My plan to get top of the line hearing aids for a "low" price

After my latest UK NHS pair (2022) ended up poorly programmed, I paid £3000 for a private Audiologist including aids. I’d already downloaded Target by then, but I watched everything he did.

I have many pairs now, all the others cost me a lot less (in total) than £1500. Two of these pairs are far better than the £3000. Always good to have spares.

@Hearing_Potential said:

With your audiogram you’d probably find the sound of Widex devices with the puresound program and zero delay technology to be more natural and pleasant than Oticon devices. I’d recommend seeing an audiologist in person to demo some different devices to get an idea of how they sound before purchasing.

I would also encourage you to watch this video from Dr Cliff AuD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iqtqO5AvsU. Purchasing hearing aids online sounds like a good way to save money, but is typically a lot more hassle than its worth and results in poorer outcomes than if you saw an audiologist who followed best practices of which real-ear measurement of hearing aid performance is just one compo

I believe low frequency losses require custom molds more than high frequency. My audiogram is similar, but worse on the high end, and I wear open domes.

@wilfried said:

My audiogram is similar, but worse on the high end, and I wear open domes.

Have you achieved the target gains with open domes?

Apparently so. With REM and all.

Noahlink Wireless works on ARM based chips with an extremely simple workaround: You just need to run the Noahlink Wireless firmware updater before connecting the aids to the SW (no need to actually update the firmware, just run the app).
Phillips will not install on Win ARM, Signia/Rexton runs too slow on Win ARM.
I do what @tenkan said: I revived an old Win laptop that I use just for old games (Sierra Online in case you were into those in the 80s/90s)

@Bimodal_user said:

Have you achieved the target gains with open domes?

Not in that left ear, no. Maybe in the right ear.

@RobHooft said:

As I understand this, a “probe” is looking into the “national security risks” of importing medical equipment,

I’m so glad. It’s critical not to open any holes in our security walls. HAs hear everything the wearer hears and more.

Probably to check if you’re ‘eating the dogs and eating the cats’ of the people who live in Springfield.

Haven’t they progressed to cannibalism by now?

@wilfried said:

I believe low frequency losses require custom molds more than high frequency. My audiogram is similar, but worse on the high end, and I wear open domes.

In general, yes, but roughly near 60-80 dB HL (somebody correct me, if I am wrong) in high frequencies there is much risk of feedback.

I know that there are digital active feedback cancellation, but in general, that issue should be first solved by proper acoustic coupling than counting on digital features.

That may include more occluded domes/earmold, deeper placement to avoid occlusion (my case despite good low freq. hearing I have no occluson effect), etc.

@wilfried said:

I kept saying, “It sounds like I’m in a barrel,”

It was my case in the past. Pressure vent in the skeleton earmold and instead of sentence about a barrel I said I feel like isolated from environment, which is the same feeling.
They assumed that it was occlusion effect, but after several years I know no that it wasn’t, because my own voice and chewing sounds were okay.
It was simply insertion loss.

This schematic way of thinking resulted in underfitting at high frequencies and less effectiveness of directionality and antinoise features.

You can interpret the policy as spiteful if you want. All I’m saying is honesty is the best policy. Encouraging people to lie isn’t good advice.

I agree with your approach. I wasn’t ok with the other poster encouraging people to lie about where they got their devices from. Lying to others just discourages clinicians from being open to helping people and encourages corporate managers to introduce more draconian policies that prevent clinicians from doing what we love to do by helping people. It isn’t easy saying to someone that we cannot help them because they’ve been dishonest with us. All professional relationships require a degree of trust that once lost is hard to regain.

If you are actually wearing open domes would do much better with a custom tip in your left ear. I suspect you may be using some type of vented done: not completely open if you’re doing well with your devices.