Others on this board probably know better how the directional controls on your Phonak units actually behave. When I started looking for a better solution for me, I was told the Phonak behind the ear units have a directionality control that goes from wide (omni directional) to narrow (forward only) and that setting can be made to appear on a phone app.
With some brands, the audiologist can control what controls are available in a phone app for the user to tune. Not all audiologists are equally knowledgeable about how to configure HA’s for their client’s needs. Even highly skilled ones tend to avoid giving their new clients too many things in the beginning.
Did your audi connect your HA’s to a phone app for you on your second visit?
With some brands, the left and right HA don’t need to be paired to each other; however, they MUST be paired to any phone app or Noah Link or other audiologist’s tuning equipment.
If you are using “stock” units with domes instead of custom molded and tuned units, I hope your loss at lower frequencies is mild. Domes are hard to get a consistent low frequency response because their placement varies enough from one insertion to another.
I experienced this when I went from the Starkey Genesis molded units to a trial Evolv stock unit when my audiologist found out that Starkey eliminated the App directional control from the Genesis units. Overnight, I determined that the Evolv units were better than the Genesis units for my needs and it took 2 weeks for Evolv molds to be delivered.