I posted a few months ago about these exciting new aids and have read Jordan’s posts as well as engaged with a number of people here who have provided me with valuable info and advice.
There were some who didn’t think I’d be able to hear much at all with my audiogram and should go for a CI
But I’ve always had good results with aids and I was sure this new tech should work for me.
Wanted to let you all know I completely concur with Jordan’s experiences. These aids are head and shoulders above my previous Paradise Naida 90UPs
First just on automatic - some new experiences
1 able to hear my husband while driving in our motor home, first time no repeats
2 able to have an actual conversation with waitresses and bar staff in pub and restaurant
3 much more clarity watching TV - sometimes not even needing subtitles
4 hearing things like the toast popping from the next room, the clock ticking, my indicator in the car , wind rustling in the leaves
5 hearing husband behind me in a kayak and waking at the side of me on a hike with wind at 23km/hr the wind was distracting but not drowning the sound out
using spheric setting: not auto - I selected it
I was not expecting much as I am using custom moulds with a 3.5mm vent ( as I can’t stand occlusion) - however
In a noisy bar - could still have a conversation when hearing husband was struggling - I suggested he should do a hearing test and it came back normal - but I coped better
At home with family including noisy children - still able to have a conversation!
I’ve realised my life is relatively quiet overall but on the odd occasion it works for me
battery life is brilliant - another concern I had as a 16+hours a day user usually still on 40-50 % when I go to bed
Final note of thanks to Tenkan for the target software which we’ve used to optimise the set up.
Maybe you should temporarily try power domes to see if the experience is even better in terms of speech understanding despite greater occlusion. Your low-frequency hearing isn’t bad, and a lot of interfering noise is low frequency. There are adjustments in Target (and also in the MyPhonak app) that can reduce your sense of occlusion.
No I tried power domes first with the trial ones and then decided to buy the C shells as it wasn’t very good. I was prepared to not get much benefit from spheric mode so anything is a bonus.
I do love my low frequency normal hearing and enjoy the fact I’m able to use it.
Perhaps the difference between you and me is that because my hearing loss is much less severe, I can hear noise of all frequencies across the speech spectrum pretty well even if the noise bypasses my hearing aids. Your loss being more profound doesn’t allow you to hear noise very well that goes through your relatively open vents directly to your eardrums; you only hear sound well that gets processed by your hearing aids, filtered, and amplified.
Not really jim - the moulds allow me to hear very well all the full range of sounds. The fact I’ve got the vents just means that using spheric setting doesn’t get rid of as much noise as fully closed ones would. However for me in my lifestyle that’s a trade off worth doing. To not experience the occlusion - indeed to not feel as if I am even wearing aids at all - is worth not getting the full benefit from spheric as I’m very rarely in very noisy environments and 99% of the time I won’t be using it.
Even if you rarely use it, I’ll bet it’s nice to have Spheric mode as an option. Not using it much means longer battery life, since Spheric mode tends to use power rather quickly. It’s great that you’re enjoying your new hearing aids, and hearing enjoyable sounds more easily!
It’s worth considering the QuickSIN test (for speech in noise hearing) - there are some people with normal tonal audiogram with difficulties in more challeging situations. Since 2026 the newest NAL-NL3 fitting algoritm will be probably ideal for him.
You have UP receivers despite your good low frequency hearing? Can you hear any internal noise (humming) in completely quiet situations? I ask because I can hear up to 500 Hz, so I’m considering a UP receiver because my ear canal is probably so large that a P receiver would be too weak.
Out of curiosity: when you had power domes did you try push it deeper carefully to the bony part of ear canal? In my case, when I put it too shallow, I perceive occlusion, which disappears competely when I push it deeper.
I am very happy you get so much benefits and that’s without CI! A highly improbable situation, but it worked!
Yes the fitting is set up to not give me any very low frequency gain. The sound recover is turned off as there is no useful hearing at the mid range to lower it to now, although I did find it useful some years ago.
I had the same experience as you with power domes - better when I pushed them in deeper but they kept slipping out and the sound wasn’t as good as my moulds now I’ve had bigger vents put in.
I can’t hear any noise in completely quiet situations. I get some tinnitus sometimes but only when I take my aids out at bedtime. I honestly don’t feel as if I’m wearing them.
SandraN, our audiograms are very similar and your words expressed my feelings about the Spheres nearly perfect. Thank you! I’m still doing some experimenting with Target (I’m new at doing it myself) but I’m very pleased that I didn’t go the CI route. I’ve worn hearing aids for about 30 years, always purchased from Costco. When I was told they didn’t have anything that could help me, I started looking elsewhere. After a trial from a hospital audiologist 250 miles away, I decided these were the hearing aids but I needed to learn how to program them myself. This forum has been extremely helpful but I’m more of a lurker than participant, partly because words don’t come easy for me as I age a little more. I’m so glad you told your experience and the Sphere’s are serving you well.
I have been going through hell with my Sphere I90s. The problem seems to be that none of the many audiologists in my ENT’s practice has much experience with them. I have vented cShells. I did a 90-day trial with them last year and loved them. But the place I got them from dropped out of my insurance network, so I had to start from scratch 8 months later (after trying Oticon Intent, Starkey Edge, and Signia IX unsuccessfully).
I attended a class reunion (my 60th) last Saturday in a restaurant– about 60 of us circulating informally in a medium-sized room. Hearing conversations was difficult in automatic, so I changed it to spherical, hoping to tone down the loud ambient conversations around me. It made no difference, even after I made manual adjustments of volume, noise reduction, etc. I recall that during my trial, spheric mode made a huge improvement, but not so this time.
Today I ran into a former colleague in a store. It was not particularly crowded or noisy, but I still had difficulty understanding her, though she was only an arms length away.
Same story with TV– I can’t watch without captions. Everything sounds the same regardless of whether I’m in automatic, spheric, Music, TV, or Restaurant.
I am seeing yet another new audiologist tomorrow.
My question to you, Sandra, is how or where can I/we access the target software from Tenkan that you found so useful? Doesn’t my audiologist have Target software? My hearing loss is nowhere near as great as yours, yet I cannot understand conversations etc. in any of the situations that you can. I don’t know if my problem is me or my audiologist(s).
What my audiogram does not show is that my word recognition is 92% in one ear, and 24% in the other.
Yes the audiologist will have Target to programme your Phonak aids but what I’ve found was that my audiologist really didn’t understand how to adjust the programme to personalise it. When we got the software I saw screens he’s never even looked at. By experimenting, making changes I was able to give immediate feedback and within a few minutes the aids were set up perfectly. Have a look at the DIY section here lots of us have done this.
@SandraN, I am still curious about your unaided and aided speech audiogram (left and right separately and binaurally) - like WRS in quiet. Your case is very interesting!
Hi, I’ve never had a word recognition test only the tones. I lost my hearing as an adult being first aided age 39 so I think that enables me to recognise speech through a combination of lip reading and memory/adaptation. It is interesting. I’m sitting here today without putting in my aids as I’m in a very quiet environment. I can hear my husband as long as I can see his face. Not just lip reading but the whole body language. Also using the context of where we are and what we are likely to talk about. He can throw me a curve ball sometimes by saying something completely out of context! I think understanding speech is much more than hearing. And that over the years I’ve adapted to being able to use other senses and skills to make sense of what I hear. I seem to be highly attuned to what people are feeling from interpreting their facial expressions for example. With hearing aids I have always done very well. Holding a responsible job which relies on communication, participating in amateur drama productions, delivering training to groups. Audiologists are always surprised by the things I am able to do too.
