Phonak Audeo S Smart IX...it is UNBEARABLE...HELP!

@German said:

@gmlr

Well GMLR, I share your opinion.
Trying the Phonaks since October 2010, we are on the same level since the end of november. emails were answered once and then no answer any more by Phonak.
My audio finally called help. Phonak ist near by my city.
So tomorrow is the day of the last chance, because an audio directly from phonak will do the fitting.
I am full of hope that the Phonak-audio would do a great job tomorrow, but my enthusiasm is gone.
Unfortunately I do not have the oticons to compare anymore.

I am sorry for your bad experience. I thing Phonak should do much more to help and train audis. This is a big company with good hearing aids, but as per I am reading here, its customer service is very poor. My audi has told that since the beginning (but I did not pay much attention due that I know she is inclined on Resound). Cross my fingers for you with the new fitting with the Phonak audi.

@Um_bongo said:

FFS.
Phonak Spice products have an in-built parameter check that runs within the feedback manager. This check evaluates the canal resonances and applies the appropriate levels of gain at initial fit. If you modify the physical acoustics of the aid (dome size/tubing/mould) at any point you need to run the feedback manager again to re-model the output of the aid.

Thanks Um Bongo, I guess this could give some light to audis (at least to start on right foot). But I guess it is insufficient and totally unfair for us, the customers. As per you have told here, we are buying a Ferrari, I mean a last generation high tech product, but audis are not ready to give the service. Thanks for your support to this forum. I guess you are busy, but I see you always take the time to help us here. Thanks for that again.

@gmlr said:

Well, this “kind of stories” is my life, it´s my reality. I don´t understand your atitude. I don´t know you, but you sound like if you were paid by Phonak. I want to believe that these aids are very good, for that reason I am making a try on them (otherwise I had tested others, right?). At this point I don´t care who is guilty, if Phonak for not training audis or audis for not asking for training before sell anything. Maybe Phonak is not customer service focused, maybe audis only think about money, instead the client. Anyway, I want to hear, understand, and interact with other people, and until now I can´t do it, because Phonak or audis are not doing their job. So, finally I came back to my post, where I was asking for help, and sorry, but you are not helping at all. So, if you are not being part of solutions, maybe it would be better you don´t answer these kind of posts, so you are not getting sick again… I guess there are (as per I have read) many people with same problems than me. For your information, I had already posted in this forum several days ago an ad asking for a good audi in Orlando. Unfortunatelly nobody has answered yet.

Hey gmlr,

I wasn’t trying to be rude to you. I don’t work for Phonak (I’m an exec at a large IT company). I’m actually quite sympathetic to your situation and I would certainly like to help you or anyone else within this discussion group. I have spent quite a bit of time posting my impressions of the Smart IXs in an effort to pass along useful information to other people who are hearing impaired

What bothered me about this discussion thread is that there are audiologists out there who are trying to fit these new and highly sophisticated hearing aids without getting the proper training prior. Phonak should not allow this to happen. It would be kinda like letting people drive cars without requiring them to take driving lessons and get a license.

These hearing aids are awesome when they are fitted properly. I think these are the best hearing aids that I have ever owned. If there is no audiologist in your area that knows how to fit these hearing aids, my suggestion is to go with another brand of hearing aid that can be properly supported in your area by a knowledgeable audiologist. The only other option is to wait a few months until the audiologists in your area have had a bit more time to learn the new technology.

Jordan.

Hi all,

I’m in agreement with JordanK on two points: first - that the Phonak Spice range is very advanced and quite good and second - that they are only as good as the audi that fits them. Too many currently haven’t been trained to do the fitting properly.

The feedback test that the Target software contains is new and different. Many audiologists don’t understand how critical it is to programming the Spice aids correctly. Not only do they need to run the test with the hearing aids in your ears, they also need to ensure that the parameters around the fitting (type of tip, etc.) have been entered correctly before the test begins. WHENEVER a change is made during a fitting that would impact the parameters, they need to be changed in the software and the feedback test needs to be run again.

From my own experience and reading many other posts, the majority of issues being experienced with these aids are the result of either no feedback test being run or the test being run improperly (including the parameters set incorrectly).

Even my own audiologist who is knowledgeable about Phonak and experienced fitting their HAs has been surprised by the power of feedback test and the important role it is playing in setting up a problem-free fitting. Its the combination of the new Target software and the way this feedback test seems to be working with the Spice HAs that is causing the confusion and complexity (combined with the lack of training so far).

When my audi has had a question, he has simply picked up the phone with me sitting with him and called Phonak. The customer service people have answered quickly and have been able to guide him to a successful outcome. I’m lucky that he is open to asking. I’m sure some audiologists don’t want to admit they don’t know something and try to bluff their way through to bad results.

Chris

@German said:

I do not understand:
Some say: Let the Target Software do everything and do not change it.

and the same people say:
Audios have no training and should not do the fitting of the spice aids without training.

Training…what for ?

To let the software do the automatic fitting ?

I had the feedback test with my aids in my ears.

Before the test the aids were good. During the feedback test I noticed that the voices suddenly got higher.
At the end of the feedback test the aids were hardly hearable, even the beginning melody was very low.

That means after the feedback test with the aids in my ears we had a worse result.

In the months since October I had some programing, that was good and some that was bad. Mostly bad, only my first YES work well.
The problem is: You could not say why it was good or bad, you could not say what the aids are doing or changing.

The reason, why I will see a Phonak-direct-audio is:
My audio called phonak several times and got different answers. Contrary answers. (I myself got no answers)

Yes, it looks like there is a lot of misinformation about Spice platform and Target software. Hopefully somebody at Phonak receive some feedback from customers, so they do something fast.

gmlr, I would recommend when you look for a new audi. Find one who also fits oticon agil pro aids. that way you can compare the audeo s with the oticon agil pro. and let us know.

On another subject, it would be fascinating to know that the feed back manager is the root of all issues that people had with the audeo smart ix aid when it comes to speech in noise performance. Can somebody with ipfg test this out? create a new program and not run the feed back manager and test it in noise and then run the feed back manager and then test it again in noise to see if there’s a significant improvement.

But I find this to be a shortcoming with ipfg. Probably something that should be done automatically with the option to turn it off. Considering how dumb down it is.

http://www.hearingaidforums.com/showthread.php?t=71982

@Um_bongo said:

Was the feedback manager run at the beginning of the first fit? It not only does the feedback, but also models the gain: it seems like your audiologist might not have appreciated that.

It should sort out most of the problems you are getting.

@cnicklo said:

Hi all,

I’m in agreement with JordanK on two points: first - that the Phonak Spice range is very advanced and quite good and second - that they are only as good as the audi that fits them. Too many currently haven’t been trained to do the fitting properly.

The feedback test that the Target software contains is new and different. Many audiologists don’t understand how critical it is to programming the Spice aids correctly. Not only do they need to run the test with the hearing aids in your ears, they also need to ensure that the parameters around the fitting (type of tip, etc.) have been entered correctly before the test begins. WHENEVER a change is made during a fitting that would impact the parameters, they need to be changed in the software and the feedback test needs to be run again.

From my own experience and reading many other posts, the majority of issues being experienced with these aids are the result of either no feedback test being run or the test being run improperly (including the parameters set incorrectly).

Even my own audiologist who is knowledgeable about Phonak and experienced fitting their HAs has been surprised by the power of feedback test and the important role it is playing in setting up a problem-free fitting. Its the combination of the new Target software and the way this feedback test seems to be working with the Spice HAs that is causing the confusion and complexity (combined with the lack of training so far).

When my audi has had a question, he has simply picked up the phone with me sitting with him and called Phonak. The customer service people have answered quickly and have been able to guide him to a successful outcome. I’m lucky that he is open to asking. I’m sure some audiologists don’t want to admit they don’t know something and try to bluff their way through to bad results.

Chris

I spoke to my audi today, and she was receptive to what I read to her about the feedback test, and is willing to call phonak (yet again) and do it as UnBongo suggests.

I was there when she had Phonak on the line, and the rep did NOT tell her to run the feedback manager first! My audi also told me that she has not seen a Phonak rep her in NJ in YEARS - otherwise she would have asked for personal training!

So thanks for all of your comments that I am able to give to my audi.

@doubledown said:

gmlr, I would recommend when you look for a new audi. Find one who also fits oticon agil pro aids. that way you can compare the audeo s with the oticon agil pro. and let us know.

Well, I have been told by a family friend audiologist in Europe that the best options for my type of hearing loss would be. 1- Widex Clear Passion 440 (it is nos approved yet in USA). 2- Phonak Audeo S Smart IX. 3- Oticon Agil Pro
Since Clear 440 is not yet approved in USA, I am trying the second option. It is already hard to find an audi experienced on Spice platform (Target software), so I´ll forget about to find an expert on both Phonak and Oticon
I´ll let you know more regarding my new audi, as soon as I get the very first set up.

@cnicklo said:

Hi all,

The feedback test that the Target software contains is new and different. Many audiologists don’t understand how critical it is to programming the Spice aids correctly. Not only do they need to run the test with the hearing aids in your ears, they also need to ensure that the parameters around the fitting (type of tip, etc.) have been entered correctly before the test begins. WHENEVER a change is made during a fitting that would impact the parameters, they need to be changed in the software and the feedback test needs to be run again.

For what its worth, my experience is that after wearing a pair of Audeo YES IXs for two years I decided to upgrade to a pair of Smart S IX’s primarily to have the peace of mind of an extra pair (I travel a lot) and found myself in a situation very similar to the original poster (gmlr) where sounds were hollow, “unbearable” loudness, feedback problems and overall a bad experience.

It was not only after my Audie scheduled a session with the Phonak rep in my area where she redid the entire setup that I got the correct programming.

It all boiled down to improper use of the feedback test as cnicklo suggests (it seems to be true that in some cases you don’t want to run it). She also used the latest 1.1 software as there seems to be a problem related to this test on the previous version.

Now with the initial default programming (no adjustments) everything is great…

Hope that helps.

@Luga said:

For what its worth, my experience is that after wearing a pair of Audeo YES IXs for two years I decided to upgrade to a pair of Smart S IX’s primarily to have the peace of mind of an extra pair (I travel a lot) and found myself in a situation very similar to the original poster (gmlr) where sounds were hollow, “unbearable” loudness, feedback problems and overall a bad experience.

It was not only after my Audie scheduled a session with the Phonak rep in my area where she redid the entire setup that I got the correct programming.

It all boiled down to improper use of the feedback test as cnicklo suggests (it seems to be true that in some cases you don’t want to run it). She also used the latest 1.1 software as there seems to be a problem related to this test on the previous version.

Now with the initial default programming (no adjustments) everything is great…

Hope that helps.

What an envy!!!

@Luga said:

What I gather from my visit is that, while “WhistleBlock” will try to control feedback when it happens, the Feedback test will aim to prevent it from happening in the first place by evaluating the acoustic properties of the ear canal together with the dome/tip selected in the s/w and then limiting the output of the HA in order to prevent feedback. That is what the annoying tones are for. If the output is limited too much (across too many frequencies) this can change the way the HA sounds.

YMMV

Er. Not quite.

The check uses a control sound from the receiver to examine the properties of the canal and surrounding plumbing like you said. This is not just to eliminate feedback, it also sets the gain higher or lower based on the impedance measurement of the canal. Therefore it’s quite possible that for larger canals the target gain will be raised by the process, though it’s more likely that the new canal resonance is identified and the aid realises not to dump lots of gain in this area (about 2.6KHz ish).

HTH

@Um_bongo said:

Er. Not quite.

The check uses a control sound from the receiver to examine the properties of the canal and surrounding plumbing like you said. This is not just to eliminate feedback, it also sets the gain higher or lower based on the impedance measurement of the canal. Therefore it’s quite possible that for larger canals the target gain will be raised by the process, though it’s more likely that the new canal resonance is identified and the aid realises not to dump lots of gain in this area (about 2.6KHz ish).

HTH

Many thanks for the clarification. I wish there was a technical manual accessible for these somewhere…

@Pman said:

You only have a day to make a decision?

I’ve had the Audeo Smart S III for 2 weeks. I had my first adjustment since intial fit today.

So far, I really like them. My fitter did not think I needed the V or IX since my low frequencies are pretty good and I scored well on some kind of speech in noise test.

They were a little noisy at first but I gradually became more used to them. But today, she moved me up to 100% I guess on amplification, but did something to the sound recover (I think that’s what it was) which reduced sort of a reverberation effect with some voices and with things such as the chimes in my car. Also, I think she increased noise reduction. Right now they are really comfortable. The computer keyboard is not too loud, but I’m sure much better than unaided. Crumbling paper and whatnot is not at all irritating.

Maybe these type of adjustments would be helpful.

Pman

I am having the same problem with reverberation - did your audi turn off or turn on the sound recovery.

Thanks