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Jabra Enhance v KS10?

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Tony was referring to using the hearing aid mic to pick up his voice instead of having to hold the phone and use its mic when streaming calls to the aids. Phonak aids like the KS10 do this, and hopefully a future firmware update for the Jabra will implement it.

The M& mic active when you are holding the phone speaker to your ear does improve “normal” phone use, as you described.

I’m good to wait for the firmware update.
Thanks for you reminder re the iOS setting for call audio diversion. Android does not have those smarts. Not yet.

In reply to @tony2

@tony2 said:

I find it truly annoying to hold my phone up to use the phone mic when it seems obvious that the HA mic would work as well or better.

mics aren’t so great at canceling background noise when used as a phone mic. Their directional features let them emphasize sound from a selected direction horizontally, but not vertically (down toward your mouth).

Ahh. That makes sense, of course.
Still, Phonak and others have had the full hands free feature for some time, and there is talk of Resound introducing it in a coming firmware update. Hopefully, it will available on the [Resound] Jabra aids as well. Then it will be up to the user to choose, which is as it should be.

In reply to @x475aws

@x475aws said:

HA mics aren’t so great at canceling background noise when used as a phone mic.

I don’t know what microphone patterns mics are capable of generating but I have an excellent Shure wireless microphone that I’ve used with the Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition program. It’s pickup range is reduced to a supercardioid pattern in the vicinity of my mouth and it effectively “cancels” noise (by not hearing it in the first place). So I’d like to suggest, but don’t know for sure if it’s possible, that a combination of HA mics could generate a similar 3D pickup zone. Perhaps with mics, you only have the option of a horizontal directionality but when you add the M& mics in each ear, there’s a vertical difference there, too, from the position of BTE mics that might allow one to also discriminate vertically as well, e.g. the Ultrafocus in the Jabras/Ones is supposed to discriminate to a 20% area directly in front of the user - one might imagine that 20% focus excludes noise from high on the ceiling, reflected off the floor, etc. Just speculating here. Searching for “cardioid pattern of hearing aid microphones” turns up quite a few hits. The following article (no date!) in fact states that directionality can limit proper speech pickup to within a few feet of the HA listener, meaning a desired subject more than a few feet away can not be effectively heard above noise. The article cites a low 3 boost of signal above noise as being possible from directionality. Hearing Aids - Directional Microphones (amperordirect.com)1. On patterns HA mic pickup can have the article says: “The pattern may be cardioid, supercardioid, hypercardioid, or bi-directional (di-pole) in nature…”

In reply to @HOHKate

I just purchased the Jabra Marie hearing aids a few days ago. I got them with custom ear molds. My left ear has the aid set at the max volume for the Marie. The fitter was not sure I could use the Marie on that ear but he agreed to try it. His concern was that the receiver might not have enough power for my hearing loss in that ear. He overlaid my audio-gram over the Marie fitting range and it laid right on top of the max output line. I have no feedback problems and there is enough volume output from the receiver. My old aids were three year old Phonaks from Costco. I have not had them long enough to comment on the aids .

Hi guys, just registered here and uploaded my .
I’ve been wearing Starkey Soundlens for about 11 years (wow!) and they have been really good at helping me all this time, however Starkey aids don’t work well in noisy situation. Hence I started looking at other options.
So, I went to Costco and was fitted with KS10 with custom molds, first after wearing IIC I didn’t like them as I’m also wearing glasses and now mask. After a while I got used to them, however my speech understanding hasn’t increased at all. Sound was mechanical and not natural, lots of wind noise (I live in windy area).
I didn’t like the app as it doesn’t save my settings.
Streaming to my iPhone worked great.
In the end, I decided to return KS10 and ordered Jabras with custom molds. Costco said I will have to wait till February for them.

KS10 is too short for my audiometric, up today I was using Resound Preza, I like them. Also, I did try out Resound Jabra Enhance & I like them more but did have a problem with the fitting mold (solid-acrylic).

Ultimately I decided on a pair of Phonak Brio 5, 675 batteries with soft mold & a tube. I just picked them today.

The main reason; Jabra enhance cannot go down to 120, and Phonak Brio 5 connected 2 Bluetooth at the same time.

Like I said, yesterday afternoon just picked up. So far I can only say; 1. Look like Sounds are more natural, taking into account this is a tube, and Preza was wire+receiver. I never before used tube HAID. 2. Mold is soft, and I never before used half skeleton soft mold, but I am feeling happy bc looks like they have real retention in my ear. 3. The brain has to adjust to it I know. Tomorrow will start the real test on my job.

As an aside note, at the gym, I usually muted the microphone Costco Preza HAID to focus on my Apple Music, but it was, unfortunately, this Costco Brio 5-675 didn’t bother to stop the craziness of gym music. I will research to find a balance between my music, and me, at the gym.

In reply to @janofh

@janofh said:

I don’t know about the ks10/phonak p90 but I know the jabra/resound one receivers only go to 105 loss. It looks like you are above that so I would question whether it would work…

According to Costco HAID professional, Costco Brio 5-675 get to 120, exactly where I’m right now.

For some reason amplifying highs in my right ear results in headaches and wanting to turning the volume down or even switching the aid off.
I don’t think going to Brio would solve the issue as it simply amplifies and makes it louder. However, in most aids, including Jabra there is a compression tech that can at least convert some of the highs to a more manageable level.
Correct me if I’m wrong.

Edited
@AlexQuattro said:

I don’t think going to Brio would solve the issue as it simply amplifies and makes it louder. However, in most aids, including Jabra there is a compression tech that can at least convert some of the highs to a more manageable level.

I feel here in the forum there are some with the capacity to answer that question, also it would be good to combine the points of view here with the opinion of the professional who is with you. In my case, I just wanted to give information about my experience with Costco Jabra, I do reaffirm that I liked it a lot but two points moved me to Costco Brio 5-675.

  1. Resound Jabra cannot reach 120 to my profound level. However, I am very surprised at the work they do. Resound Preza taught me to be confident, and Jabra gave me much more assertiveness in my communication. However, the unpleasant event with the molds made me look towards Brio. Here I want to explain the mold problem was a simple professional handling error.

  2. I found out Brio can be connected to my iPhone, and at the same time, can be connected to my Chromebook Bluetooth. At my job, there is another iPhone I going to connect via Bluetooth.

The fact Brio comes down to my 120 is a welcome ability.

In reply to @AlexQuattro

There’s two kinds of compression. Compression (used alone) means giving more amplification to softer sonunds than louder sounds. This results in soft sounds not sounding much different than loud sounds. The dynamic range is limited. There’s also frequency compression which is a form of where high frequency sounds are shifted to lower frequencies so that they can be heard.

Just a quick FYI. I was at Costco yesterday for my 1st Jabra follow-up appointment (much happier with adjustments) and I asked why she didn’t want to fit me for the KS10. She said with my loss, she feels Jabra covers my loss better. But, she also said that she is rarely advising KS10’s because in 2021 she (manager of this store) has a 69% return rate. That includes unsatisfied patients as well as quality issues, which she said are over 50% higher than any other aid they sell.

Mr. C-

What is your understanding of the adjustments that were needed? I wear Jabra’s and have not had the issues you have mentioned, but it would be useful to understand what was happening with yours.

In reply to @mr.smithster

That’s interesting. My stated more returns with them as well but nothing about quality control. I felt from the initial walk around that the dynamic range on the philips, and jabra, were far better. But of course that’s just my hearing.

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