I’m a Phonak Audeo Marvel R user. I bought mine with the slim tip ear mold, which I found to be too small. I was always trying to figure out how to put them in my ears and I got tired of the occasional and painful times when they went in too far. I had them changed out with the C shell molds and now I have some questions. My voice now has too much bass and it sounds like my head is in a large fish bowl, although all other sounds are fine. Is there a fix, besides removing the bass frequencies. My audiologist said that the slim tips let a lot of the sound escape, but the C shells keep it in, and we’re going to work on adjusting the frequencies some more, but I’m wondering if it has to do with the size of the air tubes or something. I also noticed that I can barely hear the start-up tones when I close the battery doors, which wasn’t the case with the slim tips. I plan to share my experiences with the aids, but for now I need help. Thanks!
Posting your audiogram would allow others to offer more specific advice, but it sounds like you’re suffering from occlusion with the C shells. I think the solution might be a little more venting.
Another option would be to adjust the occlusion control. It worked well for me when I got molds.
As MDB said, more venting might prove best.
Ok, thanks. I will do that tomorrow. Thanks for the info too. I need help, but I think ill have something to offer here as well once I get where I need to be. I’m a musician and I am really going for it with these aids. So far I’m amazed! I’ll be back tomorrow…
I’m also a musician with the M90-R. When I first got my Marvels 7 months ago, I was very dismayed and upset with how my Marvels sounded with my piano. My solution has been to have my audiologist create a custom music program for playing my piano. She has also set WhistleStop to zero. (The default is WhistleStop = 8.) For me this was very important. This removes a major problem with distortion in musical tones. I have WhistleStop set to zero for both the built-in Music Program and for my custom Piano Program. I truly love how my Marvels are working for me.
Gary, you’ve talked about excellent music listening through streaming on the Marvel (I have M70-R’s). I’m just starting the customization of the streaming program with my audi. I have open domes and I get poor bass response with BT streaming. Did you have this problem? Is it OK to boost the heck out of the bass output in the streaming program in order to get decent response with open domes?
Regards, John
John, I have open domes. My audiologist taught me to insert my speakers deep in my ears so that I can feel only the tip of them. If I don’t do that, there is a definite lack of bass response. I’m a classical pianist and I’m used to listening to an acoustic grand piano and a live acoustic symphony orchestra. I don’t want the hugely overblown bass that most amplified pop music has. For me my Marvels are doing what I want, my music sounds to me like a live performance should and I’m quite happy.
I’m an acoustic guitar player. My audi has given me a separate program for when playing my guitar…Essentially, it takes the edge off of the harshness sound of the strings.
I complained to the Audi about the lack of bass when working out daily or streaming for periods of time. Here’s the solution that we developed;.
While it may sound like a PIA, I swap from my open domes to closed domes when I’m streaming for periods of time. It was little bit of a hassle at first, now it’s just my daily process. When I’m getting ready to work out, I swap domes and put on my ear guards for keeping sweat away from them.
The closed domes don’t allow the lower bass sounds to escape. If I’m just doing a quick stream of a video or something, I won’t swap out the domes.
I’m still going to post my audio graph, but I want to jump into this music discussion. When I purchased my M90’s I emphasized to the Audi that I want to know if the larger molds improved the quality of the sound. I believe I was a little misunderstood, based on her response, and I ended up agreeing to the slim tips. First of all, It wasn’t perfect, but I was blown away at the difference from my old Resounds, which I used for decades (a couple pairs). I’m not sure if either of you sing, but I do and this was exceptionally important to me, along with my guitar(s) and music in general. The slim tips hurt my inner ear at least a few times when I inserted them (including the first time!) and I couldn’t escape wondering if the c shells would have more quality to them than the slim tips, so I tried the c shells. I’d like to begin by stating that I’ve been really perplexed, to put it nicely, by how hearing aids that cost thousands can’t do what my Bose (and the like) ear buds do, produce rich, quality sound, all while improving speech and comprehension. First, I had an epiphany when I performed with the slim tips…OMG!! I could hear my voice like never before, and it felt powerful! I was able to back off from singing so hard and I have been singing better than ever, which I’ve always struggled with in the past. I also wasn’t experiencing the compression kicking in and changing the sound for periods of time in the middle of performing, and waiting for the compression to ease back to “normal“. While in the Music setting, they were consistent and detailed…I found the holy grail!!
Enter the c shells…
When my Audi switched out the slim tip with the c shell molds, I knew instantly that my question about them providing better quality sound had been answered! Although we had trouble with my own voice sounding WAY too bassy, like my head was in a fishbowl (my initial inquiry here, back to that later), I went home and listened to my iTunes, I was almost crying tears of joy! They’re still not as rich as my Bose buds, but I also came to realize that, at this stage in my life and music, I don’t really need big and loud, which I can get from my amps anyway, just good quality natural sound, and the c shells were clearly better, for me.
The problem for me though, is the fishbowl on my head. That’s what I’d like to focus on in this thread, and I’ve already gotten some good info, and look forward to getting more! Once my head is free from the bowl, I look forward to reading more tips and tricks to improve the different aspects of the performance sound, program settings, eq, etc. Ultimately, getting back to that musical holy grail, with the c shells, and tweaking them to near perfection. Then perhaps I can just focus on making beautiful music!
I found this slide presentation helpful in understanding how earmold acoustics and venting works. Can’t say I fully understand it all yet, but I am getting there.
I use power domes with my marvel 90 and I cut a slice in each one of them. I don’t get the “fishbowl effect” and I still get a pretty good sound while streaming music. Give it a try, domes are cheap