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Phonak Sphere and Oticon Intent 1?

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Any comparative analysis between the latest Phonak model and the Oticon Intent 1?
I have the Intent 1, do you think it would be worth switching to the Phonak? I have difficulty hearing when I’m not looking at the person, and in noisy situations. I can still hear and understand a lot, but I miss a lot too.

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Unfortunately, no one can advise you @fontez hearing loss is such an individual thing, what may sound great to me, might sound terrible to you, and vice versa… Only you, can tell the difference of what sounds best? That is a hefty loss you have, perhaps an Ultra Power (UP) might be more appropriate? Having said that, everything associated with hearing aids is a compromise, they are invaluable, but they only assist us to hear better, they don’t even come close to solving hearing loss, some work better in certain situations, others are not so good, it’s basically finding the middle ground, and learning to live within your hearing aid limitations, no one hearing aid manufacturer has all the answers, Spheres might well work for you, but you would have to trial them, to find out… It is a dilemma, and the grass always appears to be greener on the other side! Good Luck, if you do trial them… Cheers Kev :wink:

I trialed the Intent. It had the same problem (for me) that my current Oticon Mores have, and my previous Opn’s had. That is, when I am in a noisy environment I bump up the volume by a couple of clicks. This boosts the volume of the target speech but it also boosts the volume of the background noise.

The volume of the target speech is increased a little more than the volume of the background noise, so it helps some, but not nearly as much as I’d like.

The reviews here of the Spheres suggest that they greatly reduce the background noise in noisy situations. If your problem is similar to mine. I’d say to trial the Spheres.

I watched this review last night. I can’t comment about the Intent 1 but he really missed a number of important points about the Sphere’s. One you already mentioned…the Sphere’s remove the noise. The second is battery life. People over estimate how much time they spend in noisy places and you get crazy battery life with the Sphere’s for those days that the Spheric program isn’t used.

Jordan

I can’t comment on the Spheres (though I’d love to try them…), but my experience with the Intents 1 in noisy environments has been quite positive. I generally prefer minimal digital processing, and since my hearing loss is primarily conductive in my better ear, that might explain why the Intents perform well for me in noisy situations.

In reply to @JordanK

Adding to this as I got to spend a couple weeks with the spheres. The sphere mode doesn’t just kick on and stay on for 4 hours straight. It turns on as the noise goes up and people are talking around you and then turns off when those conditions aren’t met. I spent a week in very noisy environments where I was using the Spheric mode a lot and at the end of 16 hour days, I still had 50+ % battery left.

In reply to @JordanK

On Intent 1, he missed some major points about the Sphere’s: they cancel noise, and their battery life is impressive since people overestimate their time in noisy environments.

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