Phonak

Hearing Aids
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#6

You’re blaming Phonak, a huge multinational corporation, for poor service/skills provided by a couple of people at a local Sonus outlet???

I called Phonak directly and they refused to help me. I

I bet they simply & politely said ‘Please follow this up with your local supplier.’

Your point of contact is your local supplier, not some poor soul in a Phonak factory.

If the forecourt of a Shell franchise is grubby, do I write to the head of Shell to compain? No, I moan at the site manager of the petrol (gas) station.

#7

I’ve had my Phonak Solanas for a bit over a month now. These are my first HAs so my situation is a bit different from Gump. Overall, I’m happy with them and the service from the Audiologist has been very good. She recommended the Solana as it has the best feature set for the price. There isn’t a lot of difference between the Solana and the Ambra. The Ambra has adjustable Zoom Control. I have Zoom Control as one of the selectable programs on my ComPilot remote but it can only zoom to the front. I haven’t used it yet so I don’t know how much it helps.

Sound Recover works but you need to have it adjusted to your specific need. I found that I was getting a lot of harshness and high pitched “noise” until they reduced the Sound Recover level. I may still need to have it turned down a further notch.

I have the standard ComPilot remote control. I can use it to adjust the volume (can also be done on the HAs); I can select programs (I have 4 optional programs set up); I can pair it with Bluetooth devices; and, I can plug in a direct stereo connection from a device like an MP3 player. It also has a microphone that is used when you pair it with a cell phone. It worked well with my phone but when the remote is hanging at chest level, it doesn’t pick up all that well.

For like2angle, someone on this forum can probably advise you as to the possibility of switching to another Audiologist. If the Audiologist is prepaid for the follow-up visits, that may make it difficult or impossible to switch. I think that your problem was your choice of Audiologist much more then choosing Phonak.

#8

No experience wth the hearing aids as I have Phonak Naida UP.

But with the remote control, I have the My Pilot and I love it.
When I change programs on my aids I have to cycling through my 5 programs to get to the end (mute) but with the My Pilot I can go from 1 to 5 or 5 to 1 (5 because I have 5 programs, it could be more or less), so it is a lot easier to say to do number 5 the mute program.
With the Pilot One, you can only change the volume on both aids at once, with the My Pilot, you can change each ear on their own or together which I find helps.
I also find I get confused with what I am on when I change them on my aids, with the display on the My Pilot, I know exactly what I am on.
I find with the My Pilot, my battery will last 3 weeks before I have to charge it so I dont find it does not last as long because of the rechargeable battery.
The ComPilot could be a good thing as it is a remote and other things as well, but from what I see of it, it does not look like it would do as much as the My Pilot, looks like it would do the same as the Pilot One.

#9

I think that is possible. I trialled some Solana aids a year ago and I believe they were never properly programmed. There has been a new version of the Target software since then and some of our professionals believe these aids may be easier to setup with the newer software.

I am not sure when the newer software was released. It is possible that like2angle’s aid were adjusted with the older software. Using the newer software to program & upgrade the HA firmware may improve things.

Just another thought & viewpoint.

#10

But with the remote control, I have the My Pilot and I love it.

When you’re using the MyPilot, can you have it in your pocket or do you have to hold it up at chest level as shown in the manual?

#11

I can have it quite far down my chest but if it is on one side, it will only adjust the aid on that side. I find I have to have it in the middle to do both aids.

I do find with the checking the battery life of your aids on the My Pilot, I have to have it pressed against my nose though. I do find this quite useless as it will always say battery full on both aids until I have had a warning beep to saying battery low on my aids, then it will show on My Pilot that my batteries are just about to die. It is kind of a useless function anyway now we get warning beeps on the aids. I always carry spare pack of batteries with me anyway.
My left aid is maxed out so I only get 8-9 days with the 675 but the right I can get about 11-12 days with the 675.

#12

Just wondering if anyone else with the Cassia/Solana/Ambra HAs has managed to get them adjusted so that they work well in noisy environments. I am working on it but I’d be interested in any one else’s experience.

Last night I was in a pretty noisy room with lots of people talking in groups. I saw it as a good opportunity to see how well speech-in-noise and zoom could cope with that challenging situation. I had the zoom program added on my last visit to the Audi but I hadn’t really had a chance to give it a good try. The bottom line was that speech-in-noise was the best of the two but not good enough by any means. Even with speech-in-noise on, it sounded like I was in a metal drum with a thousand angry bees in the background. I was generally able to understand speech but it was sensory overload with all of the background noise. Zoom was a total disappointment. It didn’t even do as much as speech-in-noise with respect to noise suppression and the actual zoom (to the front only on the Solana) wasn’t noticeable.

I am hoping that this will get better with some further adjustments and I sent a report to my audi that I will follow up with her at my next appointment. I will provide an update once they get adjusted and I have a chance to test them out again.

Anyone else have any luck with this?

#13

I’ve had my Naida S IX SPs for about a week, with one adjustment after the initial fitting and I’m having similar experiences. I find that environmental noises are SO loud and distorted it’s almost painful, ESPECIALLY in the Zoom program. I was at the gym and somebody dropped some weights about 30 feet away and it was like they were right next to me. Similarly in a restaurant a waitress clearing tables 20 feet away totally destroyed any chance of comprehending my spouse next to me. I too am hoping we can get this dialed in and know that it will take some time.

#14

Looking at your loss, what sort of mould/coupling do you have on the Naida?

Has the Audiologist suggested you might have high-frequency dead-spots?

Have you considered abandoning the worst part of your HF hearing?

Has the audiologist explained the ‘downward spread of masking’ ?

#15

I’d say that for a new HA wearer, you are actually doing quite well to be able to understand speech at all…it really can take quite some time for your brain to be able to filter out the noise that the hearing aid is incapable of eliminating. That said, you can have the noise reduction changed somewhat to hopefully help in those situations.

Something else to check, there is a small percentage of HA’s that get wired wrong at the company where the front mic is wired for the back and the back is wired for the front. You’ll know if they are switched if when you are in directional mode you seem to hear more from behind you than in front of you. Something to check for…

#16

Looking at your loss, what sort of mould/coupling do you have on the Naida?

Conventional earmolds with standard hook

Has the Audiologist suggested you might have high-frequency dead-spots?

Nope. What exactly does that mean? I’ve assumed that anything above 2000hz is dead to me.

Have you considered abandoning the worst part of your HF hearing?

Can you explain more please?

Has the audiologist explained the ‘downward spread of masking’ ?

No, but I will ask her next week. I just got my second adjustment today and my first impression is that there is some improvement, but I need to see how it goes.

Thanks for your response. I appreciate it

#17

I looked up “downward spread of masking” and found an excellent explanation here:
http://www.hear-it.org/Masking

That is EXACTLY what is happening, and I’m guessing that ties in with “abandoning the worst part of my HF hearing.”

#18

It’s to do with the amount of power needed to re-establish hearing to your higher frequencies - each 3dB equates to a doubling of power, so even on a conservative setting you are going to get 30-40dB of gain in the high tones, if you do the maths, that means several thousand times the power needed in the lower tones. It’s not likely to help in two ways, firstly it corrupts the signal at the lower tones and secondly the output of he speaker is going to include a fair amount of distortion. That’s before feedback issues etc.

The worst part is that you’re going to be wearing a mould that exceeds your actual hearing needs. If you abandoned the hf, you could probably get away with a far less occluding fitting and retain more of the naturally occurring sounds and fidelity in your canal. Or even wear lower power hearing aids and get a more satisfactory result.

#19

This all makes sense to me. Yesterday, per my original request for a comparison trial, we introduced a pair of Oticon Agil Pros (RITE with power domes). I’m having feedback and occlusion issues, while both are under control with the Phonaks (vented moulds). We’d already discussed using moulds with the Agils, but I was anxious to try them to get a comparison.

Questions:

  • Can the Phonaks be "retrofitted" with a slim tube or would we have to order new aids?
  • By "abandoning the HFs" are you referring to using a lower power aid and RITE type fittings? There are no adjustments that would accomodate this in either the Agils or the Naidas?
#20

If the Phonak hearing aids are standard BTE’s they can be used with standard earmolds OR slim-tubes.

When you “abandon HF’s” it usually means instead of focusing on getting adequate amplification in the HF areas, you focus instead on the mids and lows where the patient has OHC’s that are functioning and capable of sending information up to the brain.

#21

I have the new Phonak Naida S IX which were fitted few days back. I had to go back to get the noise controlled better. In the car I cannot hear my music from radio or Ipod very well and its being masked by the road noise. Since I have high frequency dead spots due to my severe to profound hearing loss, is this masking is what is happening to me??? What should my audiologist do? He added a speech in noise for me to use in the car to listen to musci but the road noise is now controlled but as I get up to 50 plus mph the sounds of the music gets masked by surroundings. I hate it. Everything else is great with the hearing aids. The auto zoom and stereo zoom needs to be tweaked more to get the noise around me down,

#22

The Ambras are awesome and I have been really pleased with mine so far. The only downside has been I am unable to use my WatchPilot with them :frowning:

Oh well, at least now I can buy a nice watch :smiley:

#23

I use my WatchPilot with my Ambra SP’s. The program switching mode does not seem to work, however. Once I have switched from standard to ZoomControl, it won’t switch back when I press the program button on my WP a second time. Bummer! However, the volume control on the WP works well with my Ambra as long as the watch is within a foot or two at the most from my aids.

To be honest, however, I find the one hand adjustment of programs and volume on one side working for both sides to be one of the best ideas Phonak ever came up with! But if you don’t want attention drawn to the fact that you are wearing aids, the act of checking the time and adjusting volume on the aids at the same time is very neat. And to be honest my black-faced WP looks quite elegant just on its own IMHO.

Did your audiologist pair the WP with your new Ambras?

#24

Thanks for your reply! I had no idea it was possible to use the WP with the Ambras - I just assumed they were completely incompatible. I have my WatchPilot from my MicroPower aids…

I totally agree with you regarding being able to change program/volume from one-side - its a brilliant feature! :slight_smile:

I am finding I use my ComPilot a lot and that also acts as a remote control and more than often its already round my neck.

Given I have ComPilot and I have manual switches on the aids to adjust program/volume I think I might just sell my WP on and get myself a proper watch (at last!!!)

#25

I am just familiarizing myself with the TVLink and ComPilot package that came with my hearing aids and I am really impressed with the technology. Before I had a SmartLink SX and ML9 package with Savia hearing aids and while the 3 microphones in the SmartLink were great, the Bluetooth setup was a bust. I just could not get it to work for me. But these two units really push the envelope and work just as they are supposed to with no compromises. I am a fan of Phonak again!

The great thing for me is that I was all set to buy them separately and when the audiologist told me that they came free with the hearing aids, I was exremely pleased. I paid something like $4,000 just for the SmartLink transmitter and ML9 receivers 7 years ago on top of the price of the Savia hearing aids.

I do have a question for everyone, however:

If I got a BlueTooth microphone, would it be able to pair with the ComPilot? If it could, presumably I could be anywhere in range of the BT signal the building and be able monitor what was going on in a different room (with the permission of everyone in that room, of course :wink: . I used to do that with the SmartLink SX and it worked very well.