#1

Hey all.

Started mij trial period with Phonak’s Paradise P90R yesterday.

My first experiences are a bit mixed. Shortly after I got them I did a walk with a colleague of mine outside in the forest, and he said he definately noticed better speach understanding. I have to say that is my idea as well.

At home I wanted to know what the aids would do when I played my (rock)guitar. Well… autosense made a mess of it, but de music program did not bad.

What very much disturbs me is that many sounds seem a bit hold back (sorry, have to find the right words, not native english speaker). It often sounds like hearing through a pile of cotton. However small sharps sounds instead tend to be amplified. The ticking of the nails of my dog on the laminated floor. The noise the sleeve of my jacket makes when touching the body of my jacket. The keys of my keyboard. Cracking of the wooden stairs when somone steps on it. I don’t want to turn down high tones, because then everytthing goes darker. But this is a thingy I dislike.

As for autosense, I have not really noticed it working so far. On the 1 hand that is good. On the other hand… I want to find out how good it is working :slight_smile: I need to go out a bit more, but the weather sucks already for days here :slight_smile:

As for the (android)phone… Calling is absolutely 100% better. What a delight. Also managed to pair the aids with a simple bluetooth transmitter to stream non-BT capable devices. Hoowever, I also paired my aids with my laptop (win10) but am not able to choose them as headset. Anyone experiences with that?

The app: too limited. One really needs to be able to save programs to the hearing aids as default.

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#2

OK. As for the laptop bluetooth: When you detect devices, you will first find both aids as LE_bladieblah . I paired them, but they did not connect. After a short while also the R-Phonak aid was discovered. This is the one you need. It will add 2 devices, a headphone and a headset.

Now I use Microsoft teams for calls so I wanted to use the headset. Unfortunately this did not work.
However, when using the headset device for hearing and the laptopMic for speaking, I managed to at least hear calls better now.

(removed the LE- devices again after all this as the laptop seemed to have no use for them).

#3

Hi Eric

I have a question regarding the split audio option you discribe.

My experience is that the paradise HA, besides receiving audio over Bluetooth, will automatically use the built in microphone from the HA for sending audio over Bluetooth to the laptop. This is something I don’t like. Experience so far with this Paradise is that, because the microphone is far from your mouth, the receiving party does not hear you so well compared the the microphone from a mobile phone. As I red on this site:
Paradise: Drawbacks
Own voice may sound degraded to conversation partners on hands-free calls

Any experience with this?

Regards
Walter
Also from the Netherlands

#4

Are you using domes? Get custom tips.

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#5

Hi Eric. A couple of suggestions: I’m pretty sure Autosense is adjustable by your audi for sensitivity. That is, how sensitive the program is to slight changes to your auditory environment. For your trial period you might want to ask your audi to set the sensitivity to high so that the HAs change quickly and frequently to different Autosense programs in response to even small changes to your auditory environments.
Experiencing frequent program changes drives a lot of people crazy but, of course, you can always have your audi reduce the Autosense sensitivity again if you want. And with the increased sensitivity during your trial period you will be able to detect and evaluate different Autosense programs.
Also make sure you play with your band at full volume before you decide to commit to buying the Paradise. You need to experience what it will be like to perform with them. This is especially true if you sing. Good luck.

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#6

Hoi Walter,

There is a difference of course between a laptop and a phone. I do however use my phone with my paradises and had no comments on the bad quality. And my colleagues usually are not the kind of persons NOT telling me that kind of thing :wink:

As for the laptop, it tried to use both. There are 2 devices set up, Phonak headset and phonak headphone.

The headset sucks. It does not work. Very disappointing. But when using the headphone and set the laptopMic as recording device, it merely works. Too bad I cannot move away from the laptop, but hey, what should I expect from a pair of devices costing up to 4000 Euro the pair?

#7

Another question.

I can’t open the Phonak app during a call to adjust the audio settings during a call. To be more precise the phonak app won’t connect to the Paradise HA while in a phone call. Anyone seen this behavior?

Thanks

#8

Yes. That is here too.

#9

Sorry, missed this one. No, I use cshells with a venting.

#10

OK. Tested for 11 days now. There are serious issues I have though I am not sure there are directly paradise related or merely due to the paradigm of the designers.

Themain issue is this. Until now I always had my devices sit on 1 level/lineair program. I nearly never used different programs. So all sound was in a way related to eachother. Sorry, don’t know how to translate this to english. What I mean is that when I heard something I could determine if it was loud or soft compared to other sounds. I could compare if sounds were thin or fat. I I needed more treble or bass. And those levels and colors of the sound I changed in the source of the sound. And someone else could tell me:‘yes. you are right, this is more fat, this is better’.

But now, the aids decide to do shaping themselves. So I have no clue how sound relate to eachother. For eaxample, when I start playing my guitar I at first experienced a horrible thin sound. Awful. I was about to grab the app already when suddenly the aids decided to change programs(?) and the sound became louder and very fat en pleasant. For playing at that moment, it was great. However, afterwards I was confused… what was the sound actually like? More like the first one and improved by the2nd program? Or more like the 2nd one and ruïned by the first program? I honestly don’t know. Maybe neither of them. So actually, I don’t trust my ears anymore. For individual situations there are great options, but for the general picture they are breaking my world up in pieces. I don’t like that and am feeling way more handicapped then I did before with far less sophisticated aids.

By the way, Of course I can set these devies to stick to 1 lineairily set program as well. However, I am not going to pay 4K for removing 80% of the functionality phonak sells the paradises for.

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#11

The sense of cotton wool in your ears is the AutoSense program muting down loud noises. You can ask your audiologist to adjust the sensitivity of this feature. I found that when playing golf I couldn’t actually hear a crisp sound when I hit the ball because the muting was working too efficiently.
For music I always use the music program which is set to the second press of the power buttons on my HAs.

#12

Please tell your fitter what you just told us.
The aids are very adjustable, they can be tuned to do exactly what you want.
Good luck

#13

The question is, if I turn of all that stuff, is it worth the money still?

#14

Probably not.
Remember that all modern aids can be adjusted just about anyway you want no Mayer the brand.
If you are an old analog hearing person or just want all sounds coming in, you don’t need the sophistication of the high level aids.
Try to research the difference between the upper level aids and lower level aids. Do you need the fancy stuff?
Understand this is my opinion, not a pro.

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#15

That is exactly what we did. Am using p30 now in contrast to p90. Like them way better to be honest. However we als are going to test unitron and probably oticon more.

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#16

Are you saying that P30 is better than P90 according to your quote. That is not possible as P90 has the exact same internals except more.

#17

Not better, just for me more convenient. P90 just did too much.

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#18

OK, to conclude this topic (besides possible q&a later on), I returned the phonaks, siwtched to Unitron and also returned those unitrons.

Reasons for this: These are great HA if you don’t know any better and compared to the devices I had earlier. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to learn to know better, (in my case, your experience may very well vary). I switched to Oticon More.

What a relief. Not in every aspect, but at least totally in the main aspect, the sound.
Compared to the phonak/unitron, these devices shape the sound without disturbance. I just have them in and barely notice them adapting. It feels so… natural. Of course I don’t have the slightest idea of what ‘natural’ actuall is, but if i would suggest, his would come close. Are they shaping? Oh yeah, because when I switch to the music program I get way more sound. And when I open up the window in my car, I notice the device is working hard to keep other stuff audible (and does a very reasonable job on that). But when I do switch back from that music program it does not feel like I am crippling things again. I think Oticon did an awesome job on these.

Tested the tier 1 first. Am testing the tier 3 now, just to see the difference. And yes, there are diferences, however I am in doubt whether these are big enough to rationalize the price differences.

Are the Oticons perfect? No. the phonaks/unitrons had one huge advantage. Which is the calling directly via the hearing aids. Just like any other bluetooth headset. That works awesome and I miss it. After having experienced that, working with that clumsy connectclip sucks bigtime. (Really, Oticon, this totally does not fit to such anotherwise advanced device). And the windblock on the phonaks/unitrons did a better job.

However primairily it is the sound that matters. And for that Oticon it will be. Now yet to decide which tier finally.

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