If you compare photos of the Audeo Infinio Ultra Sphere—Phonak the most powerful hearing aid so far, in the name of the product, you are not crazy: it is not round at all. It’s more of a traditional teardrop-shaped earhook. hearing aid which takes its name from Phonak’s new Spheric Speech Clarity 2.0 system, designed to improve the intelligibility of conversations in noisy conditions, regardless of the direction the voices are coming from.
Yes, Phonak Audeo Infinio Ultra Sphere is indeed a mouthful. For this review, I’ll call it the Ultra Sphere. The other new hearing aid system in the Infinio Ultra line, called R, is available as a less advanced and less expensive model.
The advantage of the Sphere is that it does not include a single processing chip, but two. The new DeepSonic DNN (deep neural network) chip is responsible for multidirectional processing of speech in noise. This is in addition to Phonak’s older Era chip, which launched in 2024 and handles basic audio processing and wireless functions. Are two chips better than one for hearing clearly? I wore the Ultra Sphere hearing aids for a week to find out.
An oversized profile
Photography: Chris Null
Ultra Sphere hearing aids are noticeably larger than most modern behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids, clearly due to the extra silicon inside. At 3.39 grams each, this is a significant increase over devices like the 2.58 grams. Jabra Enhance Select 700 or the 2.68 grams Horizon Go 7IX. But even though they are more easily visible to outside observers, this difference does not have a noticeable impact on comfort, even with long-term wear. (We’ll talk more about this later.)
Both hearing aids feature a two-way rocker button used for power, volume and media control. Tapping control is also an option for some Bluetooth functions, but it is disabled in the MyPhonak app by default. Units carry a Weather resistance rating IP68 and are available in seven colors. (I tested them in black.) You’ll also be fitted with your preferred style of tip (open, closed, or Phonak’s new EasyGuard wax-resistant domes) during your professional assessment.
These prescription hearing aids performed pretty well across the board in my testing. Professionally adjusted by a Phonak representative, their claims that they heard better in noisy conditions were accurate, with slightly attenuating, though not transformative, background noise in most cases. It’s almost impossible to quantify exactly how much better the Ultra Sphere aids performed than other models on this front. Oddly, they worked better in noise than in relative silence. In a quiet room, the hearing aids would sometimes whistle softly for a few seconds, then stop, only to whistle again a few minutes later. This slight hissing effect continued throughout my experiment, but I was only able to detect it when there were no other noises in the room.
