KS9 Issues with Costco

Sorry I misinterpreted your post, @z10user2. Thanks for liking my post! LOL

@ashley, No do NOT swim with HAs, do not shower with them, do not get them wet. Ear gear makes covers for folks who sweat alot, and / or live in humid climates and sweat due to climate. And most of us on here advocate use of a dryer regularly.

Chill Timbo59, they mean well.

As I noted in my first comments above, take it upon yourself to lower the right volume in steps and note the impact. Does that effectively eliminate the issues but leave that ear extremely weak other than your daughter’s voice returning to a tolerable level (but perhaps less rounded)? If so then it is not just set too high overall, see below. On the other hand if that makes everything much better then you can get the defaults fixed easily and begin fine tuning.

If you look at the three primary issues together, other than overall volume it would be a reasonable first guess that a particular equalizer band is far too high whether by adjustment or defect. That could account for the hiss, hair issue and daughters voice. Just a guess, but it fits, much better than overall volume on that side which you would likely notice. Similarly it could be a defective microphone though I’d guess that’s rare. In any case, stay focused on the question of why the right is so different than the left then what those differences are and how they might be related. It should take an experienced fitter VERY little time to zero in on a source if not the exact problem, even if that means swapping briefly with a demo unit loaded with your settings.

I get pretty amused at folks here complaining about having to go like 13 miles to their next-closest Costco. My next closest is over a hundred miles away.

Right. It’s an hour and a half for me. I miss the days when I lived in Houston and had three to choose from

My current half shell Oticon HAs are OPN 3 but I am having the full shell ITE make for me now and will pick up on next Wednesday. I do not know at this point if they will be OPN 1 or 3.

As for Starkey and the rest, I have heard from my audie that they do not carry the high end but do have some of the lesser brands of popular HAs. They do not carry and grade of Oticon.

With severe hearing loss I need the mold and not the wire in the ear.

There may be some bias in the information you have received.

The Phonak Audeo M90 and KS9 aids are top of the line aids. Possibly better than your Oticon OPN3 as you’re OPN3 aids are a lower level aid. The Oticon OPN1 aids would be closer to equal to the Phonak Audeo M90 and KS9 aids.

Your comment about a mold and not a wire in your ear, your hearing loss can most likely be fit with RIC type aids with a mold if you wanted one.

Here is a picture of mine.

@maggie07 said:

With severe hearing loss I need the mold and not the wire in the ear.

Actually your loss could be handled by a “wire in the ear” if you mean by that a Receiver in the Ear or RIC hearing aid. It could be handled by what is typically called a P receiver, but there is one higher power receiver (HP) than that if needed. Here is what your loss looks like on a P receiver fitting range chart.

Here are the gain curves with a P receiver. Yes for sure to avoid feedback you would need a mold. Molds can be used with RIC aids as well as BTE. The software is suggesting no vent in the right ear, and a very small 0.8 mm vent in the left. It is also suggesting that frequency compression be used. That is what is the shaded areas are showing. 2 kHz to 10 kHz is being compressed down into the 2 kHz to 3 kHz range.

The KS9 at Costco should be able to do all of this.

The Costco I go to has 1 audiologist and 4 fitters.

I believe it depends on location. Some jurisdictions require that the fitter be an audiologist.

The Costco I go to has 1 audiologist with a MA,CCC-A She is a licensed Audiologist. with I 26 years as a audi. She also was a teacher at Northwestern. They also have 3 fitters.

New KS9’s 4 months ago, and am pretty satisfied with all aspects of these aids. The first impressions were similar to the OP. I realized after a couple weeks that I hadn’t heard my own voice in such an audible way. I had problems with the Music program causing a volume increase of at least 10db, I wasn’t believed by my fitter at first, but by being diplomatic, not raising my voice in irritation, and complimenting her about how much better everything else was , she did more research and got them turned down. I blame my loss for this as it isn’t something many others note.

My last visit included a Phonak consultant that asked if there was anything else, and I told her the volume was great, but sometimes word recognition was hard. She enlisted a high frequency feature where these incoming high frequencies are lowered to a lower frequency. At first it sounded like everybody, live, or TV, radio were all lisping, but now I really don’t hear it and my word recognition is noticeably better. After all we are exhaling when speaking and there is an s-s-s-s-s sound is a natural result.

We’ve lost our hearing over a long time and suddenly getting a significant amount of it back through these HA’s can be disturbing at first.

RDB

@rdboukes said:

She enlisted a high frequency feature where these incoming high frequencies are lowered to a lower frequency

Is this Phonak’s “frequency compression (shift)” feature?

Probably the same, but a KS9 feature, called HiFrequency Protect +

RDB

That way they can claim it’s exclusive.