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Phonak Sphere

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My P90 312 are now 4 years old. I had them serviced in autumn when Phonak just replaced them with new. Should I be looking at Phonak’s newer offerings? Battery versus rechargeable is no deal breaker. I love my P90 for music (very important to me) and general use. My only criiticism is speech in noise. But then again that is the hearing aids’ holy grail. Does Target programming software work with the new Phonak ? Not that that’s so important. I find Phonak’s initial fit is so good that I wonder why I bother with my own Target software.

The Phonak Spheres are a great leap forward in hearing and understanding speech in noise, in my opinion. Based on comments on this forum they apparently are a greater benefit to those who wear or earmolds. I wear Phonak cShells and enjoy a great benefit. They are adjusted by Target but you will need to update your Target to Target 10 which you should be able to do from an earlier version…
Good hearing,
Ray

Today my 4 week trial of the spheres ended and I am now wearing a newly purchased pair. They are a considerable improvement on my previous Phonak Nathos Novas. The speech in noise works well. I mainly use it in the clubhouse at my golf club. Usually there will be 9 or so golfers around a big table. Previously I took little part in the chat. Now I am able to follow and participate. It’s not perfect but I am more motivated to make the necessary effort because the spheres work so much better than the nathos Novas.

I’ve had my Sphere I90’s for about a month - upgraded from KS9’s. I’m getting them dialed in. I also have my own copy of Target 10 but I’ve let the audiologist handle the curve tuning so far (two followup visits). The Sphere speech in noise functions are exceptionally good for small group conversations. Last Sunday, I went to a birthday party with about 30 people in a private room at a restaurant, and found that I had to switch in and out of Sphere mode when people were speaking from the other end of the room (speeches) but that was fine.

One thing that I had issues with, is that the Music in streaming mode tends to overpower the Speech in streaming when I watched TV movies and shows that have a music soundtrack. I had that adjusted today. I compared the curves for music and speech (streaming) for my KS9s vs the Sphere’s and found that the low and mid ranges for music where boosted significantly on the new Spheres vs. the old KS9s. Music sounded great, but music in show soundtracks wiped out the speech for me. We had to dial back the low and midrange curves in Music to more or less match the curves is Speech streaming to get balance things out so that I can hear dialogue. My hearing loss is in the severe range and I’m using UP Receivers with vented cShell molds.

Overall, I’m happy with them. I can get at least two days out of one charge wearing them from 7 am to 11 pm, with four or five hours of streaming every day.

@KeithL said:

I find Phonak’s initial fit is so good that I wonder why I bother with my own Target software.

I find the initial fit works ok in the main too (including realear and feedback, and Direct). However, I use Target mainly for the Program Options like:
Choosing a startup program (Music in my case)
Adding additional programs (Speech in noise)
Having Autosense as a switchable option
Changing connection options (manual plus beep)
Adjusting sliders in programs.

I’m finally getting somewhere with Speech in noise. I initially noticed that Speech in noise did reduce background noise, but sadly it also reduced the volume of the person I was trying to hear, resulting in not much benefit. With increased beam forming, slightly reduced noise reduction and minimal speech enhancement, things ard getting better, especially in a busy pub.

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