Recently I have lost my Naida Spice SP and therefore want to buy new hearing aids urgently. I am inclined toward Phonak Bolero V50 (SP) but my audiologist is insisting that it does not have the desire power I need and that I should go with the Naida SP Q50. I checked Phonak website for both hearing aids and I am not seeing much difference between the two in term of power. Am i missing something here as to me both have almost the same fitting.
My
Left Right
250 20 20
500 30 30
1000 90 90
2000 100 100
4000 n/a n/a
8000 n/a n/a
off the top of my head the difference between spice and quest is that stereozoom is available in the default program in quest. but it’s still only for hearing sounds in front. I would not be surprised if there’s no real other differences between the 2 lines. probably the other major improvements is in the programming software. which have been retroactively been improved for the spice lines too. I remember feedback manager not being run at the right time due to the target not prompting the programmer to do so when spice came out.
It’s a shame you are getting these aids now as the nadia v I predict will come out in october. This will give you a much improved stereozoom that’s adaptive and better battery life. if your audi has a 60 day trial period maybe if you can postpone for a little while you can try another brand and then try the new nadia V once it’s out.
looking at your loss, widex’s audibility extender technology (do a search on this here) is what you should be using. make sure this tech is available in the default program which it is via the dream line. this tech moves active sounds from the high frequencies below a start frequency that can go as low as 680 Hz. If you do try this then I predict that your lost of your spice aids will look more like a blessing in disguise.
ask your audi if he or she can get you a widex dream aid over the phone. you should try 2 different brands anyway so might as well do so now.
Wouldn’t Bolero V SP and Naida V Sp be same as these both belong to the same venture platform?
no, the nadia line potentially can provide more gain and would give you more flexibility in terms of fitting. bolero is more similar to the audeo in terms of performance. you should go with audeo if you want either the bolero or audeo. this is due to audeo having better performance spec in the venture line. used to be that bolero had an edge over audeo but all this has switched.
forgot to mention that phonak’s stereozoom lowest cut off frequency is 1.5 kHz so you may not even be able to use it with your limited hearing range. so essentially all aids will sound the same for your loss. you could get an aid with more channels or slightly more gain but all this will be trivial.
the widex’s audbility extender would provide something to stand out from the pack and increase your range by 800% easily. starkey spectral iq may help but it’s a poor man’s version of widex’s audibility extender.
have you tried other brands?
I have contacted my audiologist and he doesn’t have Widex hearing aids. The other hearing aids I have tried is Oticon Chilli but did not like it. The sound was either too loud or too quite.
I cannot go with the Audeo V as the fitting does not cover my . The reason I wanted to go with the Bolero V is because it covers my audiogram and is base on the latest Venture platform unless the currently available Naida which is based on Quest platform.
You have mentioned that the Naida V SP would have more gain and flexibility in term of fitting but other than than these two would be same right?