Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

What hearing aid is best at Costco?

This topic is closed.

116 replies6.5k viewsLast reply

Jump
Link to this topic
Edited

Yes, I did read his post, but only after I had replied to the first one. Tried to delete my reply, but this site wouldn’t let me do that Sirry.

Did you read my reply to his post which you quoted? None of what he posted answers the question of how they are “similar” in the way that this thread has been claiming.

Re-read Janofh’s 2 posts. The first one sarcastically compares how “. . . Phonak, ReSound, and Reston/Signia appear to be exact copies rebranded but not Philips.” His second one reported that the Philips rep said “. . . how similar it is to the Oticon, and it uses similar hw/sw.” So, he’s first talking about whether Philips is rebranded Oticon as the other 3 are of their parent brands and then quoting the rep in support of that point, saying how similar they are.

I’m not going to debate what the word similar means here. Yes, they’re similar in the broadest sense because they’re both hearing aids. But I tried the Philips in the store and my listening experience wasn’t at all similar to my Oticon Opn1, which is on the same spectrum as the More. Implying that a user will have a similar listening experience with Philips to what they will have with the More is simply not true. One uses beam forming and noise suppression while the other does not. It’s in the interests of the Philips rep to create this impression because his goal is to sell hearing aids, so he wants to create the association of Philips with the more well known Oticon brand.

Edited
@tenkan said:

This all just reeks of Oticon Fan boy rubbish,hey it doesn’t have the pixal dust, don’t be so hard on yourselfs!

You just like to argue, IMO.

@billgem said:

But I tried the Philips in the store and my listening experience wasn’t at all similar to my Oticon Opn1, which is on the same spectrum as the More. Implying that a user will have a similar listening experience with Philips to what they will have with the More is simply not true.

This is what counts - what we can hear and understand. The rest of your semantic gyrations just for the sake of contrariness are not relevant.

I purchased the Philips HearLink 9030 from Costco a few months back and during my fitting was told the 9030 is based on the bernafon Alpha miniRITE T R which is made by the same PARENT company which makes Oticon Mores.

At no time was it inferred that my 9030’s were Oticon-Like.

In reply to @tenkan

@tenkan said:

Hey here’s another similar product, just released for sonic, Oticon’s Mymusic called SmartMusic Pro.

Sonic Expands Radiant Hearing Aid Family with New Styles and Options | Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Hey, all the big 6 mfgs make similar products! They all have and and and what have you!

It’s no mystery that William Demant’s sister companies share technologies, like , tinnitus features, wide input dynamic range, etc. Same with the hardware casing, charger, receivers, connectors, adapters, etc. Why shouldn’t they? They’d be dumb not to share. But sharing peripheral technologies and hardwares is not the same as rebranding with the same core being used.

Regarding the Sonic vs Oticon products, I remember when Sonic came out with the Enchant line and Oticon came out with the OPN line, I’ve heard and many on this forum swearing up and down that the Sonic Enchant is the SAME as the Oticon OPN. Well, I own the OPN, and I was loaned a pair of Sonic Enchant 100 from one of the HCPs who participated on this forum at the time to try out. He wanted my honest opinion as to whether I think the Enchant is really the same, oops excused me, “similar”, to the OPN or not. What he really meant was for me to tell him if he could tell his patients that if they bought the (cheaper) Enchant, that they’d have the same experience as the more expensive OPN or not.

Well, after 2 weeks of detailed and side by side trial, I found the Sonic Enchant and the Oticon OPN to give me very different hearing experiences. You can say that they’re similar all you want, but they give very different hearing experiences to me. That’s what counts.

Of course anyone who wants to buy into the notion of buying a “similar” HA in hope of getting the same hearing experiences as the Oticon OPN or More, feel free to go right ahead and do so. I’m just here to help dispel the myth that “Hey, they’re all from the same parent company so they must be the same”. I really don’t like to see people being “duped” by the half truth that is being perpetuated on this forum.

The rebranding may apply to some other brands, but not to the Oticon brand as far as I know. The day that I can find a real Oticon rebrand for cheaper, I’ll be the first in line to buy that cheaper rebrand and I’ll be the first to go on the forum to let everybody know.

Edited
@billgem said:

Thank you. Here’s hoping we can eschew the gratuitous insults like “fanboy"

You’re right, Bill. I’ll edit out my "counter-insult " in deference to you and those who can see both sides.

@Volusiano said:

Not really, Even between the Oticon OPN, OPN S and More, they use 3 different platforms/chips (the Velox, Velox S, and Polaris platform, respectively). For Sonic, another Demant subsidiary, they use the SoundDNA platform for their Enchant line, and the Extend platform for their Radiant line. It’s not obvious to me by Googling what platforms the Bernafon and Philips lines of hearing aids are based on.

This dude fell hook, line, and sinker for Demant’s marketing spiel. Imagine not realizing platforms are just made-up names for the same product across different brands.

@Volusiano said:

Not true. For programming software, Oticon uses Genie 2. Philips uses HearSuite. Sonic uses ExpressFit. Bernafon uses Oasis NXT. With the exception of Oasis, I’ve personally used Genie 2, HearSuite and ExpressFit myself. The look and feel and setup are all different. Yeah, some of the technologies are the same, like frequency lowering and such, but the programming softwares are not even “similar”.

How can someone who claims such deep skill and proficiency not realize it’s the same software underneath, just different skin.

I’m gonna reiterate what I wrote earlier in this thread: @Volusiano has no access to source code, algorithms, flowcharts, or any other engineering design documents that would allow him to draw any conclusions about how the internals of the hearing aid operates. He is simply making assumption after assumption based on what someone in Demant’s marketing department wrote in a white paper.

If y’all want to trust what this self-styled expert says, I feel sorry for you.

@nqq98392 said:

If y’all want to trust what this self-styled expert says, I feel sorry for you.

So … why don’t you show us your credentials? Your demeaning comments are nothing but hot air.

@billgem I am very curious as to how you interpreted my comments as being sarcastic (honest question). I was not being sarcastic as those models are rebranded models. As to what the rep was reported as saying, I was just relaying a conversation that I thought was interesting given the back and forth so I don’t get your comments there either.

In reply to @nqq98392

@nqq98392 said:

If y’all want to trust what this self-styled expert says, I feel sorry for you.

The idea of a forum is to share what you know and learned so that others can benefit from that knowledge. It’s up to the forum readers to determine what’s real and what fake and what to believe in and what to throw out.

You, in one fell swoop, not only insulted me, also insulted any forum readers who choose to believe what I share on this forum.

@nqq98392 said:

How can someone who claims such deep skill and proficiency not realize it’s the same software underneath, just different skin.

At least “I” have used all these 3 softwares personally to make my determination that they’re not the same. Have “you” used any of them to make “your” determination that it’s all the same?

@nqq98392 said:

This dude fell hook, line, and sinker for Demant’s marketing spiel. Imagine not realizing platforms are just made-up names for the same product across different brands.

I bet you don’t even know what a platform is, because you think platforms are just made-up names for products across different brands. Velox and Velox S and Polaris are actually all in the same Oticon brand. They’re not even across different brands.

So I guess you probably also conclude that the Phonak Audeo and Marvel and Paradise and KS9 and KS10 are also made-up names for just the same single product, even in the same Phonak brand, huh?

@nqq98392 said:

I’m gonna reiterate what I wrote earlier in this thread: @Volusiano has no access to source code, algorithms, flowcharts, or any other engineering design documents that would allow him to draw any conclusions about how the internals of the hearing aid operates.

But I guess YOU do have all this information because you’ve already been able to draw your own conclusion that they’re all made-up names for the same product across different brands, huh?

Thanks for pointing this out, Jim. It’s not about me trying to get that … nqq8932… to understand. I don’t care about that. It’s about making it obvious to the rest of us who read this nqq98392’s post to see how shallow those comments are. I think even teenagers have more depth to share than that.

There isn’t one. are different from each other in the way they handle noise. What works great for one person may not for another. Many people here love the ks10. I really wanted it but the philips and jabra sounded significantly better for me. However, that is my experience not anyone else’s. Obviously other people find the ks10 to be great.

I am a new user. Have had the KS10’s, $!,399, for about 6 to 8 weeks. I would start there as they are the lowest price. They have a 6 months trial period. You enough time to make a reasonable decision. An important factor is how far away the Costco is. You will have to go back for return visits, and if the Costco is a long drive that could be to be a pain.

My local Costco has been very busy with appointments, including return appointments, about a month out. I did do one drop in to get the ear pieces changed, and that was fine. It has taken me about a three months and 4 trips with another trip scheduled to get mine to what I would say is acceptable.

Good luck.

In reply to @janofh

My apologies. Sarcastic might have been the wrong word. As I said in my earlier post, I thought that your comment about the sales rep was a good insight. With regard to your comment that 3 brands “appear to be exact copies rebranded but not Philips”, I thought you were implying an eye roll and that Philips of course was too, following the same Costco pattern. That’s what I was getting at with my comment, thinking that the inference didn’t necessarily follow.

Ahhh gotcha. That makes sense. No I was just saying I know those three are copies and that I can see how people would assume the same of the philips, especially given comments on the rep… :grin:

Related discussions