My first six hours with Infinio 90-Spheres




My HAs arrived via FedEx and was most anxious to test.

The attached pictures show the size difference between Lumity 90 and Infinio 90-Sphere. I also show difference in chargers. There were questions at the the exact model number stamped on the Spheres and it reads “Audeo Sphere”. I wanted these in Red, but was told Red, Green and Gloss Black are N/A in the country. Not sure if low production, back order etc etc. The audi said down the road I would have the option of a color swap. I don’t feel any difference wearing the Infinios vs the Lumitys. I am also way past the point of trying to conceal my hearing loss, that’s why I wanted the red ones.

I’ve previously been using Lumity 90-RT and heavy dependence on the Roger On. If you look at my audiogram, noise bothers me a great deal. Otolaryngology at Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital told me I am close to being a C.I. patient, which I am opposed to doing. I inquired about the Infinio Spheres. I was told even with Spheres there are situations I still may need the Roger On. As you can tell by the pictures, I am using Phonak cShells.

So why did I buy the Spheres? I wanted a better experience and less reliance on the Roger On. Two recent experiences had me frustrated. I attended a baseball game with six other people. Trying to carry on a conversation and wondering what direction or how to wear the Roger On was frustrating. I went from holding it in my hand to clipping on my jersey, looking like a TikTok content creator. The other situation, I attended an outdoor retirement party. We were outdoors, no background music, just people talking and conversations were difficult.

I’ve been using the algorithm Adaptive Phonak Digital Contrast 2.0 in my Lumitys as I thought it was the best natural sounding particularly when I stream music. I was anxious to see if Adaptive Phonak Digital Contrast 3.0 was an improvement. TBH television sounded tinny, but I’ll worry about that down later. Audis love to program HAs using NAL-NL2 and I don’t read much about user experience with Adaptive Phonak Digital or Adaptive Phonak Digital Contrast; so I’ll march down that road.

This afternoon, I made 4 stops. I recorded noise level in each venue using the android app DecibelX. I paid attention to what mode the HAs were operating. I know that when background noise is above 65db, it’s game over. The following venues are ones I have visited multiple times, and I know my experience in these venues with the Lumitys.

Liquor Store - (don’t judge me, it’s 90 degrees in ChiTown) - 67.4 db avg/70.2 db peak. Even at this background level I’ve had trouble hearing the register clerk. I put the HAs in manual sphere and I heard perfectly.

Walmart - 61.4db avg/67.2 db peak - HAs in Calm Situation. Nothing unusual to declare, I didn’t interact with anyone in the store.

Supermercado - 71.6 db avg/74.2 db peak in the produce section. AutoSense put the HAs in Sphere Speech in Loud Noise. The noise level increased to 76.6 db avg/80 db peak at meat/hot food counter. I’ve always had trouble conversing with the staff on the other side of the counter. I had to increase Noise Reduction on the Phonak app but I was able to hear the individual on across the meat case. Noise at check out was 75.5 db avg/78.8 db peak. The cashier was hard to hear but I didn’t want to take the time to make adjustments via the app. Sometimes it’s really inconvenient and a nuisance to make these adjustments.

Golden Corral Restaurant - I knew this place was going to be busy and loud, a good test. At the cashier the noise level was 75.5 db avg/78.8 peak. The cashier’s voice was tough to pickup, again didn’t really make an effort to adjust the HAs. I wanted to see how they performed automatically. At my table the noise was 79.2 db avg/84.9 db peak. This is were I wish the HAs did a better job of picking up the servers voice and for me it was underwhelming. Again, perhaps with some tweaking, it will get better in restaurants.

Several years ago, I began measuring background noise and documenting how my HAs were behaving to have a better understanding of when exactly I had trouble hearing in public and how the HA were handling the situation. I have learned a lot.

Is this a game changer for me? I can’t say there was a WOW factor. They did perform better than Lumity with Roger On. The next tests will be using these Infinios with Roger On, with an emphasis at restaurants/bars. At my gym I work out with a personal trainer 2x/week and she has to wear my Roger On during our sessions. I will be testing to see if she needs to use the Roger On with the Infinios.

I was gone about 2 1/2 hours. The HAs were at 100% power when I left home and 80% when I returned. I know there have been comments about battery usage when in Sphere mode.

I’m hoping this might benefit someone who is contemplating the purchase of Infinio Spheres. Everyone of us has different requirements, and we all respond differently to identical equipment. I am at the extreme end of needing help.

Did I or will I have REM performed? Probably not. One audi told me in my case, REM isn’t going to help me pick up speech in challenging situations.

Thanks for reading

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It seems most of the time you struggle hearing the cashier, which is understandable, it is difficult to hear when you have to let the green go (not gringo), this is my interpretation. :laughing:

Thank you for posting your experience.

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What is your process for measuring noise levels?

An android app called Decibel X in Google Play Store. I don’t know if it’s available for Apple

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That app is also useful to find the frequency of a sound so you can make adjustment to your hearing aids , to raise or lower the level at that frequency.

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I recommend make a manual program like “Spheric MAX”, where I adjusted noise reduction, speech focus to max and tap the “speech” mode, which changes “equalizer” and then save it for the future situations.

Sometimes, it’s worth moving the slider toward ‘Increase Quiet’ to increase gain for G50 inputs (Dynamics slider).
If I see correctly, you have great modified cShells (with P receiver assuming from CeruStops not HE3?) so probably your feedback thresholds are near/in line with receiver maximum gains. If you are willing, please post your screenshot from Target with your gains and feedback threshold, etc.

IIRC, you have Noahlink Wireless and Target?

If so, I recommend also lowering the threshold for Spheric Speech in Noise activation.

See the Hearadvisor.com Infinio Sphere review and compare the results in noise: ‘Initial Score’ vs. ‘Tuned Score’. You can also compare that with another HAs. The correlation speaks for itself.

Besides, very interesting description of experiences. Keep up posting!

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Your mileage may vary, but audiologists ‘love’ NAL-NL2 for a reason. Along with DSL 5.0, this is the only proven fitting algorithm in research.

Why NAL-NL2 more often than DSL 5.0? It’s probably because DSL requires more gain in highest frequencies (HFs), which are often unachievable - due to feedback threshold constraints, frequency response of receivers (especially with UP ones or Naidas) and because receivers often can’t provide high frequency gain required by DSL because of too low power in that frequencies.
Not to mention that it is quite often that the patient has dead regions in HFs, which makes setting much gain unnecessary or even detrimental to speech understanding due to, e.g., distortion (it’s highly individual, probably not my case).

NAL-NL2 focuses more on mid-frequencies and doesn’t push with HFs with almost the same outcomes as DSL.

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APD or another manufacturer proprietaries are in general for comfort, not audibility and speech understanding. It’s because many people don’t like proper gain in HFs (even in NAL-NL2), because of “tinny sound” perception.

They do not accept the fact that with auditory training the sound quality will definitely improve; they just have to get used to it. It requires patience; in my case, it took two weeks, but in other people’s case, it may take even a few months if their HFs was never fitted appropriately.

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I posted 2 screenshots, calm situation & spheric speech in loud noise.


Years ago when I was wearing Marvel 70s, I did have REM performed. I was not happy with the results. Everything sounded tinny in calm situation. I left the country for vacation and struggled, hotel check in; airport check in; grocery store check out. Yes, Marvel 70s didn’t have speech in loud noise program, which may or may not have made a difference. I sent the HAs to the audi that sold them to me and he reset the programming for Non-REM NAL NL-2. Providers who endorse REM seem to have different equipment/procedures to perform this. They kind of shy’d around the question "Isn’t there an industry standard of equipment & procedure to perform REM? I looked at the detailed fitting report for the Marvel 70s, REM vs Non-REM. The differences at certain gains/frequencies were maybe 2 db at most - not much difference. I’m no pro, just the end user who struggled to hear.

This morning at the gym, I took my laptop in anticipation of some tweaking. I programmed the HAs for NAL NL-2. After 3 songs of streaming music I had to smoke that off my HAs - distortion… I refitted using APD (not contrast) and 200% better. I experimented with the “contrast version” in my Lumitys based on reading from Phonaks website “Phonak Adaptive Phonak Digital Contrast (APDC) is a fitting formula designed to help patients with severe to profound hearing loss and poor auditory resolution abilities” I’m not sure what was changed from ADP & ADPC 2.0 to the present 3.0; but I liked the way music sounded. If music sounds good, I would guess speech, TV & Radio would fall in line, no?

If I may ask, what is your experience, if any, with Phonak’s SoundRecover2? Per the website “Phonak SoundRecover2 is a frequency lowering technology that primarily benefits individuals with severe to profound hearing loss, particularly those with difficulty accessing high-frequency sounds with conventional amplification.” I have fitted my HAs with and without SoundRecover2 and can’t really tell a difference. I do have it activated.

I appreciate the input - always willing to learn.

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I am just going out, so I can’t provide the full answer now.

My first question was after read to your screenshots was: “It’s with APD 2.0 (non contrast)?” and (more important) “Does SoundRecover2 is really necessary?”

It definitely could make a distortion, especially if you set up HAs with NAL-NL2, because highest sound is (IIRC) compressed to the more mid-frequencies and could gave terrible experience, especially since you hear the highest notes a bit better than the ones above 1.5 kHz.

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I am using APD 3.0 - which sounds pretty darn good

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This was really helpful! I’m looking forward to hearing how you go testing the Roger On in different situations.

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I’ve never experimented with chancing the fitting formula. Can one just swap fitting formulas without altering fine tuning or redoing REM?

Phonak has used frequency lowering technology from the start
Your hearing loss is mostly flat. This is not really a good loss to use sound recover. You won’t benefit from it.

Something you might try is to take an aid off for a few hours to test the one you are wearing. Take good notes on how things sound. Tune that aid to get the most out of it from this testing. Then test the other aid the same way and adjust it for it’s best sound. Doing this helped me a bunch before going to CI.

I really enjoyed your first 6 hours review, well done.

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No. Changing formulas will reset all fine tuning, which would include REM. You can elect not to change options for each program, such as default microphone directionality, noise block, wind block etc.

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That makes sense. Thanks.