I have started a trial on the Phonak Paradise which I picked up yesterday from my AUD. My purpose is to compare the Paradise to the Ones I trialed for two weeks previously (you can see my observations on the GN Hearing introduces Resound One thread).
Initially the Paradise are excellent in the first day of my trial. Speech intelligibility and directionally (high on my list) are superb in that I have understood almost 100% of speech from my wife, audi , and waiters at a very loud ale house I went to last night. BTW I purposely went to the same ale house I had gone to when I tested the Ones so I could make a fair comparison. The restaurant mode of both brands were equal to me; especially the Ultra Focus (Ones) vs the Speech Focus(Paradise). I was able to hear my wife clearly in spite of the surrounding noise .
Outdoor in my windy beach community were about the same regarding wind reduction, however, I felt that speech sounded more natural with the Paradise HAs.
Connectivity was hands down more favorable with the Paradise than the Ones, mainly due to the fact that I could switch between my iPhone and iPad without the need to disconnect BT when I switched between devices.
Speech clarity from phone calls, You Tube videos were about the same on both brands, so that’s a tie.
Feedback favored the Paradise over the Ones, however that could be the fault of the fitter. There is no whistling with the Paradise, but the Ones was very annoying and I was concerned about that in the Ones due to my loss being right on the very edge of the MM receiver’s ability.
I will report more findings over the next several weeks as I experience more environments and report adjustments to my AUD next week.
One decision I have already made and that is I will be returning my Costco PREZAs next week. They are four months old, so I am within the outstanding Costco six month return policy.
I hope to have the Paradise aids before Christmas. I’m going for the P90 13T. Can I ask what receiver size you’re using, M or P. Thanks.
I’m in the first two weeks of my Paradise trial and like them much better then the Ones. I wore the Ones for a month and we never could get the static and rattling sounds sorted out.
Audi fitted me with M receivers in both HAs. I actually thought the P would have been the one for my left hear, however, the AUD did not think so. She’s the one with the PHD in audiology so I went with her recommendation. If I experience anything that would convince me that the P would be better I would not hesitate to tell her. I have the P90R set of Paradise.
However, so far so good.
Let me know how your doing. We can compare our experiences with this new technology. I love the ability to switch back and forth between my iphone and ipad flawlessly; so far not a single glitch or delay.
Two notes to my AUD for next week is the loudness when speaking to my wife in our house which is amazing since I always had a hard time with her soft voice. Secondly, I notice when my head leans against the back of our sofa my right hearing aid has a sort of static while I am speaking. Its hard to describe, but it may be feedback since the sofa has a high back and my HA is right against the sofa.
If those are the only two issues, I couldn’t be more satisfied. Time will tell.
Good luck with your trial.
I called Phonak tech support this morning regarding some BT issues I was having after downloading IOS14.2 on my iPhone 11pro max.
First issue was the callers voice was breaking up during a phone call.
Tech support guided me through the following steps: go to settings, general, reset, reset network settings. After choosing those the iPhone shuts down and goes through a reset, comes back on and automatically chooses your Wi-Fi network. This solved my first issue because the voice was very clear when I made a phone call. Tech support has found the above steps useful whenever Apple releases a new update.
Second issue was Double Tap. It was simply not working. Tech support guided me through the following steps: open MyPhonak app, chose the small sandwich symbol in the top right corner, then My hearing aids, then Bluetooth Phone Call, then make sure Adaptive bandwidth is turned on. Then go back to where you chose My hearing aids and chose Tap Control, then look for Accept/end call or streaming and turn it on. On that same screen chose for the Left HA Pause/ resume streaming and for the right HA chose Voice assistant. You can reverse the left and right ha choices if you want.
This cleared up my double tap issues.
Overall my trial is going well with the Paradise; clear voice as well as clarity in understanding my wife and neighbors. I will continue to report my findings.
Decision made: Paradise is my choice. I thought it was close because both the Ones and Paradise performed very well. Both provided me very good speech recognition, directionally, and did well in Restaurant and outdoor programs.
The two apps are also very close in performance parameters, having very good control over adjustments and establishing individual programs.
So why did I choose Paradise? I liked Autosense 4.0, liked Tap Control and motion sensor features.
My Paradise 90R is the first rechargeable HAs I have owned and I am on my fifth pair over the past 20 plus years of wearing HAs. I also feel comfortable with the small closed dome in my bad left ear and a medium power dome in my right ear. The Paradise fit very nicely behind my ear with size 2 wires to the receivers - (both M). I like my Audi and was very involved in how she was setting up my HAs, very much because of all the great advice I learned on this forum.
In no way should my choice make up anybody’s else’s choice; each person must trial their own choices and compare brands and settings. My only advice is too make sure you do not go along with an Audi that pushes one brand only. Walk away and find another.
Have you had any problems keeping Paradise connected to phone BT?? I have an old iPhone 6+ which will not upgrade past iOS 12 which may be the problem. But when I tried Paradise, if I put phone in my pocket to walk the neighborhood it would cut in and out. I had to hold phone in my hand in front of me. Really annoying. I WANTED to like them!
I am currently trialing the Costco Prezzas. How would you compare them to the Paradise?
I congratulate you on your purchase phonak paradise
I wore the Costco Preza for four months but am taking them back today for a refund. They were not quite good enough for my crazy hearing loss. I have low and high frequency loss, so after four months I saw that Phonak came out with a new technology as well as Resound Ones. They both helped my loss better in understanding speech. Your high frequency loss is similar to mine but not quite as bad. They may work ok for you. The only thing you can do is try them to see if they meet your needs for frequency lowering, speech understanding, etc. They are half the cost of many private audi, I paid $4800 for the pair of Paradise.
I have this issue as well. My friend has just got MFi Bluetooth Oticon aids and his never cut out like the Phonaks do!
On android I had such cuts with marvels, like if I turn head to check the cars before crossing the street, ear further away would lose connection, but not with paradises, them I can have wherever and wiggle my head as I want. Both were set up with adaptive bt.
Same experience here. I have had Resound with MFI for years and am in the process of trying demo aids of many brands and find the MFI connection more stable than the “classic Bluetooth.”
I was having some static more than anything else, it was very annoying. I called Phonak tech support and they had me do a reset/reboot of my iphone. I went to settings/bluetooth/R-Phonak(press little i)/ then forget devices. Then turn off BT, then turn off devices. iphone will reboot, when the phone comes back on, turn BT back on, then turn devices back on and iphone will recognize the devices. R-phonak should be connected. The LE left and right HAs will not be connected(they are for the app use and will not show connected). The static disappeared and I also went for a walk and put my iPhone in both pockets without any difference in music, no static nor any cutting in or out.
Phonak support said the Paradises are new and they are collecting information to make corrections.
Hope the above is clear.
Thanks for the feedback. The Resound Prezza are noticeably better than my old ReSound Linx 2 and they seem to be working well. That said, maybe the Paradise would be even better for me. I am tempted to try them out. Was the difference between the Paradise and the Prezza immediately noticeable to you? Do you have open or closed domes? I have open domes.
Hi
I Hand the same issue with my iPhone 6S and Marvel, I changed to Paradise and at the same time I changed to iPhone XR. I Hardy have the same Problem Anymore.
But to be honest, BT needs reflection on something to reach your HA, so walking over open space fields is not the best environment for BT. Walking between buildings over even in an forest will be a good environment.
The use of iPhone XR with Paradiese needs a BT setting of fix Bandwidth, you can change this in the APP.
So, Now I am not sure if this setting change the behavior or the iPhone change did it.
Just try it once.
Paradise had a more natural sound, but the Preza’s were ok , just not quite as clear to me. Paradise also has more features as I mentioned above. In my left ear I have a closed small dome, in the right a small power dome as prescribed by my audi. Good luck.
I just noticed today that the ReSound Smart 3D app has some additional settings for the iPhone that it doesn’t have for Android. Under “More” there is “Optimize MFi connection.” Also, if you have an Apple Watch, there is (under More), three additional settings choices including making Sound Enhancer features available on the Apple Watch. The Smart 3D app advises the turning on the Slider enhancement controls on the watch may make the Watch app less responsive - we’ll see. I have an Apple Watch 6 that supposedly is 20% to 30% faster than a Gen 5 watch so hopefully that compensates.
I like using the ReSound Smart 3D app with my “new” iPhone 6S, inherited from my wife at the start of the week. Connecting to the HA’s is a lot faster and more responsive than I find on my Galaxy Note 8.
Even with MFi or the BT LE that Android uses, I do find the body interferes a little bit with podcast streaming. I can have either Android or iPhone in my back pocket while walking out in the open in the middle of a neighborhood street and still hear a podcast pretty clearly but it’s just not as clear as if I walk holding the phone in my hand. Same for putting either phone in a leather case in a belt loop under a coat. Putting the phone in a front waist-level coat pocket is usually no problem with reception.
So, ignorance here, can one use the MyPhonak app on an Apple Watch with Phonak Paradise? If not, being able to use the Apple Watch to control my HA’s with ~all of the app control features available on the watch is going to be a big reason for preferring a MFi HA OEM over Phonak when I’m ready to get new HA’s. One thing that I particularly like about the Apple Watch with my HA’s is the EXERCISE watch app. I can start an Outdoor Walking Exercise on the watch while playing a podcast - the exercise app takes over as the predominant watch face app but one slide to the left on the watch face and I have my podcast player controls, displayed within the running Exercise app. This saves fiddling with the phone while walking and potentially dropping a $1,000+ device 3 or 4 feet onto hard asphalt, especially in the dead of winter when my fingers get a bit numb with gloves off to adjust the phone.
For me, BT performance listening to podcasts is a big deciding feature. Ironically enough, most of the “talk” that I hear each day comes in the form of nonstop streaming for about 1.5 hours of exercise a day. I listen exclusively to “talk shows.”
Edit_Update: With the Sound Enhancers option for the Apple Watch turned on under MORE in the iPhone Smart 3D app, I appear now to have the full power of the Smart 3D app available directly on the Apple Watch. Having a Watch 6, there is no noticeable lag for me in switching between settings pages or adjusting settings on the Watch. One little tidbit that I like is in the Restaurant program now under Speech Focus, when I click + or - to change the degree of Speech Focus, I can cleanly stop on a Narrow forward focus on the watch. With the sliders in the phone app (iPhone or Android), it was always hard to know when I “slid” to a Narrow forward focus. Paradoxically enough these days, I employ the Restaurant program and Speech Focus the most when I go grocery shopping so I can look at my wife to hear what she wants to see and hear less of the machine noise, overhead Muzak, chatter between nearby (socially distanced) shoppers, etc. So it’s very cool to have the full options for HA control right on my wrist no matter where my phone is. Looks like there is a more modern iPhone a year or two into my future, COVID-19 withstanding, and perhaps because of the power of the app on the Apple Watch, it may be ReSound HA’s… One minor fly-in-the-ointment is that on my first few trials it seems that if I have “Optimize MFi Connection” turned on on the iPhone and the Smart 3D app is not in focus on the watch when I open the watch 3D app, the watch has trouble connecting with the HA’s through the phone. As soon as I turn off “Optimize MFi” on the phone, BINGO!, the watch connects with the HA’s. After some further verification I’ll try to let ReSound app support know a fix, if possible, would make HA life more better.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for your detailed posts. I’m wearing Resound Quattro’s and have an iPhone 11 Pro Max, I’m thinking of buying an Apple Watch for the first time and wondering how much value it adds to your hearing aid experience. Having never owned an Apple Watch before (even though I’m a techie and an Apple nerd) it’s kinda difficult to understand how it impacts day to day activities. You provide some great points but would love to hear more.
Jordan