Hi! Im new to this forum. I have a lot of experience fitting hearing aids

Mike, after reading your response again, you mentioned that for my mothers audiogram you would not recommend that product, siemens, pure or motion.
what aid do you think would be a better fit?

Hearing aids in and of themselves are not miracle cures for hearing loss.

It take time to recondition your brain to understand all the new sounds you are processing. There must be a conscious effort to understand speech, it is a lot of tiring work.

After a while speech understanding comes back and the effort is reduced, be patient with yourselves, it is a normal curve from new Hearing Aid to Hearing Aid and fully understanding speech.

Hope this helps.

@ccjden said:

Mike, after reading your response again, you mentioned that for my mothers audiogram you would not recommend that product, siemens, pure or motion.
what aid do you think would be a better fit?

I believe i was referring more to not doing an open fit for that loss. The pure or motion will be fine as long as you (in my opinion) do an occluded piece as opposed to an open fit. I just feel that if done as an “open fit” the feedback will be bothersome.

As a specialist i do not like dealing with feedback in fittings. That is why i fit a lot of “Microtech” hearing aids (division of Starkey). There are a lot of really good hearing aids available today (Siemens being one of them). The feedback just has to be accounted for more so in the Siemens aids.

You can def stick with the Siemens (a good product). Again though, i would just do an occluded tip as opposed to un-occluded/open.

Thanks again Mike, she already has the molds for both ears so that will save on some of the cost.

@simsort said:

Hi Mike
I am interested in what you say about the circuit noise. I have high frequency hearing loss and have been trying a Phonak Smart which my audio recommended because of the sound recover. However, I hear a background hiss, which even after consultation with Phonak (and turning down the gain) she has not been able to reduce to a non-annoying level. I am now trying an Oticon Agile which doesn’t have the hiss, but speech is not quite as clear especially in noisy situations like restaurants. is there any other solution? thanks

How long have you had the Agile aids? Oticon is one of my favorite companies to use becuase of the natural sound…basically you don’t hear that hiss.

The agiles prob just need adjustments; which is why I ask how long have you had them.

@simsort said:

Hi Mike
I am interested in what you say about the circuit noise. I have high frequency hearing loss and have been trying a Phonak Smart which my audio recommended because of the sound recover. However, I hear a background hiss, which even after consultation with Phonak (and turning down the gain) she has not been able to reduce to a non-annoying level. I am now trying an Oticon Agile which doesn’t have the hiss, but speech is not quite as clear especially in noisy situations like restaurants. is there any other solution? thanks

Go back to the Smarts and ask the audi to incrase the TK for mid and high frequencies by a couple of dB. That should stop the hiss in its track, while still offering you better hearing in noise. I have now seen a few clients who has trialed both Agil Pro and Smart and preferred the Smart, particularly in noise.

@stream2525 said:

Is the improvement only in speech in noise?

What about speech in quite background?

What do the more channels add to the higher level aids like the IX?

I feel that speech in quite will be pretty close to the same (in my opinion). The benefit with upgrading is how the hearing aid performs in noise and it is not necessarily because of the added channels.

Check out this website to go through the features and benefits at the higher level.

Hearing Aids and Solutions | Phonak

Phonak is committed to improving the lives of the hearing loss community. Our hearing products and community resources emphasize total wellness through social, emotional and physical well-being. We believe that hearing well is being well and is...

Now look under “features and benefits” and click on each feature. Most of them have audio files with the feature “off” and with the feature “on”. So it has a lot more to do simply channels.

@hearnow said:

Go back to the Smarts and ask the audi to incrase the TK for mid and high frequencies by a couple of dB. That should stop the hiss in its track, while still offering you better hearing in noise. I have now seen a few clients who has trialed both Agil Pro and Smart and preferred the Smart, particularly in noise.

What’s the TK BTW ?

Threshold Kneepoint.

The level at which the channel’s gain goes into compression.

I could use a little help. I am trying to make peace with and hear at the same time using new Phonak Exelia Art Sp aids with molds. I am having trouble with understanding speech. It seems like after the aids are turned on, I can hear for a short period, then the
aid make an adjustment. From that point on, speech is not as sharp or inteligible. If I could keep what I have when they are 1st turned on, I could get used to these. I have a
My Pilot remote.

I would appreciate any suggestions

[LEFT]My Audiogram
0250Hz R-40 L-30
0500Hz R-45 L-35
1000Hz R-50 L-45
1500Hz R-55 L-40
2000Hz R-60 L-40
3000Hz R-70 L-55
4000Hz R-100 L-60
6000Hz R-95 L-50
8000Hz R-110 L-55
Speech Audiometry
SRT
R – 50 92% 80db
L – 36 92% 70db

MCL: R 85db L 75db
UCL: (avg) R 108 db L 88db[/LEFT]

@stream2525 said:

And how to do that? Is there a place in the programme to do that?

Are you asking how they do that?

Each digital hearing aid that uses compression (not Bernafon’s channel free technology) is comprised of compression channels. Depending on the hearing aid, you should be able to adjust where the TK is. You can raise or lower it.

In my opinion, all software should make the TK adjustable or at least show us where it’s at. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of Audiologists and Dispensers that don’t have a clue what the TK is so some manufacturers dumb down the software.

Dear Mike,

I am also new to the forum here, glad to see your posts.

Our 4.5 yr old daughter has a bilateral mild to moderate sensory hearing loss at the higher frequencies - see audiogram below:

Audiogram
250 Hz L 15 R 15
500 Hz L 15 R 15
1000 Hz L 15 R 15
2000 Hz L 30 R 30
4000 Hz L 35 R 35
8000 Hz L 45 R 45

100% word recognition in L & R ears @ 50 stimulus

Our audiologist has recommended the Oticon Safari, for children. It comes in 2 flavors - the 600 series which has 8 KHz B/W, and the 900 series which has 10 KHz bandwidth, and some extra features of binaural processing, synchronization and DFC.

I am well aware of the extra benefits of wider bandwidth and binaural sync, processing and DFC. However, my question is - given our daughters relatively mild hearing impairment, is this worth the extra $800 per unit (total another $1600 since we need 2 of them)? That’s a lot of
money.

My initial thoughts

1. May not need the extra bandwidth?
2. binaural sync is useful, but given that the L-R hearing levels are nearly identical - we may be able to do without it
3. DFC - also good, but it’s more critical if you are listening/playing classical music.

What do you think? Our daughter will be entering kindergarten this fall, so far she has normal language and speech development - it’s just that in a noisy environment, it would be more difficult for her to pick up the “f”, “s”, “Sh” sounds in speech.

@silverkris said:

Dear Mike,

I am also new to the forum here, glad to see your posts.

Our 4.5 yr old daughter has a bilateral mild to moderate sensory hearing loss at the higher frequencies - see audiogram below:

Audiogram
250 Hz L 15 R 15
500 Hz L 15 R 15
1000 Hz L 15 R 15
2000 Hz L 30 R 30
4000 Hz L 35 R 35
8000 Hz L 45 R 45

100% word recognition in L & R ears @ 50 stimulus

Our audiologist has recommended the Oticon Safari, for children. It comes in 2 flavors - the 600 series which has 8 KHz B/W, and the 900 series which has 10 KHz bandwidth, and some extra features of binaural processing, synchronization and DFC.

I am well aware of the extra benefits of wider bandwidth and binaural sync, processing and DFC. However, my question is - given our daughters relatively mild hearing impairment, is this worth the extra $800 per unit (total another $1600 since we need 2 of them)? That’s a lot of
money.

My initial thoughts

1. May not need the extra bandwidth?
2. binaural sync is useful, but given that the L-R hearing levels are nearly identical - we may be able to do without it
3. DFC - also good, but it’s more critical if you are listening/playing classical music.

What do you think? Our daughter will be entering kindergarten this fall, so far she has normal language and speech development - it’s just that in a noisy environment, it would be more difficult for her to pick up the “f”, “s”, “Sh” sounds in speech.

I have fit tons of safari, actually it comes in 3 performance levels. Safari 300 (compare to hit pro), safari 600 (compared to Vigopro or epoq V) and the safari 900 (compared to the epoq W). What you are really getting in the safari 900 is the binarual compression.
the instrument will preserve interaural level diferences which is the basis for localization- so if money is tight the safari 600 would do just fine.
I have fitted tons of children with safari 600 and tons of vigo pros, you wil be please they are good units

@silverkris said:

Dear Mike,

I am also new to the forum here, glad to see your posts.

Our 4.5 yr old daughter has a bilateral mild to moderate sensory hearing loss at the higher frequencies - see audiogram below:

Audiogram
250 Hz L 15 R 15
500 Hz L 15 R 15
1000 Hz L 15 R 15
2000 Hz L 30 R 30
4000 Hz L 35 R 35
8000 Hz L 45 R 45

100% word recognition in L & R ears @ 50 stimulus

Our audiologist has recommended the Oticon Safari, for children. It comes in 2 flavors - the 600 series which has 8 KHz B/W, and the 900 series which has 10 KHz bandwidth, and some extra features of binaural processing, synchronization and DFC.

I am well aware of the extra benefits of wider bandwidth and binaural sync, processing and DFC. However, my question is - given our daughters relatively mild hearing impairment, is this worth the extra $800 per unit (total another $1600 since we need 2 of them)? That’s a lot of
money.

My initial thoughts

1. May not need the extra bandwidth?
2. binaural sync is useful, but given that the L-R hearing levels are nearly identical - we may be able to do without it
3. DFC - also good, but it’s more critical if you are listening/playing classical music.

What do you think? Our daughter will be entering kindergarten this fall, so far she has normal language and speech development - it’s just that in a noisy environment, it would be more difficult for her to pick up the “f”, “s”, “Sh” sounds in speech.

I absolutely agree that the extra money is worth it. Her hearing in noise will be better with the 900 series. I like the binaural processing. I like the higher band width.

I think it would be different if the patient had a low activity lifestyle, only needs hearing aids to hear the other spouse at home, never goes anywhere, not active at all…but, this is a young person who will be in lots of dynamic environments, who will be very active and will be around lots of noisy environments.

If you can swing it the investment will be worth it. Maybe they have a payment plan option that will make it easier to afford the higher technology.