Hi group. I am on the first three hours of using the new Resound Vivia 9 dual chip HAs.
First let me share my history and issues.
My hearing loss starts in the mid freq and then increases to significant in the high freq. It has progressed over the last couple years a minor amount.
Prior to a year ago I was on Phonak M90s with open domes. It the time I considered marginally ok. The higher freq gain caused feedback in a lot of situations. But I generally was able to discern voices in normal environments. In loud environments it just didn’t work well. I would get lost with all the surrounding noise.
A year ago I upgraded to the Phone P90s. Because of the new audio test, we switched to closed domes to allow for more higher freq output. This is were it got weird and frustrating. In noisy environments these aids were a definite improvement. While far from perfect it allowed me to strain and get some of conversations. But this came with a big issue, in normal environments I did not hear speech very well. The audiologist saw me a lot during this timeframe with tons of “lets try this” And REM was done most of the time. I just couldn’t hear speech, especially higher pitch/female voices. I would occasionally switch back to the M90s and they would be better in soft environments.
About 45 days ago, I paid out of pocket for the new Phonak Infinio Sphere. I desperately needed a better working solution. So it got double weird. Same closed domes. With the noise in sphere engaged, it didn’t matter if I was in a noisy environment or soft environment. They just worked really well, and I heard like I was always expecting to hear! But when I used autosense or a bunch of definite user defined settings, I literally could not hear higher pitch voices. But unfortunately the Sphere mode could only be used for 3-4 hours a day. Not workable.
I told my audiologist I was returning the Infinio Sphere’s and I was done. I literally was going to go back to the M90 with closed domes.
She said lets try one more hail mary with the new Resound Vivia 9 dual chip.
I’ve been wearing them for three hours now with the tulip style closed (mostly) domes.
I am almost literally in tears. These first few hours it appears they just work amazingly. I drove in my car for 30 minutes, which normally was a difficult environment to even hear the radio unless I used Sphere mode. In the normal mode on the Vivia road noise was low/acceptable and I heard the speech on the radio and a couple phone calls. In the office I have had a number of conversations and speech just seems “normal”.
I have yet to be in a super noisy environment, but plan to report back and add to this further after a couple days.
FYI I am using an Google Pixel 7. The aids connected without any issue. And hands free calls are working fine.
Just goes to show what works for one person might not for another and vice versa. But I’m super happy so far.
