, to put it mildly… They don’t even make a new set, if they botched up the first set, they repair them, and send them back, ffs they didn’t fit first time round, why would they fit next time round, with the vents now plugged with silicone, which I am allergic too…Cheers Kev

Titanium cshells cost a lot more to manufacture due to the cost of the materials. They also have a poor appearance outside of the ear canal.

It is for these reasons that Phonak won’t manufacture titanium shells in larger sizes that extend outside of the ear canal.

Titanium shells are manufactured in Vietnam but Sonova likely own the manufacturing plant.

Yeah @danka, thank you for your suggestion, I had thought of gold plated, but the thought of Titanium appeals to me… And I am not really a gold person, I wear one piece of gold, my wedding ring, tis “Pictish” style engraved, it rarely comes off my finger… Tis rather worn nowadays. Cheers Kev

@codergeek2015 said:

And if so, have you made the leap to using c-shell acrylic earmolds as opposed to standard full shell acrylic?

I only have second hand experience, but if you’re going from acrylic to acrylic there’s a better chance of it working out for you than going silicone to acrylic. Your thresholds aren’t so severe that the UP RIC receiver would necessarily be underpowered. Often the big issue that users have when switching from a BTE to a RIC is that a full shell silicone mold does a better job keeping in the lows and when they switch to an acrylic canal mold the sound quality is thinner than they would like. But acrylic doesn’t do as good a job at that, so if you’ve been happy in acrylic anyway then you may be fine. It also depends a lot on your ear canal–if you’re canal is big enough that it allows for a pretty big, deep mold then it’s also going to be closer to the sound that you are used to. Other than that, the UP receiver just doesn’t have the same MPO as the UP BTE, which I THINK in your case should be fine but you’ll have to try it and see. Users with more loss who are eeking out the very edge of the UP range often experience the reduced power as sort of a reduction in their hearing bubble.

Other complaints I’ve gotten with a switch is that the wire is thin and floppy compared to the tube, and users are annoyed that the device is more likely to flip off of the ear or find that the thin wire at the top of the pinna cuts in a bit more and is more uncomfortable depending on their anatomy. But it can equally go the other way, where the user is impressed with the device being considerably smaller and lighter than what they’ve been used to. If your ear canal is fairly straight and you are worried about retention, and you are used to a full shell mold, you can consider adding a skeleton lock or a semi-skeleton. The irritating thing with THAT is that the charger well can be a bit too small to comfortably accomodate a skeleton, and you might have to wrangle it a bit or leave the lid open. But again, hard to predict without trying.

Overall, it’s not an automatic fail. I think it would be worth giving it a go.

@kevels55 said:

From my perspective, it would be me whom would actually pay for these, and I don’t actually care about price or indeed aesthetics

The machines that print the titanium molds probably aren’t even machined to make full shell molds, if you know what I mean. Starkey used to offer a gold dip option.

Thank you, @Neville for your great insights! I appreciate them! What do you think of going from acrylic (my usual style ear mold) to a titanium c-shell?

@codergeek2015 said:

What do you think of going from acrylic (my usual style ear mold) to a titanium c-shell?

There is discussion about titanium here, read more than a paricular posts linked below:

My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

[IMG_9097] [IMG_9098] As promised, my titanium earmolds with Ultrapower receivers.Made by Phonak.

My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

I hope all was well at the hospital. We are still curious about otoplasties. In the meantime I received mine, but they should be remade - too weak receiver, too large vent, too long wire, too short removal filament There is a rough surface, which makes insertion harder, but it seems I have trained my insertion technique (more spiral that straight): [Screenshot_20250403_045003_Gallery] [Screenshot_20250403_044922_Gallery] [Screenshot_20250403_044850_G…

My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

Yes, I was referring to titanium a bit, but maybe I was inaccurate. Acrylic can also do a great job, but titanium can be placed deeper due to the possibility of thinner walls. Deeper placement, achieving the bony part of the ear canal, greatly decreases the occlusion effect; however, the probability of that effect is already low due to your low-frequency hearing loss. From my experience (YMMV; I advise consulting with your audiologist), I recommend: Deep placement (from the deep silicone im…

@codergeek2015 said:

What do you think of going from acrylic (my usual style ear mold) to a titanium c-shell?

I guess my question would be: To what end? You don’t want a smaller device I don’t think–I expect if you’ve been wearing full shell molds for a long time you actually have a reasonably sized canal that will accommodate the UP receiver. If you actually don’t and somehow the titanium would allow it because of the very little amount of extra space it provides then yes definitely. You aren’t a candidate for the active vent receiver. Do you want a custom tip that is hard to break? Are you worried that you might drop the acrylic tip on a ceramic floor? Those could be good reasons to go titanium, it has more longevity although the bushing also tends to pop off the end and it’s harder to glue than acrylic. If it’s free, sure why not, but generally titanium is an up-charge. Six of one half a dozen of the other.

Are titanium c-shells only available on the ITE devices? I was under the impression they may be available on the usual BTE device, except it would be titanium c-shell instead of acrylic.

Just FYI, @Neville these are my aids now - the Phonak Naida B 90 UP plus CROS:

@codergeek2015 said:

I’m curious if anyone has made the leap to Audeo from the Naidas

I did this many years ago. I learned about cochlea dead zones that do not need to be calculated in fitting hearing aids. So I down graded to the Audio aids with the 13 battery. This worked great for me for a few years.

Not knowing all the details of your hearing loss and looking at your audiogram I can not see you using UP aids at all. In fact SP aids are borderline too powerful for your loss. Your fitters idea of using the new Audio I aids is a great one. They should work out well for you.