My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

That’s mental!! You’d have to be a bit crazy to pay it, no HAs are worth that!

@JordanK, thank you for your ongoing review. It’s been very helpful.

If I may make a suggestion:Try leaving the Spheres in the spheric mode all day for a day.

Bring your old HAs with you for when the Spheres run out of battery life. See how long the Spheres last while in constant spheric mode. Go about your day being in quiet and loud environments, and see how you like being in spheric mode all day. If battery life were no issue would you prefer to stay in spheric mode all the time in all listening situations?

@ziploc said:

See how long the Spheres last while in constant spheric mode. Go about your day being in quiet and loud environments, and see how you like being in spheric mode all day.

I support this. I would just like to point out that it should be clear what power of this program has been established.

Its crazy how, in some places, people have to pay multiples of other place’s prices for HAs. But then, just look at how prices of medicines in USA are many multiples of the prices charged in other countries.

If one needs HAs just to get by in your daily life, you’ll pay what you have to, in order to just get on. Sadly, there’s nothing fair about it…

@JordanK said:

but background sounds are a bit wonky

Processing, compression or directional artefacts.

I can see that when you chop up the sound-field like that how it’s not optimised to sound natural. Or as one of my clients put it: Hearing via Committee.

That’s it exactly. Weird thing is that voices sound extremely crisp but backgrounds sounds are weird. What also makes it strange is that the microphones are full wide so you hear front and back at the same time but you get weird oscillation of background sounds from left to right depending on how loud the background sounds are on each side. That being said, you get used to it really quickly because you are so excited to be able to hear the speech that your brain tunes out the wonkiness of the background sounds. It really works well.

Jordan

This “you really don’t want to use the Sphere AI program for anything other than noisy environments” is a very important point to fully understand.

Phonak appears to have launched the Infinio range as part of its step-wise generational evolution strategy that attempts to improve functionality over previous generations, much as Lumity evolved from Paradise and Paradise evolved from Marvel. Step- wise improvements (hopefully) to further enhance HA capability. It must be assumed therefore that the Infinio range has made some marginal improvements within itself, including in the area of managing speech in noise.

However, on top of those evolutionary changes, Phonak has developed an additional AI-powered engine that hugely advances the manner in which speech in noise is dealt with and they have had to off-load THESE advances onto a seperate chip, to process sounds ON TOP OF the processes used by Infinio. Its like a seperate computer that is re–processing Infinio’s already improved outputs to RADICALLY improve the sounds presented at the eardrum. That seperate computer is the Sphere, that is linked into the Infinio and kicked into action as required. It has been designed for the speech/noise processing alone- to have it online all the time doesnt make sense.

In future generations, the capabilities of Sphere will be integrated into the base unit as further device down-sizing is facilitated by advances in technology, in the same way as microprocessors have been becoming more integrated and more capable ever since their first iterations.

So, Sphere is Speech in Noise processing on steroids located within an albeit fatter Infinio housing. Apart from that steroid-assisted processing, Infinio itself must be a step- change better than Lumity- otherwise, why would anyone buy it. By corollary, if the wearer seldom or never has occasion to NEED advanced speech in noise processing, why would a person add the cost of Sphere to an already powerful device?

Just my two cents, and an attempt on my part to clarify my own thinking as to where Sphere is positioned and where/how it should be used.

Was that the I90 without Sphere?

Someone’s got a beachfront property in Hawaii…

It’s the Sphere I90. Same audi quoted me $7900 for the Oticon Intent 1.

Wow. Am about to get my new aids in January/February and these prices are creeping me out. I have the OPN S1 since 4 years and while my hearing didn’t go bad, I feel it’s getting weaker and not the same OPN as before !
IMHO, We are being overpaid & sometimes I feel we are being punished to have hearing loss.

@Volusiano said:

local provider quoted me $8300 for the Sphere I90 in the US

Poor @Volusiano he might think you are rich. Try visiting him without the motorbike.

Yeah: I was thinking that too. After a couple of service calls I reckon the only winners will be the ailrlines and his wife’s handbag collection.

Oh I know. I am retired out of the consumer electronics industry and I occasionally had to explain to consumers that they had no warranty on that expensive new piece of gear that they bought from Europe to save $s.

Fortunately, prices are somewhat lower in the Netherlands, although I find the prices being asked quite steep. I now have the Audio Sphere 90 on trial. Cost if I wanted these would be €2750 each (€5500 a pair)…