Upgrade from KS10s, worth it?

Phonak owns Sennheiser. Phonak wants to shed Sennheiser. They call it a “discontinued operation”. I imagine Costco would stop selling them.
One story I found from April:
https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/03/sennheiser-officially-discontinued-operation-actually-worse/35

It’s true but you’d still get your 3 year warranty tho, Phonak won’t be left behind, they’ll sell under whatever brand name they have to keep selling “sonova” products at Costco, actually op didn’t mention Rexton or Jabra which is another name that might disappear from Costco,as maybe amperfon will want their “naming rights” but whatever Costco sell the warranty will still apply.

Yes, I found the sound too “closed” compared to the KS10s, which for me have a more open sound. Although everyone is different, but the Costco audiologist day say some others had mentioned same.

Thank you, Barry. I found the 9050’s were too front focussed for me. When I was out walking or hiking using the General program, the accelerometers would sense the walking rhythm and open up the sound scape, but when I (or the dog) stopped, things automatically closed down again. The Costco fitter pointed out that she could put the hearing aids in omni-directional mode to open up the sound scape, but that would disablet the accelerometers that looked for head and/or body movement and always do away with focussing in on the direction I was looking or speech was coming from.

It’s always interesting to learn what experience other people have had with these hearing aids.

Sennheiser Sonite Rise is really the KS11. Some improvement to the 10’s. Smaller aids with same Phonak/Sonova tech

Just looked at the article, and the only references and pictures were to headphones. No mention of hearing aids. My guess would be that the HA ‘s are carrying the Sennheiser name only for marketing purposes. On another note, after all the “bad” publicity re the last Phonak/Costco divorce, neither company would want that again so soon after the kiss-and-make-up. As a former satisfied user of KS9’s for almost 4 years (and current philips 9050), I would have no qualms about recommending the Sonite Rise based upon the current reviews from this site.

From what I can gather, upon Sonova selling this consumer audio division, they would no longer have the Sennheiser name. The name goes with the division. Maybe Sonova was kind of cheating to put that name on their main division products. But I’m no corporate lawyer.

I had the Paradise KS10’s also. I switched to Phonak (clarification:Sphere) i90’s and they are light years ahead (clarification: probably only 1 light year) of the Paradise version. (Clarification: Based on my trials) Nothing that Costco sells now is really an upgrade from the KS10 Paradise version. (Clarification: The Sennheiser Rise is somewhat better than my KS10’s but not nearly as good as the Sphere i90’s in MY opinion) However, Costco is slowly rolling out the Starkey SoundGear, (which is almost identical to the Starkey Edge AI (additional information: which I tested) that was replaced by the Starkey Omega (additional information: which I liked much better than the Edge). All the Costco hearing aid centers (clarification: all 6 hearing aid center managers in my area told me they) are eager to get it because they know the current technology they sell is at least 2 to 3 years (clarification: overstatement, a year is more accurate) behind the best out there. (Clarification: according to the managers in my area, they asked several times and) No one knows when the Starkey aids will be available at all Costco locations. Costco execs aren’t saying.

If you can afford a bit more money, then the Phonak (clarification: Sphere) i90’s are worth every penny. I paid $2327 for my pair, including tax and shipping from an authorized Phonak dealer.

The Sennheiser Sonite does not have the separate Deepsonic neural net (DNN) chip for the Spheric Speech in Loud Noise 10 db reduction, which is the key factor in the Infinio Sphere i90 performance. The Sennheiser only has the ERA sound processing chip with onboard machine learning algorithms that use a decision tree model to choose the hearing aid’s response to loud noise. The ERA chip is very similar to the PRISM chip in the Paradise and Lumity aids. It’s faster, so it switches the autosense programs quicker, and it has more memory, so autosense is better at detecting specific situations. Its battery life averages 16 or so hours. When I tested it, I didn’t think upgrading to it from the Paradise version was worth it.

The DNN chip in the Sphere i90 is a true neural net chip. It doesn’t use the decision tree structure version of AI. Neural Net AI mimics the human brain, so its ability to manage noise is much greater than a decision tree AI implementation. The Sphere i90 has a battery life of 56 hours, and that’s not “marketing.”

However, if someone tries the Sennheiser and feels it’s a much better option than the KS10’s they currently have, then they should buy it. But it’s not the Sphere i90. Not even close.

Ummm, yes we’re all well aware of the difference between the Infinio sphere and Infinio Ultra, it’s seems your confused about which that we’re talking about, it’s the Sennheiser Sonite Rise and not the R that we are talking about being latest version from Phonak at Costco, nothing to do with AI, cheers

@Elderly said:

The Sennheiser Sonite does not have the separate Deepsonic neural net (DNN) chip for the Spheric Speech in Loud Noise 10 db reduction, which is the key factor in the Infinio Sphere i90 performance.

You do realize Phonak makes the Infinio Ultra and the Infinio Sphere Ultra. Two different Infinio hear aid models. Both are the newest Phonak aids. The Costco Sonite Rise is the same as the Phonak infinio Ultra hearing aids.

@z10user2 said:

they would no longer have the Sennheiser name. The name goes with the division.

This does not always happen. In fact, it is not uncommon for a business to sell a division and keep the name (so the “name goes with the division” is not always correct).

Examples:

(1) Starbucks sold the packaged coffee and tea division to Nestle but, Starbucks kept the name. When you buy a pack of coffee at Starbucks, you are actually buying a Nestle product.
(2) IBM and Lenovo: When Lenovo bought the PC business from IBM ('05), IBM kept both the IBM and the Thinkpad name. Lenovo made and sold IBM PCs until 2007: After that, they got rid of the IBM brand on their products.
(3) Sharp sold the North America TV business to HiSense in 2015. Sharp kept the name and HiSense used it. Foxxconn bought the business from HiSense (and continued to use the Sharp name). In 2019 Sharp bought the NA TV business back.
(4) Versace glasses are owned by Luxotica but they license the name from Versace (who used to own that business long time ago)

Brands can be incredibly valuable, and when companies sell part of their business, they may choose to retain the brand and license it out. It’s not corporate law, it’s marketing. The Coca cola brand is worth over 100 billion $.

I haven’t seen any information on which parts of the Sennheiser branding will stay or go, but it might be more cost-effective for Sonova to either keep and license the brand or pay a licensing fee to the new owner to continue using the Sennheiser name. Brand creation is an extremely expensive thing to do, specially at a global scale.