Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Seeking Advice: Phonak Sphere Infinio in the Car

This topic is closed.

21 replies844 viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic

Hi Everyone,

I’m currently demoing a pair of Phonak Sphere Infinios, and so far, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

That said, conversing in the car remains a challenge - something I’ve always struggled with. The AutoSense Car Mode does a great job reducing road and engine noise, but I still find it difficult to hear speech as clearly as I’d like. I plan to tweak the settings, but I’m also exploring other options.

I’m considering a Phonak “Partner Mic” for long road trips with my girlfriend or family members. Has anyone used it in the car specifically? I’d love to hear about your experience. It’s fairly cheap on Ebay.

I also haven’t had the chance to test Sphere Mode while driving, though I’ve found it incredibly effective in noisy restaurants and bars. Still, I can’t help but think that a dedicated mic might be the ideal solution since it streams speech directly into my ears.

For those using Phonak Sphere Infinios in the car, how do you get the best results? Do you rely on AutoSense Car Mode, Spheric Speech in Loud Noise Mode, or an external mic?

7 people in this conversation8 min readJump to latest

PartnerMic works well in car. I’ve found it particularly useful for backseat passengers when I’m driving.

I have been wearing hearing aids for 25 years and ALL models need to be turned down a click or two in my car unless a short trip. Cancels road noise and conversation with wife is perfect.

Two Cents:-)

I have no issues hearing with the Sphere’s while driving. AutoSense does a very good job of focusing the microphones on the speech wherever it happens to be coming from in the car. I believe your audiologist needs to make adjustments to make speech a bit clearer over the road noise by tweaking a number of the settings for the Speech in Car program within AutoSense. I would try that first.

Jordan

Edited

I had this issue and I thought it just went with the territory until I wore my NHS prescribed Oticon aids in the car, and was amazed to find they were a lot better. The problem with Autosense and the car program is that it reduces gain for the road and engine noise which in turn also reduces gain for speech and the radio. Now I wear Oticon Intents and Xceeds I don’t have this issue as Oticon doesn’t seem to reduce the gain, so one is able to listen to passenger speech, the radio and perceive the car noise simultaneously. Actually, I was quite amazed that Oticon was able to do this after the trouble I had with the Phonaks. How on earth did they manage to do this?

If I was wearing Phonaks still I would make sure I was using V5a and not NAL and I would manually switch to the calm situation program in the car and turn the volume up a couple of notches. The DSL fitting formula and being in the calm situation program would ensure the maximum stable and consistent gain to hear speech or the radio.

Edited
@glucas said:

I had this issue and I thought it just went with the territory until I wore my NHS prescribed Oticon aids in the car, and was amazed to find they were a lot better. The problem with Autosense and the car program is that it reduces gain for the road and engine noise which in turn also reduces gain for speech and the radio. Now I wear Oticon Intents and Xceeds I don’t have this issue as Oticon doesn’t seem to reduce the gain, so one is able to listen to passenger speech, the radio and perceive the car noise simultaneously

I wonder did values (measured with ) were the same with Phonak and Oticon . I read recently that excessively limiting MPOs can make it difficult to understand speech in noise, because the speech signal power is more similar to noise power.

EDIT:
However, I am aware that MPO requires a careful approach because of the risk of hearing damage.

END of EDIT.

@glucas said:

If I was wearing Phonaks still I would make sure I was using DSL V5a and not NAL and I would manually switch to the calm situation program in the car and turn the volume up a couple of notches. The DSL fitting formula and being in the calm situation program would ensure the maximum stable and consistent gain to hear speech or the radio.

You mean about high frequency audibility is better with 5.0?

I must test the 5.0, regarding my sloping and what I have just read:

"(…) In practical terms, loudness equalization [like NAL] procedures usually require less gain for soft sounds than loudness normalization procedures [like DSL].

In a steeply sloping loss, for example, the equalization method typically provides less audibility of soft speech for the high frequencies. There hasn’t been a lot of definitive research on the topic but, in general, it’s been found that true normalization provides too much gain, especially for the higher frequencies. (…)"

So I understand it’s worth trying DSL in my sloping loss, but it won’t necessarily give me benefits; we’ll simply see…

Edited

In reply to @JordanK

I think it makes sense to try this. I do find that the Phonak seems to know exactly where the speech is coming from.

I’m going to have the audiologist bring down “Noise Block” and “Wind Block” a bit, while raising G50 a bit for speech frequencies. Speech Enhancer could also be raised a notch. That was already helpful for social bike rides where the aggressive wind block turned the hearing aids into ear plugs. Luckily the Phonak is very customizable in this way.

There’s one complex factor I’m dealing with that you might not be: cochlear dead regions (CDR). People with CDR often struggle in noisy environments, and somewhat counterintuitively, their difficulty increases when high-frequency gain is adjusted to meet speech targets. This is where the signal to noise ratio of the Sphere mode is a game changer for me. A Mic can also help those with CDR because of the signal to noise ratio benefit. Will need to experiment to really know. I’m a fan of Autosense overall and I find that it adjusts rapidly to what I need most of the time. Cars are just a particularly tricky environment.

Could be, yes. I was only trying to put 2 and 2 together to be honest. The issue for me was the lack of gain and I read that leaves one with more usable gain. However, it would not be suitable for those who have been prescribed NAL2 due to it’s advantages for maximising speech intelligibility. I think I am able to take to DSL because I grew up with analog.

Mate your be hitting a bit if feedback no matter what with these types of losses, really important is the seal of the molds, a tight fit will help reduce this.

In reply to @Dave_Morgan

I must use the earmold. I have the biggest power double domes possible, and can’t obtain proper high frequency gain due to feedback:

image

The feedback threshold is the purple line. I have drawn blue vertical lines, which shows lost potential of the M receiver.

In that case it is definitely possible that Sphere could be ever worse than cheap with achieved every target gain.

In reply to @Bimodal_user

Have you tried a P (Power) receiver with the double domes? It’s physically much wider than the M receiver and takes up more space in your ear canal. Gives you a bit more occlusion without going to a mold. It’s a bit of a hack but did the trick for me.

Just something to try. I’m not a professional but it may be worth trying to see if the extra occlusion gives you a bit more gain in that shaded area.

Jordan

Edited
@JordanK said:

Have you tried a P (Power) receiver with the double domes? It’s physically much wider than the M receiver and takes up more space in your ear canal. Gives you a bit more occlusion without going to a mold. It’s a bit of a hack but did the trick for me.

Yes, this was a mistake by Wholesalehearing, because I wrote in the required questionnaire that I have a Phonak Paradise 90-RT with a P receiver. I think they simply added my to the Target software and according to the its screen M receiver was correct for my loss.
Okay, but I am a slightly taller person, >1.8 m and >90 kg, and have larger ear canals, which makes the M receiver insufficient, even when I tried to push it deeper into the ear canal.

@JordanK said:

Just something to try. I’m not a professional but it may be worth trying to see if the extra occlusion gives you a bit more gain in that shaded area.

You are definitely right and have made a good point. I am now waiting for a new deep seated titanium cShell with pressure vent - first for my Paradise. If it turns out to be good, I will order another one for Sphere :slight_smile:

This is from my Phonak Paradise 90-RT with P receiver in skeleton earmold with 1mm? (I guess) vent:

image

Pay no attention to the graph lines, they are for 5.0 pediatric, I tinkered out of curiosity.

In reply to @glucas

@glucas said:

Now I wear Oticon Intents and Xceeds I don’t have this issue as Oticon doesn’t seem to reduce the gain, so one is able to listen to passenger speech, the radio and perceive the car noise simultaneously. Actually, I was quite amazed that Oticon was able to do this after the trouble I had with the Phonaks. How on earth did they manage to do this?

I think it is possible that this is due to their good high-frequency amplification.

Edited

I wanted to provide an update since I first posted this:

Overall, I’m quite impressed with the Speech in Car program that activates automatically via Autosense. It’s the first time I’ve experienced a microphone as truly directional. It’s my go to when there are multiple people in the car (while im driving), including the passenger seat and the backseat. This option works best with a power dome or c-shell thats properly occluded.

However, when I’m on a longer drive with just one person next to me in the passenger seat, the Phonak partner mic wins. The mic really grabs speech well and doesn’t amplify the noise of the road or car. It’s similar in quality to streaming from a TV or podcast directly into my ear via bluetooth. More of the speech energy is reaching my ear. It seems that this is partly a simple matter of physics: the partner mic is closer to their mouth than my hearing aid is. That mic is also bigger and more powerful.

I’ll need to experiment with other fitting algorithms like V5a before I make a definitive conclusion on this matter .

P.S. In the past, ive tried using a ComDEX mic with my Widex Evokes. It didn’t work well for me because I heard my own voice too much (and with a distracting delay). Perhaps the Allures or Moments work better in this regard.

Related discussions