I was going to ask if you wear open domes or at least bass domes with vents because your low frequency hearing is still fairly OK. With open domes or with the vents, they let the noise in and this would negate a lot of the noise blocking that the AI can do for you to achieve that wow effect.
But since you said that the sounds are muffled and no human voices were coming through audibly, I guess it must have been something else wrong at play here.
I bet on underfitting medium and high frequencies (which correcting requires also tighter acoustic coupling).
Maybe upward spread of masking by low frequencies? (there is dr Cliff video about that).
@platypus said they were a DIYer. I’m still learning Target, but a lower fitting tab in Target is "Audibility Fine Tuning, in which you can play various speech sounds and adjust gain in suggested ways to make that sound audible, e.g., the F or S sound. IIRC, there are more global “dumb” fixes under the Automatic Fine Tuning tab that platypus could have tried. (click to enlarge)
Relative to @platypus’s complaint that Spheric noise reduction wouldn’t turn on, if one creates either a linked or a copied manual copy of Spheric Speech in Loud Noise, then in the MyPhonak app, you can turn Spheric processing on at any time. Invoking the program manually doesn’t depend on the noise environment. And you can see the effect by playing back the various Target media samples of speech in low SNR environments through your computer speakers.
At home, though, I haven’t been able to manufacture any noise environment that gets Spheric processing to turn on automatically in AutoSense. It would be great if someone could come up with an easy-to-emulate-in-your-home test scenario so one doesn’t have to go to a noisy bar or restaurant to test out various program modifications to the Spheric Speech in Loud Noise program.
The following website has a number of non-English speech in noise samples: SFX - Restaurant, Outdoor, Busy, Spanish Walla, Children, Music | Epidemic Sound
One of the better examples there that you can clean up considerably by invoking manual Spheric processing in the MyPhonak app is the following speech sample: SFX - Outdoor, Spanish Walla Close, Busy, Spain | Epidemic Sound
I’ve nearing the end of a 3-week trial of the new Sphere I90s, having used Marvel M90s for the last 5 years and having trialled Lumity L90s a few weeks ago. I too have not been impressed with the I90s - the noise reduction system has not been evident even though I visited several not-so-noisy restaurants. But what is absolutely surprising to me is the sound quality. It is undoubtedly inferior to the Lumity L90s: my wife goes to bed before me, so I therefore reduce the TV volume then from around 20 to 10. With my Marvels and with the Spheres, I crank the volume up to its maximum and turn the TV subtitles on. But with the Lumitys, I increased the volume by only 2 points instead of 6, and felt no need for the subtitles. Somehow the Lumitys are able to increase the speech volumes without distortion, leaving the TV background pretty well unaltered. I shall be purchasing a pair of Lumitys in the near future.
@jim_lewis , there is a lot of sound samples in Phonak Target also. You need to download them separately in the update section of Target software (see link below).
Great links! I couldn’t find them a few weeks ago:
@DaleM1, maybe that would be useful for your tests.
Sorry, but this sounds like a woeful fit. Did you have real ear measurement?
With domes or earmolds? I don’t see your tonal audiogram, but acoustic coupling can make a HUGE difference, along with making old hearing aids with proper coupling, um, “better” than the newest with bad coupling…
I definitely agree.
(The shorter bar = the better hearing in noise)
There is a graph that shows that OLD, analog, 1-channel HAs fitted with REM are better in noise than the best-on-the-market, ~10 yrs newer digital multichannel HAs fitted with first-fit (without REM).
Thanks. I know that and have done that. But I was looking for sounds I could provide a link to and everyone could access easily. I might run into copyright issues if I posted a Phonak MP3 file here (not even sure the Discourse website software can handle that file type).
P.S. Here’s where I mentioned using Target media in the post you quoted:
I was able to trigger the spheric mode by putting YouTube on my TV and searching for a video “Loud restaurant noise” and turning up the volume. Then I just needed to start talk talking and it triggered it for me.
I picked my car because it had a better radio. 
Vroom vroom
Oh, my bad, sorry. I read that fast and didn’t notice mentioning about Target.
I agree with you about accessibility and copyright issues.
Some answers and comments to people’s helpful suggestions above.
I use power domes. No venting.
AutoSense 6.0 did invoke “Spheric Speech in Loud Noise” when I entered a noisy environment - as expected. I also had a manual version of the spheric program which I could invoke at any time. it was very clear that I was in the Spheric program when testing.
The Lumity aids, the ones I have had for two years, also have a speech in loud noise program. I also have a manual selectable mode for that program. It is this mode that I am comparing between the Lumity and the Spheres. I could not detect an amazing difference between Lumity and spheres in this mode.
Many, if not most, who have the spheres have had a very good experience with them including me if I was coming from Marvels or Paradise. If someone is due for new aids I would highly recommend Phonak’s Sphere I90s.
Lastly, I continue to emphasize that the best outcome for hearing loss treatment, no matter which modern hearing aids are chosen, will depend on the competency of the audiologist one works with. I’m grateful to the ones that drop in to this forum now and then and give us their advice.
