Phonak Lumity Naida 90 UP BTE Review

I’m currently trialing a set of Audeo L90’s with UP RIC’s. Generally these are an improvement over the NHS Signia UP BTE aids but the sound quality using the iPhone or the laptop (Teams conference calls) is not as good and we don’t know why. Could someone look at my Audiogram and guide me if I would be better off trying a set of the Naida 90 UP BTE’s instead as per this post? BTW I do have the Roger ON and that is a fantastic bit of kit and really helps in a conference room and noisy environment such as a restaurant. Set upon the aids was done using REM and first fit did not work, sounds tones were way to base and not enough high frequency.

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Hello @deanvowden, I would be inclined to agree, you are borderline profound… The Naida Lumity 90 BTE UP might be more suitable for your needs, plenty headroom as well… I might add, to try the NAL NL2 fitting formula, this might or might not improve overall clarity, it took me a month or so with my previous Naida Pardise 90 UP BTE’s to acclimatise to NAL NL2, but now it sounds perfect to me, especially with the Naida Lumity 90 BTE UP’s… One other thing, the sound scope from a BTE, IMO will always sound much better than any RIC aids, it will be richer, and fuller, plus you get 10 to 12 days, on a 675 battery, always a bonus :grin: I would at the very least, trial the Naida 90 UP BTE’s, only you can actually know what sounds best… Good Luck, cheers Kev :wink:

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Hello @Baltazard, The Signia aid I have is the Stretta UP-R and yes the Audeo L90 is from a private Audiologist. The aid itself works well under normal use and I rarely change programs, in fact I’m pretty much on Autosense 5.0 all the time. But for some strange reason the sound quality and clarity through my iPhone 11 is not great using BlueTooth and when using BT or the Roger On with the company laptop and then attending Microsoft Teams calls and meetings etc, then again the Sound quality/clarity is not great.

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Hello @kevels55 yes I’m going to reach out to my audiologist this morning and request a trial of your HA’s. I think I’m already on NAL NL2, have been for a long time but I will double check. I’m also wonder if the BTE will give me that sound quality when connecting to either my iPhone 11 and the company laptop.

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Your audiologist can change thee settings for the streaming programms for bluetooth and for Roger. Maybe the audi need to adjust these programms

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Hello @firenzel ,thank you for the heads up. Would you by any chance have any further details you could share with me on these settings?

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Also in the app @deanvowden, under Bluetooth Phone Calls, check to see if Adaptive Bandwidth is ticked, as per image below… Cheers Kev :wink:

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@deanvowden

Each programme has slightly different levels, and adjustments.


The settings you should address are:
Media speech + mic
Media Music + mic
RogerDirect + mic

Personally, I only have Whistleblock enabled on any of them, and that’s set as low as I can get away with.

Peter

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I assume that is Whistleblock @PeterH & not Whitleblock… :rofl: Although it’s been a while since I delved into Target, I may have to sometime this week, I believe Lumity has some firmware updates… Cheers Kev :wink:

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Hello evrybody! First, sorry my english. I am a Finn from Finland, Lapland. I have severe hearing loss been almost whole my life. I am now 69 and have had many HAs. Current HAs are REsound Enzo Q from year 2018! Now they have come to the end of the way. I am going next wednesday (10.4) to my new audi to prove these Phonak Naida Lumity 90 UP BTE HAs. My Audiogram is very old(2018). I have never had REM. I asked my audi take also GN Resound new HAs and Oticon Xceed too.
I have read this forum now three days… many hours. Nice place.

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edited - rushing as usual :slight_smile:

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@ms.mese
Welcome. Your English is far better than my Finnish :slight_smile:
Peter

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Thanks @PeterH, I didn’t know you could adjust the frequency channels for the Roger On too. I have another appointment with the Audiologist next week.

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Hello @kevels55, yes this was set and then I found again this morning it had gone back to the normal sound quality. I will need to keep an eye on that, is that something that can be defaulted in the Target software?

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Yes @deanvowden it has a habit of doing just that, reverting back to normal, you have to periodically check to make sure it’s on Adaptive Bandwidth… I am unsure if there is a setting in Target, to make Adaptive Bandwidth the default setting? It’s been a while now since I got out Noahlink Wireless… Perhaps @PeterH might kindly take a look, the next time he’s tweaking his aids, by all accounts that’s fairly regular :rofl: he is becoming, quite an expert on Target…Cheers Kev :smile:

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I forgot to say, i have terrible tinnitus, too. After then I got hyperthyroid and medicin Tyrazol. Or some medicin to my high blood pressure.

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@kevels55
Yes, you can set Adaptive Bandwith in both Target and the App. It sticks too, so you don’t need to reselect it in the App. It certainly help my calls once selected. Before I selected it, my wife said she couldn’t hear me.

@deanvowden
Yes, it appears both the Streaming and Roger programs have slight changes compared to Calm Situation or any of the other fixed programmes. However, I don’t know whether the gains are for the Roger device or the “+mic” part. Personally, I’d look at the sliders on the 2nd screen first.

Peter

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Went this morning first thing to have the Phonak Lumity Nadia 90 SP fitted. The UP is available for trial as well, but the Audi said to give the SPs 3 weeks.

I have taken a photo below of my Oticon Dynamo 8 (in silver on the left) alongside the Phonak Lumity (in grey on the right) SP:

They are more or less the same size, which is good news. Also, as can be seen, the Lumity SP takes size 13 disposable batteries.

After the fitting we paired the new Lumity SP to my phone and l left Specsavers without any adjustments. But after an hour I had misgivings and realised that the mids and treble were too low. I went back at lunch time (Specsavers is only 1.5 miles from my house) and we increased the mids by 5dB and the highs by 4dB. It now sounds a lot better.

As I mentioned before there were a couple of reasons for this upgrade. Firstly, with a RIC music only sounded very good when streaming, but never in the car or just listening to music on the radio or stereo. Immediately I could tell that the bass is a lot better and when listening to music in the car or online, it is a lot richer and full of depth. I have not yet listened using the music program itself. I am hoping it compares to the Oticon Dynamo.

The 2nd reason was to seek better performance in noise.I did a quick speech in noise test, using the speech in noise and speech in loud noise programs. These worked quite well, but I will need to go out to some noisy live music venues and test them out. I really struggled with my Unitron Vivante (white label Lumitys) in noise, so this will be the make or break.

Also , I can confirm that these are powerful enough, so at this stage I don’t think I will need the UP version.

I have kept things simple on the App. I have the Automatic program, speech in noise, speech in loud noise and music program enabled on my program cycle. The App is a little more informative about what specific program one is in, when in the automatic program - e.g. comfort in noise, calm situation etc. I find this useful. With the Unitron Vivante I did not have this information.

Will post more about the noise performance once I have been out in the next week.

Footnote: The other interesting difference is that the fitting algorithm being used is Phonak Adaptive Digital and not NAL-NL2. I think the audiologist explained that sounds are more compressed at the low and high ends to help comprehension in background noise situations. It does sound slightly different, but I’m going to acclimatise and see how things go.

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Hello and Welcome to the forum @ms.mese, that’s a hefty loss you have! I think you’ll find the Naida Lumity 90 BTE UP’s a big step up in overall clarity, plus Bluetooth connectivity is excellent, and you can pair to several Bluetooth devices simultaneously… But obviously only use one at a time. Depending on how much you stream, the 675 batteries should last around 10 to 12 days, that’s always a bonus :smile: As far as Tinnitus goes, I have had severe Tinnitus for over 30 years, sometimes it’s chronically loud, for instance last night, I was playing in one of my Pool Team League matches (8ball) I play in 2 Leagues, Ross-Shire League is on Mondays, Inverness Premier on Tuesday, anyway, we play 2 sets of 6 singles,12 games in total, in the first set, I was on second, my Tinnitus suddenly went ballistic just as my game started, totally off the scale, that usually means I am unwell, I have had a virus for approximately 5 weeks now, I can’t seem to shake it, it was so loud, I had difficulty in concentration, so subsequently I lost that game…So I did my usual routine, I have learned to relax with Tinnitus, I sit down, and repeatedly tell myself it will become quieter, as I relax the Tinnitus subsides till it is almost nonexistent… I was on last, in the second set, by this time the Tinnitus was gone, 6-5 down, so I have to win to get the draw, my opponent broke, nothing went down, and I proceeded to pot my 7 balls, and then the black, for an 8 ball clearance :smile: It wasn’t an easy finish by any stretch of the imagination, but fortunately I got it… I was focused, with no white noise to hinder me, it works for me, excepting the fact that you own your Tinnitus, it is part of who you are, so relax, it will get quieter… Cheers Kev :wink:

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Brilliant @glucas it looks as though you are off to a flyer with the Naida Lumity 90 BTE SP… I look forward to hearing your assessment/review of these aids, as a viable alternative to the Naida Lumity 90 BTE UP’s with much interest :smile: The more choice for the Severe/profound thresholds have, the better… Cheers Kev :wink:

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