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Phonak Infinio Sphere: A review from a musician based in France

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My P90Rs don’t block out background sound

My dispensing Audi got them because I was close to hit by noisy diesel construction equipment passing me from behind. My Phonak B70s were terrible No sound behind
My hearing instrument specialist has set up my P90s better

But speech in noise is terrible. Impossible at times. Babble shuts me down. Meetings. Awful

I recently lost most of my hearing and am now wearing the Phonak I90 Sphere’s as well. Thanks so much for your review. You’ve given me more hope. I am having a similar experience to you with restaurants, TV, etc. However, I still do not hear music properly. I am a musician, when I listen to my music library right now some of the music is off pitch. Sometimes flat, sometimes sharp. Are you able to hear music properly and on pitch? Did you struggle with that at all?

In reply to @Gasconman

I really appreciate you saying so.

Its been a rough rough trip.

Once I had workmans ompensation I got a set of Phonaks way-back. They were exceptional because my Audi was exceptional. I always left her office with problem solved, and hearing better.
But she sold her business. New owner turned out to be Listen Up Canada IIRC. I left them; they didn’t carry any interest with Phonak.
I was referred to Peel Audiology. My first hearing aids were about 8 years old when they sold me Phonak B70’s. That’s what workmans comp allowed at the time. The setup was attrocious. I couldn’t hear at all behind me. Was nearly hit on construction sites 3 times.

I went to CVA. He worked a miracle getting top of the line Paradise P90’s. But he never figured out how to set them up.

So reading your note, I apreciate your comments about the choice moving to Phonak Infinio Sphere I90.

BUT workman’s compensation supplies every 5 years. Minimum. And they wouldn’t supply the I90 to me. And they won’t allow me to pay the difference, I believe.

A reader here suggested that I buy them myself; I believe I would opt out of the workman’s comp program. And I’m old…soon to be on fixed income that’s not enough.

In reply to @cmurphy07

@cmurphy07 said:

I still do not hear music properly. I am a musician, when I listen to my music library right now some of the music is off pitch.

Did your fitter set up a manual music program for you?
The Phonak automatic music program may not meet your requirements. Phonak has a manual one which can be added, and you select it as needed with button presses, or the app.
The program can be fine tuned, if your fitter knows what you are listening for.

@Gasconman said:

However, with the Spheres, I have had to ask my audiologist to set the TV connection to manual because

Didn’t know this was a thing! AFAIK Bluetooth once paired will just auto connect - “always”. I find it very annoying for “any” device. I don’t generally have my conn to my phone unless streaming. I get in my car - android auto turns on my phone BT & my HA auto connects errgh.

Great review & thank you. I am still on Marvels but will definitely be asking about Sphere’s or whatever outdoes them 2025 - will be looking at updating early next year…

In reply to @Gasconman

I find the reverse. Sound from H-Fi and TV speakers is not good for me. For streaming from my phone, I use an app called PowerAmp which has an inbuilt 8 band equaliser. For streaming radio broadcasts, I use VRadio, which has a 5 band equaliser. And for TV streaming, I have an 8 band equaliser (headphone amplifier from Mamzon) in line between the TV and the Phonak TV connector.
When playing with the band, I use a customised Phonak program (customised by me, that is).

Thanks for the review. i am totally blind, no eyesight, looking to get my 1st set of hearing aids. I have low frequency and some high frequency loss. I have been really struggling to find hearing aids that sound natural. Yes I’ve tried widex, they have issues for their own reasons :slight_smile: but the spheres took my interest. I tried them and liked them for the most part, however 2 issues really bothered me. Firstly, I find directionality when wearing a real problem. I might have to wait for the Virto. Basically if you stick mics above your ears they’re not pointing where your ear holes are. I need the front back as well as left right, not fuzzy stereo image that RICs provide. the 2nd bigger problem for me, is that the Infinio platform, whilst sounding really smooth an free of artefacts, does seem to like turning compression on an off at different frequencies. For example, I used the Spheres in music program as it sounded the most natural. When they encountered a loud sound like a cough, they’d clamp down the volume and turn it back up again fairly quickly. However other sounds like a plate clanging as I unloaded the dishwasher, they slam off the high frequencies and keep them off for at least 10 seconds. Now that isn’t a problem to a sighted person maybe, fbut for a blind person in the city, hearing a loud noise and then the hearing aids taking away my world is incredibly dangerous.
I’m curious if you ever found a way to overcome that? to stop the compression? I ask because if I do get the virtos, I’m probably going to have exactly the same problem as the platform is the same. I might post a new topic to see if anyone managed to get a program that dealt with this sort of situation. Ideally the compression would be set so that the attack requires a higher input, or the release would be set a lot faster so that if they do pull the volume down, they let it go back up again quicker.

I’m grateful to see your post here.
I need to hear all around. I work on construction sites. I was almost hit 3 times with my 2nd set of Phonaks. I couldn’t hear behind at all.
My dispensing audi worked a miracle, and got me brand new Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R/s. He didn’t know how to st them up. These are my 3rd sets of Phonaks, and were top of the line.

So I’ve looked at comments from posters here.

I want to try Oticons sometime. I read comments about them sounding natural, and “hearing all around.”

I want my hearing aids to work. I don’t want to have to McGiver my Phonak P90’s to make them work.

I just want to understand what people are saying.

In reply to @Xonic83

@Xonic83 said:

I’m curious if you ever found a way to overcome that? to stop the compression?

I’ve encountered this with Phonaks, as well. It’s due to the Phonak Autosense feature, which will attempt to guess what you are hearing, and misinterpret the sudden sound as a reason to change the program until it detects the change in state, and resumes the normal program.
This is very disconcerting, but the setting is adjustable, and can even be disabled by your audi.

Your issue with directionality is something I’m not qualified to adress.

In reply to @flashb1024

I know what you mean re autosense, but this is not what I’m experiencing. IN fact my audiologist was able to remove the autosense program completely and I remain in the music program unless I manually change it. Whatever is going on here, is some sort of compression setting related to the music program, except you don’t seem to have any control over changing those. It also happens in the calm program but in a different way. This is something at the Phonak platform level.

hello…my 2c to this topic. I paired of my Phonak Infinio Sphere to our Sony TV BT and listen directly and adjusting volume with the TV speakers volume control. The other TV sound out is via a cheap sound bar connected via ARC HDMI, for my wife TV watching. For the phone streaming I am testing the PowerAmp Equalizer app (Google Play Store) It controls all sound out for different players…

@user114 said:

For the phone streaming I am testing the PowerAmp Equalizer app (Google Play Store) It controls all sound out for different players…

Or Wavelet, which is simplier app than PowerAmp (I have the latter).

@Bimodal_user said:

Or Wavelet, which is simplier app than PowerAmp (I have the latter).

:sunglasses:I’ve been a fan since 2018! Great app, all the pre-set eqs for every make of cans, and you can import custom peq’s, too.
For windoze, I use equalizer apo with Peace.

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