Phonak making "S" sound into "Sh" sound - any ideas?

@BoCat said:

if the CI does not work, do I lose whatever hearing I have now, or can I go back to a hearing aid

This one is a high percentage yes, you will be deaf once implanted. Even if they remove it. There are doctors that say they can save your residual hearing. I would not be on that. My right ear is flat dead without the processor. My left I can barely hear low frequency tones. I haven’t put an aid on that ear to prove anything but that’s what I have. Rule of thumb you will lose 30-40% of your residual hearing from a CI. For me that wasn’t much.

I understand the wife wife thing. Totally agree. Since getting implants I have learned she really likes to talk.

Thank you for your honesty!

For completeness I will seek out the CI evaluation, but what I have left in my right ear is all I’ve got and I do not want to roll the dice unless it gets to where she is ready to leave me outright.

I’d be much more enthusiastic about trying CI on the currently-dead left ear, if they wanted to try that. Nothing to lose except time, fear, and money; lots to possibly gain if it worked at all.

I have a Partner Mic, and it works fine within its limits. That is to say, it transmits speech from the person wearing it very nicely if the device has a straight line of sight to your hearing aids. If the person with the mic gets ahead of you, no. Their body blocks transmission. If the person with mic is right beside you, no, that’s not line of sight either. Whether the person wearing the mic could place it a little to the side for use in a car, I don’t know as that wasn’t what we used it for.

I would not expect it to work if people were in different rooms because walls would block transmission, but we didn’t test that and only used it outdoors.

It’s a neat little device for certain things, but nothing like the Roger devices in what it can do (or in price).

Thanks! We need to try it in the car. The fact that they “threw it in for free” with the Phonak aid should have tipped me off that it was not what they claimed (Phonak Roger) but if it lets me hear my Wife in the car, all good.

OMG, I have that problem hearing “sh” instead of “s”. I thought it was the way people were talking now. I was hearing about someone’s “incredible shtrength”, or “she has been so shtrong”, but, I still hear the words “super”, “suddenly”, “sanity”, “soft”, “something”, or other s words… without the sh defect.

Yes, Agreed; ask your hearing professional to turn off the SOUND RECOVER feature and test the sound of regular speech in the office- this may solve your issue completely. Best of Luck

FWIW, I have never been able to hear female “S” using the automatic fine tuning or sound recover functions of target. I can hear the male “S”. Guess I am just lucky to hear whatever I can hear.

The title ‘S to Sh’ caught my attention and I read the entire thread before replying, so just take this as another anecdote and something to consider.

I also have single sided loss, and moderate my loss on the other side. I hear that S to Sh prominently with processing delay/lag… basically I hear the first original S, then the processed one… blending together overlapping to change what should be an single S into a Sh sound. Some people notice this than others, and of those than do, some are less bothered by it. What works for you, what you can live with, is your solution.

With a bicros setup I heard S three times as the bicros also has it’s delay. After two trials of different brands I gave up on bicros as it wasn’t ever going to be natural sounding to me. What did I give up going single sided for a natural sound? Quite a lot - better handling of ambient noise and directionality features (4D, StereoZoom, etc.) are major features. Am I happy, now, with that choice? Absolutely… but rarely there are really challenging environments that those would help.

Before CI, I’d try single side HA (w/o bicros), and low delay HA (Widex) to see if either of those are options that could work for you.

That would be poor fit. I’d suggest trying a smaller dome so the hearing aid is deeper in your ear.

Thank you all for your answers and help! I am humbled and grateful.

Wife and I went in and the hearing aid lady understood exactly what was wrong, made adjustments until “s” was “s” and not “sh”, and told me to try it for a couple of weeks.

She said she would work with me on this and that the trial period ends in mid March, and if the Phonak was still not right she would order a ReSound like my earlier one but next iteration.

She said (paraphrasing) that Phonak did frequency shifting but ReSound was closer to linear and did less “processing” - which appeals to me, but I really need to be grateful to hear and understand, and quit complaining that things sound unpleasant. When I call the cats to come in for supper, Eloise comes out as “Eloise” and not “Eloisshsh” and that’s very, very good.

I appreciate your help and apologize for posting while distraught and hysterical. Calmer now and happy to understand what she says.

BTW we got the Partner Mic to work in the car, so that’s good - but was not a deal-killer in any case.

Something to consider, I expect the Infinio in Naida to come out later this year. If they offer Sphere with that it will be a game changer for the folks in the severe to profound loss range who haven’t seen a new monster power aid in a while. There wasn’t a Naida release for lumity, so Naida is beginning to get long in the tooth and Xceed has been there for a while.

WH

WhiteHat, not being conversant with the various models and designations, I’m confused.

What she has me trialing right now is: Phonak Naida Lumity 90 SP BTE

What I think you are saying is “Hold off - Phonak will come out with a newer model later this year, wait for that.” Is that close to correct?

I have no problem with waiting and in fact have been thinking of asking to try the newer (than my current model) ReSound she mentioned. Hesitant to ask to try two different hearing aids from the same dispenser at the same time, but the worst outcome is she says “no.”

@BoCat said:

Phonak Naida Lumity 90 SP BTE

They also have Naida Lumity UP BTE (this one is powered by 675 battery)
my 2 cents worth on this convo…
Dan

@BoCat said:

“Hold off - Phonak will come out with a newer model later this year, wait for that.” Is that close to correct?

If you NEED new aids now, then the decision is made… If you are willing to roll the dice on a new version coming out later, then that is a possibility. I honestly expected Lumity Naida to be released about the time Infinio in Audeo was rolled out. Infinio came about the time I expected. I was a bit shocked that the Virto form factor was initially announced as available too, but they waited a few months to truly deliver on that promise. I wouldn’t expect Virto normally for almost two years. So it really is a roll of the dice. Trust your gut.

My research involved looked at release dates going back about 5 generations of Phonak aids in the different form factors. There was a definite rhythm that was a bit broken with Virtos.

WH