Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Phonak I90 Spheres: Trial great in noise, Purchased aids not

37 replies1.4k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic
Reply

I trialed these, with an added “speech in noise” program. They worked great in noise, with a dramatic improvement when this program was implemented.

Then I purchased these hearing aids. (Not the trials; they went back to the audiologist.)

The purchased aids just don’t work like the trials. They have the exact same “speech in noise” program as with the trials. Implementing this program shows a decrease in battery charge to 5 - 7 hours, BUT there’s no improvement in hearing. The audiologist called Oticon and they suggested first changing the receiver. No help. I go back tomorrow and they will order new hearing aids. But if there’s no difference, I’ll return them and try something else, I guess

Is something being missed? Is there something about the trials I used that made them work better?

I sent a message to Phonak using the app and the response was simply boiler-plate instructions on how to connect the hearing aids to my phone. No help there. What would their engineers say?

13 people in this conversation12 min readJump to latest

Do the trials and the aids you purchased use the same domes. Depending on your hearing there could be a big difference. Open domes do not work as well as because they let the outside noise go directly to your ears without passing through the hearing aids. Hopefully, if not the domes (or molds) new aids from Phonak should solve the problem.

Good thought, but exactly the same domes. I should have mentioned that.
And new receivers make no difference.
On the forum I’m seeing people who are less than impressed with the Spheres. But I know from the trial set that they can be really good.

An audiologist must set up a “Speech in noise” program. The “Automatic” program is supposed to trip over to use the second chip in a noisy environment, but it did not do that with the trial set I had. They should ship with a “speech in noise” setting, regardless. After all, they’re selling these large hearing aids with the extra chip feature, and we should have the ability to implement it ourselves without having to go back to the audiologist, some of whom might not know what to do. Mine initially sent me out without a “Speech in noise” setting and I went back to a different audiologist at the clinic to get it done on the trials.

Maybe there’s a manufacturing glitch or a QA/QC problem, or some setting, or a change on a particular batch of semiconductor chip runs. It’s an engineering problem. I guess if they get a lot of returns, maybe they’ll look for commonalities and do some lab testing.

Edited

Very unlikely that it is a hardware issue. I would go back to the audiologist. IMHO, the Spheres are the most commented and praised in hearing tracker. I don’t have them but, this is what I’ve been reading for a while now.

The fitting software (Phonak Target) has tons of tuning “knobs” (I’ve spent many many hours using it) and, in the end, the success of the Spheres is all on how they are programmed for you and, that can take time. This is why audiologists charge an arm and a leg for their devices ($7000 for the Sphere at an audiologist office vs. $2400 online without service).

It’s just like prescription glasses, if they don’t work for you, the root cause is usually the Rx or how they were made for you by the dispensing office, not a lense defect (of course, there must be cases where there may be lenses defects but how often does that occur).

How many adjustments visits have you had with the audiologist?

@Hear-Aid said:

The audiologist called Oticon and they suggested first changing the receiver. No help. I go back tomorrow and they will order new hearing aids. But if there’s no difference,

Any reason why they called Oticon (just a typo?)

You should be able to toggle them in and out of Spheric mode to see how they are working in real terms. In some fittings, these kind of early life issues can be put down to some fairly straightforward wax management: the aids certainly won’t be providing the clarity you need even if there’s the slightest bit of wax in the receiver tube.

Edited

In reply to @Hear-Aid

@Hear-Aid said:

An audiologist must set up a “Speech in noise” program. The “Automatic” program is supposed to trip over to use the second chip in a noisy environment, but it did not do that with the trial set I had.

OK, here is a long shot idea. You mentioned “speech in noise” a couple of times. The program should be “Spheric speech in loud noise”. Is it possible that your audiologist, when setting up the AutoSense OS programs, mistakenly did not check the box for “Spheric speech in loud noise” but instead only checked the box for “Speech in noise”? The hearing aid can only have four programs active in AutoSense (you can set up more using the app) and one is probably the automatic function itself. What programs are available in your app?

Screenshot 2025-06-22 184028

I appreciate the responses, but I need to repeat:

The trial pair and the pair I bought had the exact same programming. The programming set up on the trial set was saved automatically to the clinic’s system and then loaded onto the new pair.

No amount of tweaking the programming will get around the fact that the trial version worked substantially better in noise than the ones I bought. Everything was the same (domes, everything; and new receivers had no effect), but the trials worked as they were supposed to and the ones I bought do not. Something is wrong either with the hardware or the internal programming on the chips, or something else. Remember these hearing aids are basically sophisticated computer chips, loaded with data and instructions.

Others have indeed expressed dissatisfaction with Phonak Spheres, and what I’m observing may be related to why they have been dissatisfied.

The program to allow a user to implement the second chip is set up by the audiologist. They can name that program whatever they wish: “speech in loud noise” or “Spheric mode in loud noise” or what have you. They are basically adjusting the settings so that the hearing aid acts as if it is in loud noise, such that the famous second chip (which makes these hearing aids somewhat large) comes into play, whether you’re in a loud environment or not.

Otherwise, without the added program, the wearer depends on the “automatic” setting, which is suppose to implement the second chip in a loud environment. My trial set did not do that in automatic mode, but I was happy to use the added program to simply choose that feature. Phonak must think we’ll forget and run the battery down when we leave the loud environment and then complain, so they set up the “automatic” program.

(Yes, that was a typo…the audiologist called Phonak and talked to a Phonak audiologist.)

In reply to @raylock1

Now I have looked at your photo, I see there’s an appropriate box to check. I’ll look into this when I go to the audiologist tomorrow morning. Still, both the trial and the ones I bought have had the exact same program. But you never know, something might have been switched.

Thanks much

Was the trial version a 90 level and the one you’ve purchased a 90 level too or lower?

If it is lower that “could” explain the discrepancies, if not, maybe a psychological reaction to your bank acoount being lighter after spending a hefty cash on those hearing aids :hear_with_hearing_aid::hear_with_hearing_aid::thinking:

Good thought but both are the 90s. The audiologist thinks he can find the trials in the back somewhere. When I go in this morning I’ll ask if he’d please find them so maybe, just maybe, we can dig into what’s going on more. He’ll be ordering a new set of Phonak Spheres for me. Last chance really while I’m still under the take-back period. My state has a 30-day take-back but this clinic’s is 45 days (and they are now owned by Sonova, which owns Phonak).

I’m over the sticker shock from having bought Oticon Mores several years ago. They are my backup pair now. The quality of life improvement is worth it. I’ll be OK with going back to the Oticon for a while.

Parenthetically, I wonder if Phonak reads threads like this. They sure don’t read messages sent to them on their app.

Edited
@Hear-Aid said:

The quality of life improvement is worth it. I’ll be OK with going back to the Oticon for a while.

Out of curiosity, why you didn’t go with the new Oticon Intent, since you already have an oticon hearing aids?
Have you found that the Sphere is better than More?
Thx

I did a trial of the Oticon Intents after the trial with the Phonak Sphere I90s. The Phonaks worked much better in noise than the Intents. I found the Oticon Intents were a lot crisper than the Mores. But my Mores are still darn good.

Today the audiologist gave me back the trial Phonak Sphere I90s I trialed before, while we wait for new ones to come in. It will be interesting to check that the trials work as well as they did before. So I need to hit my local bars soon to see!

In reply to @Hear-Aid

Phonak I90 Spheres have both a Speech in noise and Spheric Speech in noise program. On mine, they are handled automatically, although I can select Spheric sin from the menu or buttons as well. There is a threshold setting for background noise that controls when Spheric is automatically selected - my audi lowered it on the second visit.

So,
Where are you located? I see this is your first post and you are switching back and forth with Oticon aids? Which ones? I am pretty near Phonak US Home Office. May not matter where you are but I might coordinate with what looks to be posted with your Audi and physically get a Phonak Rep in his/her office with a brand new set of aids and start making comparison on the demo, your current ones,a new set. Export and print the demo programs and yours and go to work on a new set of aids. My expectation would be that buying Shpere I90 from an independent would go $6-8K shelled out of your pocket and that there should be no issues servicing a patiient/customer for that kind of $$.I have an old set of Costco KS9s that are now my back-up.and wear Lumity Life 90’s fit by an Audiologist currently. Audi serviced whatever I needed and offered a phonak rep. Something is not making sense here. My two cents. I would demand nothing less in a politely communicated manner.

Good points. Phonak recently did a training in my audiologist’s office. Maybe if the new ones coming in next week don’t work right I’ll lobby for them to bring in a Phonak rep to help work on things. But I’m going to be up against the give-back deadline. I think Phonak in the US is in the Chicago area. I’m near Philadelphia. I doubt if they’d share programs for individuals due to Hippa.

If you run out of return time you can select a different audiologist and trial agan. You might check the Ziphearing website. They sell through local audiologists and i believe the current price for a pair of Sphere 90’s with local fitting by an audiologist plus one year of adjustments insurance etc is $4,598.

In reply to @raylock1

You can contact Zip hearing and they will give you a list of audiology outfits in your area that Zip Hearing sells through. Then you can look up reviews of those companies. If you do that, please let us know what you find out.

Related discussions