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Understand speech - yes. Sounds good - no

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Even if you intellectually accept that your brain needs to adapt, we all want it now. Why does it have to take so long? Must be something wrong with these aids, or hearing aids don’t really work anyways.

WH

Maybe you missed that I was being facetious. People impatiently blame the aids and the when the magic wand didn’t make it all better before they walk out the first day.

WH

And from what I think I understand of your background, you legit have reason to complain about your care for a long time. But I’m not sure that even with best care that people will be patient enough to recover the functions their brains have forgotten.

WH

I’m veryverygrateful for the forum and the people here who share their knowledge

I put great trust in the hearing practitioner

Who took me on when I needed help.

Dave

@SaxMan Welcome to the forum from another Melbournian.

If you search the forum you will find an awful lot of topics from musicians asking a similar question. An awful lot of them go for Widex aids. I agree getting a good sound from aids is a necessity. Tinny sounds are unacceptable IMO. Every aid has a different sound you just need to keep trying until you find your perfect fit. This goes for your as well, if the one you’re seeing doesn’t work with you move on. Melbourne’s a huge city with 1000’s of audiology clinics. Painful as this moving on is you will find one that suits you.

As @Zebras said the aid is 10% and the AuD is 90%. Trying to find an excellent AuD that you can communicate with and get satisfactory adjustments from, to what YOU require is a tough gig.

Make sure you check your contract for the return by date if not satisfied.

You can also try Costco to get good hearing aids. They have 180 return policy full refund. These aids you will pay $2500 there about or less.

Good luck to you.

@JordanK andothers…this video fascinates me

The author reports scans of the AirPad Pro which is an over the counter hearing aid. He explains Bluetooth too discussing it in simple terms.

I believe that hearing aids need to evolve. I have trouble distinguishing between real features and marketing. I feel that in the wrong hands hearing aids are designed, built, and sold like tiny cars but with huge price tags. Yet there are saviors that sell the same hearing aids I have and set them up and they work! Thank you to those who work with integrity and change people’s lives!

DaveL

Update - I have bitten the bullet and 10 days ago purchased some Phonak Audeo Infinity i90 Spheres.

The young audiologist set them up and was very helpful. She recognised that what the computer software was telling her and what I was telling her were slightly different….and she made adjustments accordingly. Awesome !!

As it was the first fitting, she suggested that I leave it for a week or so and give them a go, make some notes and come back for some tweaking. Great idea, as there were some obvious changes to be made (including attending to a bit of a constant hissing sound), one step at a time, etc. Then she told me it was her last day…..sigh…..

I had some really good moments where the new Phonak Spheres were amazing in a couple of situations over the last 10 days. Not all, but enough to give me significant hope for putting some “icing” on the good foundation “cake”.

Today I went back to the clinic and saw a different audiologist - the original audiologists boss. I had my notes and asked for several what I perceived to be minor changes. He said all the right things, showed me things on the screen, and it all made logical sense….but he wasn’t listening to me and now the minor hiss in my new shiny Spheres is louder, speech is muffled and I need to poke the app on my phone for each program to get it back to being useful. Most disappointing.

I immediately made another appointment to go back the day after tomorrow. And was told that he is going away on holiday next week. Sigh. Hopefully he can “put it back to how it was”. But going back to the clinic is a pain in the proverbial. Maybe I’ll try the remote access option with him on my phone screen.

The hiss is irritating - it is a sound that I equate to cheap analogue gear…and these hearing aids are certainty not cheap.

Does anyone else have a big hiss in their hearing aids ? The loan pair the young woman gave me about 3 weeks ago did not have any hiss at all.

Perhaps I should consider going down the path with my new Phonak Spheres ?

Or return them and go again with another clinic with hopefully more stable staff ? I don’t think I have the mental strength to go through it all again with a third clinic. Maybe it’s me being unrealistic as per my original title for this post ? :flushed_face::ear_with_hearing_aid:

In reply to @DaveL

Thank you @DaveL - I too am very grateful for this forum and for the people who are sharing their knowledge.

I was hoping for multiple “wow” moments with new expensive hearing aids. I’ve had one or two, but significantly more “meh” moments.

In reply to @SaxMan

I have found that when I hear a hiss, the volume is too high. The smallest adjustment via the app or my remote control helps a great deal.

Too bad the audiologist who first set things up didn’t stay on. Then again, if her boss is intolerable, or terrible at fittings but doesn’t care to improve, I could entirely see the reason she’d leave.

In reply to @SaxMan

If you don’t find the audiologist willing and able tp properly program your hearing aids, turning this set in and going elsewhere would probably be the least stressful course of action. It is not unrealistic to want speech comprehension and good sound quality from hearing aids. Does Australia have anything like ZipHearing, where they set you up with hearing aids and a reasonably local audiologist, with lower prices? If so, that might be worth trying.

In reply to @SaxMan

I’ll talk about my experience in hopes it helps

My dispensing Audi was a gentleman who provided the best model of Phonak and that was a miracle

I was with him for 1-1/2 years and thought they were defective. In fact he hadn’t set them up right.

I’ve learned that setup is key

Good hearing test too. 2 years later setup by others my. HA are working better setup by someone else. Even though my hearing is worse now

DaveL

I’m a former musician piano and trumpet although nothing compared to your experience. I can say the Phonak infinios I now have along with previous phonak paradise and even older Naida have all given me ‘good’ sound once properly set up. I know the tinny sharp awful sound you refer to and I simply can’t bear it. Keep trying and keep asking for them to be tweaked. Have a look at my and if yours is not as bad you should get even better results. You don’t have to put up with it sounding like that.

Edited

@SandraN

Thanks for your post

I wish there was some way to convince the industry to solve the problems owners have

DaveL

Edit. Fix the bad setups.

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