Phonak introduces Marvel platform and Audéo M hearing aids

No M is for Marvel. It should say on your receiver, which type you have.

I hope Phonak comes out with a UP version of Marvel platform bte aides with full earmolds or RIC with heavy duty power receivers. Must be same gain specs as Naida B UP.

So, my hearing aids are the M50-312 model, so they do not come with a ‘music’ program. Originally I thought that the music program was included, just that you had to manually switch to it, however my audiologist said that’s not accurate. At this point, I have no idea what it will take ( $$ ) to get that program.

I’ve been fitted with the Phonak Medium vented dome 4.0. My hearing loss is mostly in upper frequencies , it the hearing loss increase with higher the frequencies. The audiologist felt the vented part would work best for me, since the low frequencies won’t be amplified very much, so there would be some natural sound getting through with the vented design. Not sure if custom molds would work well , but I could certainly ask about it.

In general , I’m not a serious musician , I just fiddle around on guitar for fun. While I do listen to a bit of music hear and there, it’s not a major part of my life, and it’s really always just ‘entertainment’ as opposed to a profession, etc… Now, having said that, I find the warbling of high frequency tones to be annoying and not something I really want to have to live with.

Someone else asked about what phone I use, presumably asking, related to the battery life I’m getting when using bluetooth. I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S5. But I have also been doing some streaming from a couple different Windows10 computers.

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According to this:https://www.phonakpro.com/com/en/products/hearing-aids/audeo-marvel/features-audeo-marvel.html it should be able to have 3 additional programs and music is one of the possibilities. This should be something that’s included in a standard fitting. It’s a matter of clicking a few buttons. It could be more work if you need the sound “fine tuned,” but this is pretty standard stuff.

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Can anyone speak to how many seconds it takes for the Marvels to initiate streaming? For example, I answer a phone call - what is the delay for connection? Or, I start playing music? Thanks!

I have ordered Phonak cShells with power (not sure p or up) but it should be available:
See here for P Receiver or UP Receiver:

It’s instantaneous with no delay.

Like jfenton said, it’s fast! Easy to forget some of the stuff they did right when I’m griping about things they didn’t. I’ve never missed any music, notifications, calls, etc. due to bluetooth lag which is pretty darn impressive.

I have the datasheet for all the Marvel aids. Their most powerful Marvel aid doesn’t have enough gain for my very profound hearing loss. I am getting a pair of Naida B 70 UPs. I hope later this year or next year, Phonak comes out with UP aids based on the Marvel platform.

Yes, it is impressive. ReSound didn’t bring that sort of connectivity until the Quattro’s (maybe 3D). Quattro’s are instantaneous, but for example their first round with the original LiNX - 3-4 second delay at times, and sometimes would drop an ear. They’ve sorted it out now. Glad to hear this about Marvels. Excited to see what the firmware update brings.

I’ve come to understand in November

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Thanks MBD,

When I was reading up about it, that is the way I read things as well. When I had asked my Audiologist , she basically just said it’s not included and I should give them a try without it, that most people do fine without it.

I think I’m going to call Phonak directly and see if I can get them to give me clarification on the matter of how the ‘3 additional’ programs work.

On the Receiver it says 2M. I’m guessing that means I have the M receivers, correct? Not sure what the “2” in front of the “M” means?

Very fast. I don’t notice any delay either with phone calls or music streaming.

I did call Phonak, I’m not really much more clear about the issue now, then I had been. Other then it seems clear that the M50 hearing aids do have the ability to use a ‘music’ program as one of the ‘additional’ programs. However, it is unclear if this costs extra to enable or not. The support person, basically said it was up to the audiologist to add these and/or what they could or would charge to enable additional programs.

In all honesty, I feel like this issue is a basic issue, that if a $3000+ set of hearing aids can’t reproduce a steady high frequency tone, something is wrong. Regardless of it this is considered ‘music’ or not, it’s not a entirely uncommon thing to hear steady tones in a day to day life. So, anyway, I sure hope they can fix the issue without it costing me more money.

You can have a steady tone or you can have noise control. You can’t have both. HA’s think music is noise. Having a music program usually means that noise control is turned off.
Hearing a microwave tone warbles. Use a music program and it’s fine.
But I’m no expert.

There’s a common tendency among audiologists to want you to just start out with the automatic program and then see what situations you have problems with. You could just go back and say music sounds awful, what can you do about it? Don’t know what kind of a pricing structure you have. If you have to pay per visit, it would probably be better to be more directive.

Interesting. I can sort of understand wanting a patient to get to know things and figure out what is working well and what isn’t. However, when I specifically asked about the music program, she strongly implied that it wasn’t available on my hearing aids, more or less implying that would require a step up to the next technology level. Now, without giving out names, this is at a large medical facility, well respected in many ways. I sure hope they audiologist actually knew what features are, or aren’t available. But then, maybe this isn’t that much different then many other things in life, where it seems I often am more aware then the people who try to sell things to me.

Sorry if I seem ornery. I just wish things were a little easier. I guess I should just be patient and wait to see what my audiologists actually have to say when I formally complain about the warbling. I have a call in to one of the technician’s there about this and another matter, hopefully he might be able to give me some insight on this issue.

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I think it is pretty common for some patients to know more about hearing aid features than the audiologist. For us, it’s exciting and fun. For them, there are endless updates and new features. Combined with dealing with multiple brands of hearing aids and other job admin duties, there just isn’t time unless one is very enthusaistic about technology.

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Adding a music program would take 5 minutes or less.

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