Oticon Intent 1, Phonak I90 Sphere, or Starkey Omega AI 24, which should I choose?

Thanks @flashb1024 for the welcome back. Indeed I had a major surgery earlier this year and a couple of subsequent other surgeries to treat complications from that surgery, so that’s how I met my max out of pocket limit like you guessed. Last year I had a different surgery that also caused me to meet my max out of pocket which earned me the Real. Too bad Oticon was high and mighty last year and decided to withhold their flagship Intent model from third party high volume hearing care brokers that contract out to health insurance companies, or I could have gotten the Intent last year already. Apparently they learned that it was a bad business mistake and reverted that policy this year, hence the Intent is back into play now.

Thanks for reminding me that I might not like the way the Phonak aids sound because I’ve been an Oticonian for so long now (for about 10 years). That’s a very true statement. I’m actually very happy with the Real, and I’m sure I’ll also probably be even more happy with the Intent. So my departure from Oticon aids this time is not because I want to change HA brand to replace my familiar brand. I’ll probably still wear my Real as my everyday main HAs because the warranty is still good for at least another couple of years anyway.

But the rationale is that if I could have another pair of HAs that can beat the Oticon aids in terms of noise suppression in very noisy situations, which the Phonak I90 Sphere seems to be living up to its name in doing so, both on paper and in real life anecdotal experience of many folks now, then why not have my backup pair be the Phonak I90 Sphere and use it for those rare occasions (I hardly go out to noisy places much anymore, but still do once in a while). After all, speech in noise is the holy grail, and the Phonak aid seems to be getting pretty close to it from what it seems.

Even if I find that I don’t like the Phonak sound or its operation as much as I prefer the Oticon sound, that’s OK because I’m not stuck with the Phonak sound anyway. I’d only have to deal with the Phonak sound when I need to use its spheric SIN mode occasionally, because the Real will be my everyday pair, and the Phonak will be my secondary backup pair that can be useful once in a while. Hope this rationale makes sense to folks about what I’m thinking.

I just can’t believe I’m in a situation where I’m blessed enough to have the luxury to ponder which top tier brand HAs I should get for a backup pair of HAs. I just got lucky that I landed an insurance company that offers HAs in their package on a yearly basis at 50% co-insurance, and be able to max out of my pocket to be able to have them pay for the whole thing. On top of that, they don’t have a cap on how much they will pay for HAs, so I get to pick the top tier level. But next year they no longer offer to sell that policy in my state anymore, so the timing couldn’t be more perfect anyway.

You are a valuable asset! Anything we can do to help please let us know

I had Oticon opn and trialed More, Real, Phonak 190 Sphere, and chose Intent 1. It is much better than all older models. I really wanted the Phonak Spheres to work for me based on rave reviews on this site, but they kept disconnecting and are not easy to just start back up. This mostly happened in grocery stores and outside my house and was really annoying. I don’t know why you would keep the new pair as backups and continue to wear the older pair, especially if you end up with the Intents…

Hi everyone, after careful consideration with all of your inputs, I’ve decided to go ahead to order the Phonak I90 Sphere. My main rationale for going with the Sphere is because it has the Sphere AI mode, which seems to have the best speech to noise ratio ranking from HearAdvisor (an independent lab source) compared to the Intent, which ranks second after the Sphere.

And I’ve also explained my situation in the post above that I already have a fairly new 1-year-old pair of Real, which I get to keep and continue to use under warranty. So for that reason, I don’t want to have this second pair be a replacement for my Real and relegate the Real to become a backup pair, but I want the new pair to be an addition to the Real, so that both can compliment each other. That’s why I picked the Phonak I90 Sphere, so that I’d have something different but also with the best speech to noise ranking to augment the Real in very noisy situations.

Once I have both, I plan to do thorough A to B comparisons between the 2 on the fly, for everyday use, and in noisy places, and since I own both at the same time and not limited just one or the other like in a trial, the A to B comparison will allow me to hear instant differences between them instead of relying on long term memory for the comparison. Of course I’ll share my comparison between the 2 here. I know it’d probably be more fair to compare the Intent vs the Sphere, but that’s what I have to work with, so we’ll go with that.

My normal everyday use of the Real so far is very “undemanding”, mostly at home since I’m retired, or to the stores or walks in the outdoors, etc. When I play tennis (which I hope to be able to resume in a few months) with my wife, I don’t wear hearing aids to avoid getting excessive sweating into them.

I’m already very happy with the Real for these “undemanding” environments, and don’t feel that the extra speech to noise ratio of the Intent would make a significant enough improvement over the Real in these normal environments. I consider the 4D sensor feature mostly a gimmick, and while the newer receiver type for the Intent is probably a step up, it’s also a double edge sword to switch to a proprietary receiver technology because after the warranty expires in 2 years on the Real, I’d rather have the universal receiver type that’s cheaper and easier to find than the Oticon proprietary type after the warranty expires. The built in battery that has to be sent in for replacement is another double edge sword for me. I’d rather have the more easily removable rechargeable battery that I can change myself after the warranty is over. Otherwise, it’d probably cost a lot to send the Intent in through official channels for battery replacement after the warranty is out.

As for the VAC+ thing, I like it, and I’m not missing out on it between the Real and the Intent. By the way, you and @e1405 have seem to prefer the other rationales and moved away from the HVAC, and even prefer much less digital processing to be happy. Even @e1405 thinks that the Intent 1 is overkill for him and he can probably go down to a 2 tier level because all that extra noise reduction available in the tier 1 is not even “wanted” by him. So there’s some conflicting opinion there between preferring the Intent but then not wanting the extra digital processing power that it has.

I guess my rationale is that I don’t feel a need to step up to the Intent because Real has already satisfied my normal daily need 100%. So given the opportunity to have another pair of HA, I’d rather explore another brand for something different, rather than opt for the extra improvement in the Intent that I don’t really need because 90% of my daily demand is already very simple and has been met by the Real already.

@Volusiano said:

Even @e1405 thinks that the Intent 1 is overkill for him and he can probably go down to a 2 tier level because all that extra noise reduction available in the tier 1 is not even “wanted” by him.

Yes, you’re right. I’ve settled on +6 dB of neural noise suppression (out of 12 dB) in my Intent’s P1, and that’s been ideal for pretty much all the noisy situations I’ve been in. At this point, I only have difficulties at the gym, but I should say I always wear my backups (More 1) to work out. So, I’ve been experimenting with NNS in challenging environments, and as it turns out — less has been better.

@Volusiano said:

I guess my rationale is that I don’t feel a need to step up to the Intent because Real has already satisfied my normal daily need 100%.

I’d probably do the same as you if I were in your shoes. Oticon hearing aids are great for most situations, and I’d definitely try the spheric approach for that extra mile if I had the means. Given what I know about myself and my hearing, I don’t think I’d adapt very well to it — but who knows!

Phonak issued a major software update they are calling the Ultra Sphere. Be sure to ask your audiologist to load it if not on the ones you order. Also ask for the new EasyGuard domes which are now refigured so you don’t have to replace filters!

Ultra-Easy: New “EasyGuard” System Tackles Wax Build-Up

The migration of wax and debris into hearing aid receiver ports has been a persistent problem for all RIC-style hearing aids, with the potential for reducing sound quality and even causing receiver failure. One of the standout innovations in Infinio Ultra is EasyGuard™, a patented wax-protection system that replaces traditional wax filters. The design uses an acoustically transparent membrane that seals the receiver from contaminants while allowing sound to pass freely, says Phonak.

@Voluisano. one of the reasons why I’m on phonak is the additional equipment I had before. tv-link from 2016 originally for compilot works on my phonak paradise, I’m getting an Audeo Sphere soon so I believe I’ll be able to use it on that too. tv link is an older version like tv conector. I use tv link to connect to a pc. I got the impression that it’s more practical than a usb bluetooth adapter, sometimes it didn’t work due to problems in windows.

So the Active Vent would only work on the Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aids then, according to that print-out? That seems quite limiting. I wonder why Phonak wouldn’t design all their new HA models to work with the Active Vent receivers. Or is that just an old brochure when the Paradise was the most current aid they have?

You can use them on later models as well I believe.

The “wear and go” feature of Oticon is what sold me when the OPN 1 first came out. I just put the hearing aids in and forgot about them. They were perfect from the word go and other than a few annoying incidents with the microphone “ding sequence” which never actually affected the performance beyond the irritation, they remained excellent for over 7 years. Towards the end battery life became an issue - and I upgraded to Intent 2. There has been an issue with noise cancelling - at least that’s what I’m putting it down to - where back-round noise like a computer fan intermittently gets treated as noise or not - causing the, for lack of a better description -intermittent hiss. Between working with my audioogist and Oticon, and getting used to it, it has become less irritating. Not having to futz around with settings, and the absolute TOTAL lack of feedback/squeal and other issues friends have had to put up with with other brands - and the hassle my dad went through with multiple programs being required, I am very happy with Oticon. Perhaps not Very Very VERY happy as I was with the OPNs, but much more than just “happy”!

OK, Mr. V, I accept your rationale, and wish you the best of luck with the SPEARS

Over the past 10 months I have tried the Rexton Reach, the Starkey Edge AI 24, the Oticon Intent 1, the Signia charge & Go BCT, the Widex Allure 440, the Widex Smart Ric 440, the Phonak Audeo Infinio Sphere I90 & the new Ultra firmware/software to the I90.The Rexton was my first ever HA and I must say I was impressed with the performance & the fine tuning that the HIS at Costco did. I was impressed with the quality of my own voice, however the speech in noise was what leed me to return them and try the Starkey Edge AI 24, The Edge was a good fit size wise, however the speech in noise was not as outstanding as their claim, feedback was definetly not an issue, own voice ok, not as good as the Rexton. That lead me to the Oticon Intent 1, I definetly liked the size of the Oticon as well as the speech in noise and no feed back. However my own voice was terrible and no amount of tunning could change that. I decided to try the Signia C & G BCT, again speech in noise was average, not great. However my own voice was definetly the best. Feed back was also non exsistant, from there I tried a Widex Smart Ric 440 at the suggestion of my AuD, the shap of the smart ric is very different & not comfortable to me, however the performance was above average.Speech in noise was better than most, feed back was ok, own voice almost as good as the signia C & G. It was suggested that I try the Widex Allure 440, Surprisingly the feedback on the Allure was the worst of all the HA’s and no amount of tunnning would correct that. Own voice was average, as was speech in noise. IMHO the Smart Ric performed better than the new Allure. My AuD finally suggested that I try the Phonak Sphere I90, even though I had reservations due to size and battery life. The Difference was nothing short of AMAZING. Speech in noise is the best of all, I have no feedback & while my own voice is not as good as with Signia or Smart Ric, my wonderful AuD has managed to make it acceptable. Auto sense works like a charm, I rarely have to make any adjustments. The only time was in a extremly loud restaurant & when I did I was able to carry on a conversation with the 3 other people at the table without difficulty. Last Thursday I was at the Hearing Clinic and they upgraded the HA to Ultra firmware/sofware & the improvements Phonak made are DEFINITELY noticeable. Auot Sense 7.0 is a big improvement, as Sphere Speech 2.0, Feedback is non-exsistant due to the new fitting program & my own voice even sounds better. Normally my battery is at 40 to 50% for an average day, now it is 60 to 70% after a 12/15 hour day. FYI, all HA’s were fitted & adjusted using REM & best practices on multple occasions. So for the foreseeable future the Phonak I90 Ultra are my HA’s they are the best I have tried, just wished they were a bit smaller in physical size.

Wow, you must have a wonderful audi who was willing to accommodate your trying out that many number of HA brands. It’s just great to hear your inputs on so many different HAs and your opinion of them. Glad to hear that you finally settled on the Sphere. I wonder why your audi didn’t suggest for you to try it right up front, instead of saving it for the last trial. That could have saved you a lot of time and effort, although it’s not really wasted to have knowledge of how most of the other HAs work out for you anyway.