Phonak Marvel / Paradise + Roger Select to understand speech better in noisy environment

Fitter didn’t activate syncing of aids I guess. Explain the problem, they should know what to do. Or let them call phonak directly for help.
In my case some pop up about syncing came during programming and I just said ‘yes’. Can’t remember what I was doing when it asked me for that.

Aids stream to both ears simultaneously. Don’t accept anything else for an answer :slight_smile:

With the sound recover, i.e. frequency lowering, you should be able to hear those beeps. Also, when properly set up, you should have the phone in both ears. At least those are my experiences with my Marvels.

Not knowing your hearing loss at high frequencies, it’s hard to give advice.

  1. What fitting formula (compression) is used in programming your devices; VAC or NAL?
    I would suggest NAL-NL2 non-tonal. NAL-NL2 tonal is made for Asian languages.
  2. Did you had REM (real-ear measurements)? REM measure the sound level in the ear canal and determine whether or not a hearing aid user is receiving the precise level of amplification needed at every frequency in order to achieve the best hearing improvement possible. Without the use of real ear measurement, hearing aids users receive either too little or too much volume at different frequencies and pitches. This test helps to adjust the sound levels for soft, medium and loud speech to match target amplification levels based on the hearing aid user’s hearing loss across the speech frequencies.
  3. Did you have TEN test? A test will identify cochlear dead regions where the receptors (inner hair cells) and/or neurons don’t function anymore. If you have a dead region, a hearing aid may provide little or no benefit within that region and may actually decrease speech intelligibility.
  4. Did you have QUICK SIN to test ability to hear in noise?
  5. Oticon has Mic as an accessory which improved speech up to 16 dB.
  6. Opn1 is one of the best device on a market but “once size DOEN’T fit all”
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They turned on the sound recover & now i am able to hear the HF sounds (the signal turn indicator in car, Bicycle bell…the last beep in microwave, cupboard door screeching sound etc)
the only missing sound which I am still unable to hear was the digital safe keypad sound. Which was audible with OPN having cshell with 105db receiver.

Currently with Marvel 50, I am using custom slim tips with P receiver.

The phone streaming was also fixed. They changed some settings & now I am able to hear in both the aids. The sound is so much crisp & clear compared to OPN.
However, many colleague on the phone were finding it difficult to hear my voice due to the noisy background environment. They never faced this issue with the OPN, as I used to hold the phone really close to my mouth.
I guess for Marvel, the mic are located on the HAs itself hence its takes in all the background noise rather than relying on the phone mic. So even holding the phone mic close to mouth doesn’t really help :frowning:
Only temp solution is to run in a closed meeting/conference room wherein there is no background noise. However this is very inconvenience, as I get calls every 10-15 minutes and the rooms are mostly occupied. I will check with Audi, if there is any solution to focus on my phone mic rather than HA mic.

Overall apart from this phone issue, I am really happy with these Marvels. Especially the MyPhonak app, wherein I can easily control the background noise & also speech focus which is very helpful in my case when having one to one conversation with female colleagues who speaks softly.

Well, I am still struggling while communicating with colleagues wearing masks. Unable to follow the conversations :frowning:
In some cases, I cannot understand a single word…just mumbling
I wonder if there is any solution to this?
Temp solution is to request them to pull the mask down when talking to me. So far none has objected towards this request :smiley:

I haven’t done any test apart from the standard Audiogram.
Even REM was not done. As it was not available in India.
No idea on the fitting formula, I guess it was the standard as selected by Audi.

I am facing 2 issues with the Marvels. Unfortunately the audi was unable to resolve it.

The manual custom program which I select doesn’t stay for long. Automatically it goes back to ‘Autosense’.
so every 10-15 minutes, i need to switch on the phonak app & select the manual program.

When on call on my cell phone (streaming) the person on the other end finds it difficult to hear my voice, it seems the background is very noisy compared to my voice. With OPN1 they never faced this issue. Is there a way to resolve this?

Please HELP!

First issue sounds like it could be triggered by phone notifications. Go in bt settings, disconnect aids from media streaming (leave phone calls if you need them) and check again.

So, you’re in manual, notification comes (doesn’t matter if phone is silent or not), phone sends media stream, aids switch to media stream even if there’s silence, then after that, they switch to default - autosense.

Disabling notifications from firing off, or disconnect bt / bt media is the solution.

Ways around 'other side hears me poorly when I’m in noise:

Someone suggested that they have better experience when aid mic is at -6db or you can try even more, eg your fitter should tweak that, under programming, the one related to the bt calls, in third group from the top (first two are autosense groups).
Also maybe more noise cancelling might help.

This is a wild guess, we here are still not sure what exactly affects it. Try and find out. But don’t expect miracles, if you’re in quiet, it’s best, if there’s slight bg noise (fan, open window), your voice will be altered but comprehensible, if you’re outside walking on busy street or in busy shop, I wouldn’t expect a lot.

Other ways:

First option is to definitely have t-coil aid version, and then buy a neck loop, plug it in audio 3.5 mm on phone, and tell your phone to split the signal (android: lesser audioswitch, iphone supposedly does it automatically), to use mic on phone and loop for audio. Quality for you won’t be the same, but people will hear you from your phone. That’s solution to get the sound in both HAs. And your fitter has to activate t-coil option.

Another way is to get custom program acoustic phone, then you use phone as is meant to, plus you raise it higher so that aid mic can catch signal. And it’s possible to activate (your fitter has to do it) duo, which will then send signals to both aids. For this you don’t need t-coil aid. But you need switch aid into that program manually.

Third way is again with t-coil aid, but only one ear will hear, that’s by activating phone t-coil program in aids (again, your fitter). Unfortunately they don’t have duo option available.

For all three solution you need to manually switch the program first (not a huge problem, your fitter put it as first custom program and then it’s one long click away or short, depending on if you have volume control activated or not on buttons).

So far I’ve tried only acoustic phone, and is doable, but definitely direct streaming is best for me hearing well. So I opt for ‘I’ll call you later when I’m in quiet’.

Oh and there’s fourth/fifth way, but it’s with wires and needs another device, you plug tv connector or roger pen/select, again split signal from phone like in first example, but what you receive should be much clearer.
Caveat, tv connector might disconnect if other side isn’t speaking for like 60 seconds, that happened to people using TV connector on the laptop. Workaround is to plug in adapter that converts audio into optical cable and then connect TV connector with optical cable (cable comes with it, adapter you have to buy). Additionally TV connector needs usb power.

If you need it for the job and you’re sitting, I’d probably opt for tv connector, since you can just put it on the desk with all cables needed.

Roger mics have an advantage of when you are in meeting where several people is on your side and several on the other side of video / phone call, and you listen them through some speaker, since mics are mics, you just put them close to the speaker and sound comes into your ear, no need to figure out how to connect tv connector with wires so that everyone else also hear the other side.
If you’re the only one on this side of call, then wired solution works.

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thanks a lot for your valuable advice.

Now I have disabled all the notifications and the problem is mostly solved.
The only issue is now I have to change the program manually only after answering any phone calls. I Cannot disable BT, as my office landline is connected to my iphone via wifi. So basically, all the calls i receive on the landline are diverted to my iphone. Even while making outgoing calls I have a separate dialer on my iphone, wherein the calls goes via landline & i can listen(streaming) via HA’s.

With regards to the aid mic/ noise cancelling adjustment, I will try it nxt time when I visit the audi. Lets hope for the best!
Yesterday I deleted the app, removed the HA’s from the app (Forget devices) completely & then reinstalled it again. Restarted the iphone too, now the calls are much better for the other person to understand. Much improved. Happy that the issue is partly resolved :slight_smile:
The background noise however still exits, but now at-least there is no static/interruption like before. I noticed this issue came up only after I updated the phonak app recently.

I need the phone calls clarity in office only/sitting at my desk throught the day.
Will the Roger select/pen help in this case to resolve the phone calls issue?
I would prefer direct streaming to the aids, as it helps me a lot to understand soft voices, hence don’t want to go with the t-coil option. And also manually switching the program will be bit hectic as i receive calls every 10-15 minutes.

Don’t know about iphone, in android there are two BT streams, one for media (that is also for notifications) and another for bt calls. So in android, you can disconnect the aids from the first profile and leave it connected to the second. All calls will come through the aids, whilst no other sound will. And after a call, them aids revert back to autosense.

About noisy environments, I’d suggest testing the TV connector solution, it’s the cheapest one (and a bit better than roger mic).

So, how tv connector works? If there’s signal, it turns on, and it can automatically stream to the aids (that’s default aids behaviour). When there’s no signal, it disconnects.
That action is also followed by automatically switching of programs. So, no work on your part other than answering the phone. Which you can also do by aids (if button setup is activated for that).

When I say better, when not in use eg no signal, TV connector will disconnect eg when you hang up your call, and aids will revert back to the autosense.
Whereas with roger, mic will automatically connect when you turn it on, and will stay connected until turned off. And that takes some seconds, like more than 5. That would mean that in order to use it for such frequent calls, you’d either be permanently connected or had to turn on/off the mic, or manually switch programs in aids (my phonak app for example).

Upside is that they shouldn’t stop transmitting even when other side is silent. I didn’t test it so I cannot confirm that it is exactly how they work.

Downside is that because of non stop transmission, you again have to manually switch programs one way or another.

Tv connector will do the switch automatically, but then there’s a risk of disconnecting while you’re talking and other side not, and when they speak, you’ll miss first word or two until it connects. Again, experience from people using it on laptop for zoom calls. It is possible that on phone it won’t suffer from such disconnect.

Don’t know how iphone handles it.

So, best option is to try for your setup and see if it works the way you want. Since until know I don’t remember seeing that anyone is using it on mobile phone in that way. I just tested it on android to confirm it works, but on a short Skype test call and android. And even if it works for me, it doesn’t mean iphone will behave in an exactly the same way.

That’s why I say - test.

Regarding your custom program. I think if you write down the settings, your audiologst should be able to create a permanent program for you that you could select either with button or app.

I noticed from my experience with Marvels early in this year, and other opinions in this forum that my interlocutors poorer handled with noise around me during Bluetooth calls, which was much improved with Paradises. But I am happy you have resolved this problem.

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With regard to the phone calls, my problem is ‘partly’ solved. I mean after uninstall/restart app & phone, the ‘static’ noise is gone. But the problem of background noise still exists. The streams calls are very clear to me, however on the other end the person struggles to understand my speech, as they say they can hear more of the background noise compared to my speech. 8 out of 10 colleagues have mentioned that they find it difficult to understand my speech. They never faced this issue when I was using Oticon OPN1.
I still have to visit the Audi to adjust the HA mics to -6/-3db to see if there is any difference. If the background noise still exists, I guess I need to focus on other alternatives as mentioned by @Blacky in the above posts or the last option will be to check some other brands of HAs which focus on Phone mic rather than HA mic.
In a day, I have to attend around 40-45 calls, hence calls streaming is also one of my top priority.

Thanks. I will discuss this option with my audi in next visit.

Wow, quite a lot. I strongly recommend Phonak Paradises. Please read this review:

Quote from that:

“(…) . Phone calls are clear, and everyone I spoke with said my voice sounded good on the other end. I was even able to take calls while riding my bike. Unfortunately, the sound got a little weird when I did that (some occasional popping sounds and echoey-ness), but it was good enough to carry on a conversation, and amazingly there was no wind noise to speak of, for me or the person on the other end.(…)”.

The review seems pretty good for Paradise.

I requested my Audi for Paradise trial. However since they are new, it will be available here in Dubai hopefully within a month.

I will definitely trial these to see if it really helps to resolve my current issues with regards to the phone calls (streaming).
Thanks

Are you currently using cShell with P receiver. Is it possible to know the size of the cShell.
For the Marvel trial, currently I am using custom slim tips with P receiver, they are exactly 1.5 CM in length.
I just wanted to know, if the size of cShell are comparatively larger than slim tips?

I highly doubt it. I trialled marvel and paradise, both behaved similar.

One more thing if you haven’t already - go to myphonak-app, top right menu, my aids, bt calls and change to adaptive bt if it isn’t already, or to fixed it is adaptive now and try then if it helps anything.

If I remember correctly, by default is fixed with marvels, I’ve switched to adaptive and other side reported better sound. I think adaptive is default on paradises. That could be the ‘reason’ why some experience ‘improvement’.
Anyhow, try and see.

I have never had SlimTips, but it seems no big difference in size between cShell and custom SlimTips, cShell is maybe slightly bigger.

You must know it isn’t easy to change receiver in cShells - you must send them to Phonak company to replace/change it. In SlimTips you can replace/change receiver in Audi.

Some infos here:

You’re maybe right, I forgot about fixed vs. adaptive Bluetooth issues. However it’s worth checking issue also with Paradises where the connectivity seems work better (“It simply works”).

Another solution - for stationary situation better option may be a TV Connector linked to the phone. It uses another streaming protocol (AirStream) which drain much less battery energy than Bluetooth.