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Best hearing aids for restaurant setting?

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In reply to @wdb

We have a winner! Be in control why hope your hearing aid can guess correctly?

@wdb said:

My new aids have a feature that lets me ‘focus’ them to the arc of my choice, i.e. I can trim off sounds from behind me and beside me and only hear the sounds that are coming from within the arc that the table is within. Works very well for me. It does require that I carry a smartphone, and that the aids are connected to it, which sometimes means turning bluetooth off/on and waiting for sync. One of these days I’ll remember to get that all working before I walk in the door. Maybe!

In reply to @Hazeltoe

Hazeltoe Today is the day you mentioned in your post that you are suppose to pick up your aids from Costco and start your trial. I am wearing Starkey Zons which I purchased in 2008. It’s time for a new pair as understanding speech has become nearly impossible. I had my Zons cleaned but I’ve experienced more hearing loss so need the new technology. I’m unable to pay 6K so want the best for my buck and thought maybe Costco puts out a good product Please let us know your experience and opinion on the Brio

The Brio is last model’s premium version without Tinnitus feature @ $2600 – same pricing for all except KS7. The KS7 is their private label base on Signia Pure premium aid – also the recent model from last year. Resound is the Linx 2 – again last model. Bernafon needs an update to get to previous model. You need to be a member to order. 180 day trial in US with 90 days in other countries. You can do a store walkaround with any or all of them to get an idea of how they work for you.

In reply to @Cone_10

I did pick up my Brio 2 hearing aids plus a ComPilot ll yesterday. So far so good. They are a definite improvement over my Alta Pros. The cost for the ITC version is $1499.99 per aid. This is $100 more than the version. It should be noted that Costco has increased their prices. It is too soon to tell how they perform in the restaurant situation. Um bongo had some interesting comments about these aids in a restaurant environment earlier in this thread.Hearing Aid Forum - Active Hearing Loss Community8. I will go back for more tweaking in two weeks.

Edited

The Brio2 is a capable aid. For £3k you should be getting a pretty decent pair of hearing aids, I believe one of the online suppliers will sell you a par of fully branded aids for that money. The original question asked about the best hearing aids in a restaurant environment. I mentioned the Phonak product in my original response, but on the basis of both the extra refinement available within the aid and the enhanced tweakabiliy of the IFTTT/App suggest that you could better tailor the experience in a given situation.

The weakness of the Brio2 in this respect is not a flaw in the product, just an inherent lack of control. On the basis that a stopped clock is right some of the time, there will be situations where it will out-perform other devices, however I know which product I would suggest between it and he current 3Ds.

I recently returned my Brio 2 aids. I wasn’t using them much even though I have pretty major hearing loss. The tech at Costco was clearly not pleased, but tried to smile. She reminded me that I NEED hearing aids. Ok, I know that! Anyway I will probably look into what is available this fall, which is when I believe Costco gets their new offerings. I think for my limited use the Kirkland brand may suffice assuming it is powerful enough. I don’t need them around the house where I spend most of my time, when I watch TV I use wireless headphones. Next time i am putting paying for them with my wife’s Medical Savings Account, which for me is a big savings.

Edited

Wow, what did your wife think of your decision to return the ’s? With your loss communicating with you must be a big problem for your wife and those around you. I wouldn’t return to many HA’s to Costco or you will be blackballed by them.

Not sure why the Costco should give you any attitude because they’re not commission based anyway so why should they care? Especially if you explain to them that you’ll still do business with them in the future, you just want to wait for newer models.

But I hear Seb that Costco does practice blacklisting people who return too many things. I’ve heard of it happening before. But to me, are a big investment so I would hope that returning a couple of two three HAs as part of an evaluation process should be a reasonable thing to do anyway, not ground for blackballing people.

Edited

I have known several who worked at Costco and although they aren’t on commission they are “pressured” by management to sell the ’s and not get too many returns. They also are expected to sell a set number of HA’s a month and that is determined by the volume at the store. Returning three HA’s might be enough to get you on the blackballed. Now if you brought back two and bought the third that probably would be a different story.

In reply to @seb

I have had this hearing loss for all of my adult life and managed to have a successful career. It may be getting worse as I get older but I am also less active than during my business days. I have learned to face conversations head on because background noise is definitely a problem. Communicating with me is not a “big problem” despite what you may think and if it was my friends are the type that would be quick to point it out. Costco has a 180 day return policy so I returned one pair of ’s that I didn’t like. I purchase a lot of things from Costco and occasionally find it necessary to return something. I think to get black balled at Costco for excess returns would take a lot of work. Furthermore if I purchase another pair of aids I am going to use an which for me is a 25% savings and something I was not aware of until recently. Having said all of this I will likely get another pair of HA’s this fall, but I wasn’t happy with the automatic feature of the Brio 2’s.

Edited

With Costco you don’t get blackballed for returning other things, just hearing aids. I know someone who was blackballed after taking back his third . He could still shop at Costco, they just wouldn’t let him do anything with the hearing aid center. It might be different if you go in at the get go and tell them you want to try the Kirkland’s the Brio and another HA.

In reply to @seb

@seb said:

I have known several HIS who worked at Costco and although they aren’t on commission they are “pressured” by management to sell the HA’s and not get too many returns. They also are expected to sell a set number of HA’s a month and that is determined by the volume at the store. Returning three HA’s might be enough to get you on the blackballed. Now if you brought back two and bought the third that probably would be a different story.

seb, I agree with you on this issue. I was going to make a similar comment.

In reply to @seb

@seb said:

With Costco you don’t get blackballed for returning other things, just hearing aids. I know someone who was blackballed after taking back his third HA. He could still shop at Costco, they just wouldn’t let him do anything with the hearing aid center. It might be different if you go in at the get go and tell them you want to try the Kirkland’s the Brio and another HA.

Well there is a limit. They used to have unlimited returns with electronics and cameras but that changed. They did send me a questionnaire asking about the quality of the service, ect. The person that did my fitting was the manager of the department and had a phony, no it all attitude from the get go. She decided the Brio 2 was what I needed…period. No offer to try anything else so if they don’t like the returns BB me I don’t care. Probably going to try the Kirkland brand and see if I notice any difference.

@jtl said:

Well there is a limit. They used to have unlimited returns with electronics and cameras but that changed. They did send me a questionnaire asking about the quality of the service, ect. The person that did my fitting was the manager of the department and had a phony, no it all attitude from the get go. She decided the Brio 2 was what I needed…period. No offer to try anything else so if they don’t like the returns BB me I don’t care. Probably going to try the Kirkland brand and see if I notice any difference.

She probably is most familiar with the Brio programming and how to tweak the aids. One Costco that I know always goes with the Kirkland’s first and will only give in to another brand if the customer insists. He told me he did it because it was easier to sell a $1,700 pair of ’s over a $2,300 or $2,800 pair of hearing aids and brought him higher sales numbers and he was also the most familiar with the programming. Why don’t you ask the fitter to set up their demo pairs of the various HA’s minus the Brios and see what sound you like the best.

It will be interesting to see her attitude when I go back. I did give her a good review figuring why not. She may be just fine with other people but not me. That happens. I wanted to try the Kirkland brand from the beginning but she insisted that my loss fit the Brio 2 better, and maybe it does but I have no basis of comparison. She was also very high on the auto feature of the Brio 2, personally I would rather have some control. I think this is a pretty big hearing center, at least she said it was. They have 5 booths and are always 2 weeks out for an appointment.

I like my Starkey hearing aids. I got them mostly for restaurant settings etc. because I
was having trouble hearing people there. But since they are my first pair of hearing
aids I don’t have that much experience with them. I would think the person who programs
your hearing aids would be the one to help with that. The lady that recently reprogrammed
mine done a great job with mine. They work better than before.

The OP asked to hear from people using the latest hearing aids. I am using the new Siemens pure 7 primax and am thoroughly impressed. This is my 4th set of in about 20 years and the first ones that work as well as I feel I could practically hope. There are a few glitches (mostly with BT) that I hope will be worked out over time but nothing that’s a showstopper. They do work well in restaurants as I change to a program for that and certainly better than anything I’ve worn before. That said, restaurants are a tough environment and these aren’t perfect as I suspect none are. Also I find the ability to directionally focus the microphones to be a distinct advantage in some environments.

One thing I’ve learned over the years especially with these latest is that there’s only so much hearing aids can do. I happen to have a severe hearing loss and while they help immensely there is an upper bound to how much a hearing aid can help and I think this technology is very very close to that upper bound.

In reply to @jtl

The Costco closest to my house is one of the busiest stores in the US and has 4 or 5 boths and is one of the worst stores to go to because the booths are right near the TV’s and audio stuff and you can hear the TV’s and the air conditioning that is over the booths when having a hearing test. The store I go to is about 5 miles away and only has one booth tucked away next to the pharmacy and has always had that seem to be better at what they do then the busy store and their wait time for an appointment is only a day or two out. Used to be seb on the old HAF.

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