User Review of Whisper Hearing Aids

Streaming works with the Whispers, @Volusiano! It just doesn’t work as well.

-“guess I’m sort of like a rubbernecker at a bass fishing tournament who’s asking all sorts of probing questions just to experience vicariously what the professional bass-busters might have experienced before they netted their lunkers and backed out the hooks before releasing them. But that doesn’t mean that I want to join them out there in the bass boat”

Here’s a less insulting analogy for y’all, Happy!

@happymach said:

It was weird (and could be taken as insulting) to compare people trying the Whispers to “accident victims.”

The reason why people are saying “try it yourself” is because the “bystanders” have already expressed considerable skepticism!

Anyway, as a participant, I welcome further impressions, observations, and remarks from other participants.

It’s only normal and natural for anyone to express skepticism, there’s nothing wrong with that, especially in the hearing aid world, because everyone’s hearing is different and one person’s success doesn’t guarantee the same success for others.

And it’s really not any criticism about the invitation to “try it yourself”. That is a perfectly valid invitation because that’s the only way anyone will know for themselves. I think us “bystanders” only want to politely explain our reasons for declining the invitation, that’s all.

@happymach said:

Streaming works with the Whispers, @Volusiano! It just doesn’t work as well.

Thanks for this correction, @happymach. I thought I heard that streaming works for phone conversation but not for other contents like music or video per se. But maybe I’m wrong. But that’s what I meant, not all streaming but non-phone-call streaming. But if I’m wrong, I stand corrected.

@d_Wooluf said:

Given that the Oticon is supposed to the the speech-in-noise champion, that’s actually pretty amazing.

Could you please tell the Forum whoever made this claim, other than perhaps Oticon, itself?

[ I get the impression that you want to engineer a head-to-head confrontation between Whisper and Oticon where none naturally exists. I have no skin in this game. My interest (call it curiosity) is purely academic, as is @Volusiano 's.

I think we’re interested in understanding:

1. The types of situations in which Whisper performs better than self-contained hearing aids;
2. How the hearing aids perform in these situations without the use of the “brain”;
3. A description of what effect the “brain” has when it’s deployed, and
4. Whether there are any practical issues in daily use caused by Whisper’s form factors (size of earpieces, bulk of “brain”), power consumption, and limited streaming capabilities (for now).

These are legitimate questions that are in no way confrontational, and I see little value in trying to pitch one device against the other.]

@SpudGunner said:

My interest (call it curiosity) is purely academic, as is @Volusiano 's.

I think we’re interested in understanding:

1. The types of situations in which Whisper performs better than self-contained hearing aids;
2. How the hearing aids perform in these situations without the use of the “brain”;
3. A description of what effect the “brain” has when it’s deployed, and
4. Whether there are any practical issues in daily use caused by Whisper’s form factors (size of earpieces, bulk of “brain”), power consumption, and limited streaming capabilities (for now).

The work that a Whisper user would have to perform, to satisfy your and @Volusiano’s curiosity, is far, far more than the work that he is reluctant to impose on an HCP to fit him with Whisper. And the HCP would, as far as we know, be compensated by Whisper for at least part of their time and expenses. So I think the way forward is obvious.

I thought @happymach said that I would have to pay the HCP for the fitting cost, no? That is my reluctance to have to pay for the fitting if it’s purely an exercise for curiosity.

If I were to trial ANY hearing aids, I would FOR SURE bring my own current HAs with and do A/B comparison/swapping on the spot instead of relying on my memory. That’s the minimal work I would do to justify paying for a new pair of HAs out of my own pocket. It’s only common sense and it’s minimal to me because I already own my current pair of HA, I just take it with me, too, in a little box in my pocket. Only Whisper has the A/B/C and not just the A/B because you now add an extra scenario with/without the brain because it has a brain. You take the brain along with you anyway.

And the work of reporting my experience, including a little bit more details about the difficult environments where I do my test, is also minimal. You guys already spent a ton a time with several posts about the topic, what’s another 30 seconds to say something like “it was at a restaurant with tall ceilings, lots of echos, crowded with almost every table full so very loud babbling, on top of that there’s also fairly loud background music going on, and we were situated at a table by the wall, with me sitting with my back toward to wall.” There, it took me 10 seconds to write that part of the environmental description up.

@d_Wooluf said:

So, the score so far.

That’s three experienced hearing aid users trialling the Whisper, with two of those also having used the Oticon More? And all three say that the Whisper is clearly better for understanding speech in challenging environments. Given that the Oticon is supposed to the the speech-in-noise champion, that’s actually pretty amazing.

For sure it is good anecdotal information from 3 users. Hopefully there’ll be more and more over time. It can only be better to have more. But it’s only 3 users so far. I’d call it a good start. When it has garnered scores of users and almost everyone of them is positive, then I’d call it amazing.

I never did and wouldn’t call the Oticon the speech-in-noise champion. I think all big 6 HAs and the traditional front beam forming can be very effective for speech in noise, possibly even more than Oticon because you don’t have to compete with the noise anymore because most of them are blocked out. The only thing I might peg the Oticon with is that MAYBE it’s been the open paradigm champion so far, but only because it’s been the only HA company openly embracing the open paradigm. It’s good that the anecdotal reports imply that the Whisper gives an “open” experience as well. Now that there are 2 players embracing the open paradigm, Oticon may not be the open paradigm champion anymore, but nor is the Whisper established as the champion in the open paradigm either, at least not yet.

I think a more apt HA to compare against the Whisper would be the Philips HearLink 9030. It’s because it uses a DNN to specifically focus on addressing speech in noise, just like what Whisper is claiming they’re doing. Don’t get me wrong, Oticon does use the DNN to address speech in noise as well, but not solely to suppress noise very aggressively, but just more to rebalance the sound scene in favor of speech but not take away surrounding sounds completely.

It seems to me that this discussion is becoming more and more disconnected from real experiences with the Whisper. The title of this forum is “User Review of Whisper Hearing Aids,” after all!

@happymach said:

It seems to me that this discussion is becoming more and more disconnected from real experiences with the Whisper. The title of this forum is “User Review of Whisper Hearing Aids,” after all!

I don’t think we get off topic at all when asking for details about the user’s experience with Whisper around the environments the users are in, and how it sounds with and without the brain. Those are all relevant and legit questions pertaining to the user experience.

And most of my responses have been to address statements raised by either the Whisper trialers, or others like @d_Wooluf’s “champion” statements. The door was opened when statements were made that needed a response.

@x475aws one time made a slightly off-topic statement in a post which I responded to. But then he deleted his post and asked me to delete mine to stay on-topic, which I happily obliged.

Let’s just stop this. Now. We’ll share as we see fit.

Sure. That’s what I just said an hour ago, isn’t it?

I didn’t pay any fitting fee for my Whisper trial.

@x475aws: Did Dr Schum give any hints as to when they might be introducing Whisper in Canada?

[I realize we’re a minuscule market, compared to the US.]