I'm not convinced on better sound quality, in fact I've hear more complaints about the Smartlink series! You do have the directional zoom on Smartlink so if you want to talk in, let's say, a restaurant, you can place the Smartlink on the table and use omni for everyone to talk together or flick to directional if you are just sitting across from him and want to cut down room noise - ,omni is still a massive improvement. Since I had this feature on my previous transmitter (Handymic I got second hand) I just keep both so the Inspiro had more advantages for me. I decided to keep the Inspiro in the end, and here is a copy of my giant review on the subject LOL - not sure if it will help as it's not a comparative, I really didn't give the Smartlink that much of a trial. I looked at and tried them both at a deaf event and although I liked retaining the omni/zoom/superzoom switch and the potential for bluetooth I really felt that I needed multi-talker more. And because I am a terminal fidget and perfectionist, something I could home program the way I want it without additional hardware was an easy sell.
May not be so relevant if you have a TOD or audi prepared to do the setup. I get my bluetooth from a direct input lead or from the Inspiro itself plugged into a Sony HBHDS200 which was £24.95.
I don't think the Smartlink allows you to change the FM volume, I think just the hearing aid volume, and that only if you have Phonak hearing aids and they are set up for volume adjustment, where the Inspiro you act directly on the receivers so it would work for binaural adjustments even if you have a HA on one side (any brand) and a CI on the other.
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Although the Inspiro is marketed as a paediatric transmitter (adult versions being Zoomlink+, Smarlink+ and the other one I can't remember the name of) I chose to get it for various reasons. The first one being that I really want it for educational settings, so one with education rather than offices in mind spoke to me. I also liked it because it can be programmed, along with the MLXi receivers, via the desktop software FM Successware, without having to fork out for an interface or "toaster".
What you can do in Successware (you can probably get this done by a ToD, for example) is "allocate" the units so your name is stored (and displayed) in the Inspiro, and if the receivers or DynaMic are connected they will also be instantly recognised as being yours. It also means that when you want to do adjustments to the receivers using the Inspiro it will recognise them as "YourName Left" as opposed to a serial number, and you know which one it has found. It helps to "allocate" your DynaMic to a slightly different name, otherwise when searching for a network (something I'll come to later) it simply finds "YourName" as another option instead of being clear it's your DynaMic it's found.
You can also set the receiver volume using the Inspiro itself away from the computer, just select from the menus and turn up or down, which is good if you are trying to balance an FM/M program where the FM is too dominant or not dominant enough, instead of turning the whole HA up to hear a poor FM signal, particularly useful with audio input sources without volume controls of their own. In theory you can do this up to 20cm from the receivers, but in practice I find I have to hold the Inspiro to the back of my head with one hand and the microphone straight up in the air with the other for maximum coverage, and still I usually need 3 attempts to pick up both receivers.
Physically speaking, it's a compact, light unit. It's quite cute that you can wind the microphone cable up around it and clip it safely on. The case is a bit of overkill if you only want to carry the basics around with you, it's meant to carry all your bits and bobs in it, yet the charger doesn't fit, so you get a case that's way too big for just taking your transmitter but doesn't fit everything you want to take it away overnight. My charger is also white, which doesn't match the pictures, but that's no big deal, just a surprise. I suppose the thought process is that the child will carry the kit around, perhaps from class to class at secondary, but the charger will be held by the school office, but I’d rather it fitted in the case. The belt clip is a bit odd, I thought it would fit flush with the back of the transmitter itself, but in fact the transmitter rather dangles from it, I'm not a huge fan of it. I think for a paediatric product you really ought to at least be able to get as an accessory a durable leather or plastic case to keep it in, but it will fit in a small compact camera case if you really need one.
Because this is set up as a paediatric unit you don't get hearing instrument remote control on the Inspiro, which could be a downside for some (doesn't bother me, I don't have a Phonak). You get some other buttons such as "mute" and originally I wondered why bother when you could just turn it off, but turning the Inspiro off makes a nasty noise in the receivers so I prefer the mute setting till I'm totally finished using it. It will also auto-mute if nobody appears to be talking, and it’s much better at working out whether or not it’s receiving input than previous transmitters, so you don’t listen to loads of room noise. It also vibrates in protest if you leave it muted for about 10 minutes or so, so if your lecturer mutes and forgets to unmute you at least catch up eventually instead of fruitlessly waving your arms in the air for the rest of the lecture while they plough on regardless. Another cute feature is you can check the battery status of your hearing aids so you can be reasonably sure not to hear the dreaded warning beeps part way through that vital lecture.
Not a huge amount to say about the receivers having upgraded from the old MLX fixed channel, except that they are smaller, are less prone to interference, and are easy to flip to another channel if you are in a multi FM environment like when I go to the Deaf school (though sometimes I have to duck the Wallpilot to avoid receiving an unwanted English lesson). The main bugbear is that there is not a more solid and obvious “off” to them. When you turn them on they beep and make radio squelch noises. When you turn off they just go silent. Only normally by the time you want to turn them off you have already stopped receiving transmission so you are silent to start with, so I can rarely tell if they are on or off. I preferred the switch on the old version as it was clearly in either an on or an off position.
So now we come to the major attraction for me, the Multi Talker Network and DynaMic. In a nutshell (cos Phonak’s website has loads of info on it) with an Inspiro you can set up to run several transmitters on a single channel with only one transmitter active at any one time. The transmitter is automatically switched if someone starts speaking into the other transmitter, switching back and forth. The exception is that the original Inspiro that started the network has priority, and if there are two people talking at once and one is the ‘lead’ Inspiro it will cut out the other person, so normally you would have the ‘lead’ Inspiro for the teacher and the DynaMic for other children so if the teacher interjects with something important it will jump back to the teacher.
The DynaMic is a reasonably large microphone if you include the antenna, which doesn’t come off. It’s much lighter than I expected. It’s a very “standard” microphone that you can pass around a group discussion easily and the familiar shape means people understand how to speak into it and handle it. Noise from the actual passing is very well attenuated, you don’t hear shuffling and bashing noise at all, and if you have a responsible enough group you can use the “mute” setting during the passing if preferred. There is a very tiny delay auto-switching, so it would be possible to miss very short responses such as “me too” but on the whole it catches up with the conversation very fast, and certainly faster than the average DHH person doing the old lipreading head-swivel to try to work out who is talking and where from.
Downsides of the Dynamic – a case is not available and it doesn’t fit in any microphone cases I’ve yet found from music retailers. You can carry it in the original box, which has a good quality custom-cut foam inlay, but there is no carry handle on the box, so the option to purchase a case would be very useful. The included microphone stand is truly ridiculously tight/small for it, I fear to push it in firmly in case I snap the microphone clip, but if you don’t then it could drop out because it’s unbalanced, so hopefully with time it will slack off a bit. I’m also not a fan of how fiddly the mute button is, I like the idea of small and subtle on/off functions so you feel in good control of your microphone, but if people are going to use the mute to pass it one to another I’d prefer it was a big button with some kind of light on it to indicate it’s active/inactive.
Although the DynaMic will not function alone, and will only work as part of a network initiated by an Inspiro, if you are in a situation where you don’t want to entrust your Inspiro to anyone or there is a lot of passing around where a mic lead would be fiddly, just set up the Multi Talker Network then mute your Inspiro and leave it on in your bag, presto the DynaMic will transmit for you without anyone ever clapping eyes on the Inspiro.
Sorry that’s quite long, but wanted to cover the points.
Optional para for self-programmers:
Also in Successware you can open the extended menus (usually it's sold without, you absolutely need this to use the network facility), drop it down to "light" menus if you are going to have to give it to someone who might poke about without knowledge, and also set up your channel preferences - lock off channels you don't want to use, set the default - and the "FM advantage" you want, which is a formula I don't entirely understand but it's a volume preference with a dB slider. Oh, and you also get to choose the tone and volume of the warning beeps (or turn off entirely) from 4 dropdown options. One moment of programming madness is it often cannot find the receivers and tells you to keep them away from sources of interference such as computers... while you have to be connected to a computer by USB cable!
