Received my Sphere 90s a few days ago. Went to a loud music event last night. My phone showed max volume of 92 dB. I did not hear any difference between Automatic, Spheric speech in noise or Restaurant. I’m using vented domes. Thoughts or Suggestions? Thanks, Rick
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There ya go. Noise leaks in(which you want in most circumstances, assuming your lower frequency losses are mild to avoid occlusion) and overwhelms whatever help the aid can provide. Activevents if you’re mild-moderate. Molds regardless, but venting may leak some if the vent is big enough.
WH
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As Whitehat says but 92dB is going to be a challange even for the Spheres
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Anyone with normal hearing would struggle to hear in such a loud environment. People will be shouting at eachother to be heard. I’m not sure what your expectations are but they might be too high for this specific environment.
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Hearing aids are aids, they don’t do miracles 
. In a loud environment like the one you describe, even plugging your ears with earplugs won’t block the noise. Test them in. Restaurants , shopping malls , subways but no, they won’t work in a Cardy B concert ( not sure why I chose Cardy B )
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Hearing in negative SNR situations is mainly for people with really good lip reading skills like bar-staff and shouted comments.
When the average SPL gets over the level of loud speech, you’re basically asking for the impossible unless the person speaking has a decent near-field mic on and the sound is being transmitted directly to the aids.
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At 92 dB I’d be wearing earplugs instead of aids, to protect the hearing I have left.
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Excellent response. My thoughts exactly! When I have inadvertently been exposed to such a high noise level I will turn my aids off and use to help block the noise!
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Problem is I own the music venue. I need to hear my patrons when they come to the bar to order a beer or glass of wine. Mostly it’s a listening room but occasionally we have loud bands. I control the volume but most all musicians would like it louder, both 5 piece bands and solo singer/songwriters. I was hoping that the Spheres would compress the overall sound and heighten the voices close to me. My $150 Apple EarPods do a better job. I’ll try a loud restaurant this week and then decide whether to return them.
Apple AirPods have a closed fitting (ie like no vents in the domes) so it is sealed out from the outside air.
WH
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Try with activent receivers and ideally custom molds. Optomises the aids
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I didn’t see your loss when I originally posted, but if there was ever a hearing loss that said ‘show me you run a live music venue without showing me…….’
It’s a bit of a difficult one to fit as you’re virtually ok until it hits 2KHz, then a precipitous drop. The real issue is that there’s a difference of intensity of about 1000x between your lower and upper ‘registers’ all happening across the octave above piano top C.
It takes a bit of guts from the audiologist to bin the prescription and just put all of the output in a window around 2-8Khz.
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The loss is really outside the fitting range for activevents.
WH
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Apologies-hadn’t looked at the audiogram
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Thanks for everyone’s comments and suggestions. My audi and I talked about activents and she didn’t recommend them. For $300 I still might try them. I did order power domes today from Amazon.
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Some have tried it and liked them, even though outside the normal fitting range. You did mention that AirPods work for you.
WH
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