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User Review of Whisper Hearing Aids

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@WhiteHat said:

There are a lot of people who like the tone of tube amps for their music. Where are these folks in the hearing aid realm?

@WhiteHat: I have always only used Class A or tube amps, with the exception of my Ampeg bass head. That said, if my life depended in being able to distinguish between Cat, Bat, Rat, and Gnat, delivered by a guy with a good mic and an amp, I’d make sure it was through a solid state amp.

But for music, ain’t nothing like that “tube sag” (which is just a form of compression)!

In reply to @x475aws

@x475aws said:

$69/month for 36 months is the price on the whisper.ai site.

It’s a confusing situation. Pricing, I’m told, is though the audiologist. No good explanation for why $69/mo or $2499 is what’s on the website, but apparently the price a customer ultimately pays may be very different than what’s posted. That’s the best I can come up with.

I went to the Whisper.ai site, but it’s still not clear to me how this system works.

Are the sounds captured by the “brain” and sent from it to the hearing aids? It’s correct?

So if it works as a kind of streaming of surrounding sounds, isn’t carrying the brain" in your pocket a problem? Can you identify where the sounds come from?

Since the power is entrusted to the “brain”, why is it not suitable even for deep losses?

Thank you

Sounds are captured by the usual microphones on top of the hearing aid body. The hearing aids send some distillation of the sound to the Brain, and get something back from it that’s used to generate output to the receivers. Sound localization is pretty good for me. The hearing aids can also be used without the Brain, with some loss of function.

Whisper recently increased their fitting range to 90 . Their website credits an improved system. At my last visit my also mentioned that they’ve introduced higher-powered receivers. I don’t know what else they would need in order to cover losses like yours.

Edited

In reply to @lello58

@lello58 said:

Since the power is entrusted to the “brain”, why is it not suitable even for deep losses?

The power entrusted to the brain is not the amplification power necessary to deliver a loud enough volume for your severe to profound hearing loss to hear. That amplification power comes from the hearing aid pieces to the receivers and it’s really not any different than other hearing aids.

The power in the brain is only the artificial intelligence part. This kind of power in the brain recognizes sound patterns and process them in such a way to help give priority and therefore better clarity to sounds you want hear and suppress sounds you don’t want to hear. It sends this processed sound back to the ear piece parts, but if the ear pieces don’t have the amplification power to make the processed sound from the brain loud enough in volume for you to hear, then you still can’t hear it no matter how clear this sound is.

Edited

@Volusiano: And another great explanation by who else but MrV!

…Exactly!
(The “V” in Exactly isn’t silent … it’s just quiet!)

I have had the opportunity to trial the KS 10 from Costco and the Whisper Hearing System at the same time, side by side. One day one and the next day the other. Here are my thoughts:
Price: $1399 for the Costco’s; $69/mo for the Whispers. This price is only if you are in an area not serviced by a “brick & mortar” HAP and are willing to have your fitting done remote (zoom). Both cover loss or damage replacement for 3 years.
Trial: Costco 180 days; Whisper 45 days.
Streaming: Costco - media/phone = yes; Whisper - phone only
Battery: Costco = rechargeable; Whisper = 675 batteries
Software updates: Costco = no; Whisper = 2-3 per year (similar to cell phone technology)
Size: Costco is smaller, less noticible; Whisper is larger .
Noisy situations: Costco is noticible more annoying and distracting; Whisper: is amazing, the difference!
Conclusion: my pet peeve is noisy situations. Whisper is the hands down winner for me. Yes, I am disappointed not having streaming media and rechargibility. But the handling the noisy environments trump’s all for me. I sincerely hope for both of those issues to be resolved in the future. But finally I need to acknowledge that these are my observations and I am not imposing them on anyone. But I do love the Whispers and will be moving ahead with them. Thanks for listening.

Did you not try and have the KS10’s adjusted for the noisy environments? They have a dedicated program for this, did you try that as well?

After reading thru some of this thread and curious about the features…
I think (my opinion) a better, more widely accepted solution to many would be to run the AI function on your phone. I carry my phone 90% of the time when I’m wearing aids. So I’m already lugging it around. The idea of lugging around a “brain” box doesn’t appeal to me.
Obviously our smartphones are powerful enough to run the software.
So would seem like a no brainer, no pun intended!

Did this come up earlier in the thread or with Whisper directly?

In reply to @richardsondc

@richardsondc said:

Did this come up earlier in the thread or with Whisper directly?

It’s been mentioned already. You’re right. It’s a no-brainer as in it would be really desirable, but is it feasible? I don’t know but I doubt that it would be as simple as making a ‘whisper brain’ app. I think you’d have to convince a phone maker to design a phone from the ground up with Whisper in mind. The potential market wouldn’t justify the effort.

In reply to @cminchik

@cminchik said:

$69/mo for the Whispers. This price is only if you are in an area not serviced by a “brick & mortar” HAP and are willing to have your fitting done remote (zoom)

I couldn’t find any reference to two-tier pricing on their website. Unless you only get the audiologist’s price when you front up to the audiologist I guess. Which begs the question: what’s the audiologist’s price?

One thing I noticed when I looked at the site today: Software upgrades are only provided up until the next hardware version is released. We all assumed that development would continue indefinitely (it’s one of their big selling points) but this is not guaranteed. In fact, if a new hardware version is released tomorrow, the value of your investment takes a hit as the ‘blue sky’ aspect of it seems built into the price.

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