I have tried every type of dome. The last thing the other specialist did was order me custom molds and they came in a week after he left. I went in to get them and there was a temporary replacement for him that put them on the aids and supposedly tuned and adjusted them. Turned out worse than ever. I waited for the new specialist and the first thing she found was he hadn’t changed the settings to a custom ear mold which caused a lot of the problem. She changed the settings and called Phonak and they walked her through some things and like I said things are going in the right direction.
A couple things: Have you been examined by an (licensed physician, not just an audiologist)? I ask because I have a condition which affects my hearing nerve. It causes distortion, and some days are worse than others. My audiology clinic is well aware, and purposely under amplifies that ear (within certain ranges) because otherwise the distortion increases. You may have an undiagnosed medical condition, and your audiologist may be treating you like a simple hearing loss client. If you have a medical condition, there may be medical treatment available, and your condition may not be something a hearing aid can correct for.
My second comment, is that you should ask your audiologist if that restaurant setting is actually Speech in Loud Noise. If not, you need a specific program for Speech in Loud Noise that you can activate manually. You can customize any one of the manual programs that have been set up for you. It’s best to change one thing at a time and determine if the change helps or not. Keep a change that helps and then try another change to see if it helps or not. Reverse a change that doesn’t help, before trying a different change. (Steps: Select program, Click on the program, Click: Adjust. This gives you a number of choices. In addition, next to Equallizer Presets, there are 3 bars. If you click on those you can play with how much different pitch ranges are amplified. I saw the most improvement when I adjusted the pitch ranges.) To keep your change(s), you’ll need to save the settings under a different name. If you can figure out any improvements, you can then show that info to your audiologist for a better adjustment.
Hope something here is helpful.
I have seen an prior to getting my first real set of hearing aids. There was no underlying medical condition and it was diagnosed as age and noise related hearing loss. I spent almost 15 years in law enforcement and fired thousands of rounds of ammo, sometimes without proper ear protection. One thing that affects many retired officers.
Wow, I wrote a very similar post about these a few months back. I have many of the same issues and my audiologist can’t seem to comprehend what I’m telling him and obviously doesn’t know how to fix them. Our last fitting was quite tense and I’ve all but given up on them. Now they are so over-adjusted, they’re a hot mess in almost every listening situation. $4,000 up in smoke, worst experience. This whole industry sucks - Phonak should care about these kinds of experiences and they don’t. I contacted them and begged them to allow me to get the local Phonak rep in an appointment with my audiologist and they just said, Sorry, only your local audiologist can help you. Unless I want to pay a new audiologist for a new fitting (which so far have been quoted at OUTRAGEOUS amounts), I’m stuck with the Audiologist that sold me these . [If there’s anyone in the Atlanta area, with solid Infinio Sphere 90s experience, that wants to help at a reasonable/fair price, let me know!].
It certainly sounded to me like the previous Audiology was operating by the Peter Principal (he had risen to his level of incompetency). Assuming you continue to develop a positive relationship with your current audiologist, you might ask whether your warranty could be extended by the office, since you’ve lost so much time just trying to get a working setup.
If you read through some of the earlier comments, Elderly gave me great advice and I brought the forum up to the new audiologist and she said well that is interesting. She then called Phonak and got their guidance and went from there. I was ready to try a new audiologist and the ones I checked with wanted between $75 and $140 to start from scratch and program the aids. Then it was $50 for any additional adjustments. That’s a lot less than just wasting the money you spent on the hearing aids. I lucked out when my former audiologist left the company.
Phonak is overated and I personally think the settings are set at low frequency to make their hearing aids sound good. Get your audiologist to set the high frequency up until you hear the “S shhhh” sound, I hope this helps.
I’m stuck with the Audiologist that sold me these HAs. [If there’s anyone in the Atlanta area, with solid Infinio Sphere 90s experience, that wants to help at a reasonable/fair price, let me know!].
If you are into do it yourself projects, there is an entire community of folks here on the forum that program our own hearing aids. You need only a Windows computer and a connecting device, a Noahlink wireless (about $180 to $200). The software is free here on the forum. Some/many of us became ’ers due to the same problems. If you are interested, check out the self programing category of this forum.
It’s the system. There are fatal flaws
I’ve had my Paradise P90R’s for almost 5 years. It’s been heck. My hearing instrument specialist is incredible. Yet I regularly can’t hear. Happened twice today when I was within 6 feet of the speaker.
@raylock1 Ray - Is the category “Hearing Aid Self Fitting and Adjustment”? Lots of people asking for link to download, don’t see much else. Just verifying I have the right category. Thanks again!
You probably need to do a search on specific functions. A good way to get started is to use the training facility built into Target. That is available under the down tab of “New Session” at the bottom of the home Target Screen. Using that, you can play with the software and become familiar with what it can do without actually connecting to hearing aids. There is also a good users guide in the Target software. Here is a good video to get started. It is not for Target but the principles are the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zil4c9d-qbs5 In addition there are great training sessions at Audiology online. You have to register but they are free unless you want continuing education credit. At audiologyonline.com1, check out courses 42918, 42974, 41671. I haven’t looked at these specific courses but they appear to be updates to earlier courses that I did review.
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