I’m currently demoing a pair of Phonak Sphere Infinios, and so far, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive.
That said, conversing in the car remains a challenge - something I’ve always struggled with. The AutoSense Car Mode does a great job reducing road and engine noise, but I still find it difficult to hear speech as clearly as I’d like. I plan to tweak the settings, but I’m also exploring other options.
I’m considering a Phonak “Partner Mic” for long road trips with my girlfriend or family members. Has anyone used it in the car specifically? I’d love to hear about your experience. It’s fairly cheap on Ebay.
I also haven’t had the chance to test Sphere Mode while driving, though I’ve found it incredibly effective in noisy restaurants and bars. Still, I can’t help but think that a dedicated mic might be the ideal solution since it streams speech directly into my ears.
For those using Phonak Sphere Infinios in the car, how do you get the best results? Do you rely on AutoSense Car Mode, Spheric Speech in Loud Noise Mode, or an external mic?
I have been wearing hearing aids for 25 years and ALL models need to be turned down a click or two in my car unless a short trip. Cancels road noise and conversation with wife is perfect.
I have no issues hearing with the Sphere’s while driving. AutoSense does a very good job of focusing the microphones on the speech wherever it happens to be coming from in the car. I believe your audiologist needs to make adjustments to make speech a bit clearer over the road noise by tweaking a number of the settings for the Speech in Car program within AutoSense. I would try that first.
I had this issue and I thought it just went with the territory until I wore my NHS prescribed Oticon aids in the car, and was amazed to find they were a lot better. The problem with Autosense and the car program is that it reduces gain for the road and engine noise which in turn also reduces gain for speech and the radio. Now I wear Oticon Intents and Xceeds I don’t have this issue as Oticon doesn’t seem to reduce the gain, so one is able to listen to passenger speech, the radio and perceive the car noise simultaneously. Actually, I was quite amazed that Oticon was able to do this after the trouble I had with the Phonaks. How on earth did they manage to do this?
If I was wearing Phonaks still I would make sure I was using DSL V5a and not NAL and I would manually switch to the calm situation program in the car and turn the volume up a couple of notches. The DSL fitting formula and being in the calm situation program would ensure the maximum stable and consistent gain to hear speech or the radio.
I wonder did MPO values (measured with REM) were the same with Phonak and Oticon HAs. I read recently that excessively limiting MPOs can make it difficult to understand speech in noise, because the speech signal power is more similar to noise power.
EDIT:
However, I am aware that MPO requires a careful approach because of the risk of hearing damage.
END of EDIT.
You mean about high frequency audibility is better with DSL 5.0?
I must test the DSL 5.0, regarding my sloping audiogram and what I have just read:
"(…) In practical terms, loudness equalization [like NAL] procedures usually require less gain for soft sounds than loudness normalization procedures [like DSL].
In a steeply sloping loss, for example, the equalization method typically provides less audibility of soft speech for the high frequencies. There hasn’t been a lot of definitive research on the topic but, in general, it’s been found that true normalization provides too much gain, especially for the higher frequencies. (…)"
So I understand it’s worth trying DSL in my sloping loss, but it won’t necessarily give me benefits; we’ll simply see…
I think it makes sense to try this. I do find that the Phonak seems to know exactly where the speech is coming from.
I’m going to have the audiologist bring down “Noise Block” and “Wind Block” a bit, while raising G50 a bit for speech frequencies. Speech Enhancer could also be raised a notch. That was already helpful for social bike rides where the aggressive wind block turned the hearing aids into ear plugs. Luckily the Phonak is very customizable in this way.
There’s one complex factor I’m dealing with that you might not be: cochlear dead regions (CDR). People with CDR often struggle in noisy environments, and somewhat counterintuitively, their difficulty increases when high-frequency gain is adjusted to meet speech targets. This is where the signal to noise ratio of the Sphere mode is a game changer for me. A Mic can also help those with CDR because of the signal to noise ratio benefit. Will need to experiment to really know. I’m a fan of Autosense overall and I find that it adjusts rapidly to what I need most of the time. Cars are just a particularly tricky environment.
Could be, yes. I was only trying to put 2 and 2 together to be honest. The issue for me was the lack of gain and I read that DSL leaves one with more usable gain. However, it would not be suitable for those who have been prescribed NAL2 due to it’s advantages for maximising speech intelligibility. I think I am able to take to DSL because I grew up with analog.
We all seem to have fairly severe losses. Is everyone hitting NAL or DSL targets without feedback? I’m guessing you are using molds instead of domes in some cases?
Mate your be hitting a bit if feedback no matter what with these types of losses, really important is the seal of the molds, a tight fit will help reduce this.
Have you tried a P (Power) receiver with the double domes? It’s physically much wider than the M receiver and takes up more space in your ear canal. Gives you a bit more occlusion without going to a mold. It’s a bit of a hack but did the trick for me.
Just something to try. I’m not a professional but it may be worth trying to see if the extra occlusion gives you a bit more gain in that shaded area.
Yes, this was a mistake by Wholesalehearing, because I wrote in the required questionnaire that I have a Phonak Paradise 90-RT with a P receiver. I think they simply added my audiogram to the Target software and according to the its screen M receiver was correct for my loss.
Okay, but I am a slightly taller person, >1.8 m and >90 kg, and have larger ear canals, which makes the M receiver insufficient, even when I tried to push it deeper into the ear canal.
You are definitely right and have made a good point. I am now waiting for a new deep seated titanium cShell with pressure vent - first for my Paradise. If it turns out to be good, I will order another one for Sphere
This is from my Phonak Paradise 90-RT with P receiver in skeleton earmold with 1mm? (I guess) vent:
