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How to trial Oticon More

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In reply to @Torbill

I’m not saying anything like that, only that Philips and Oticon HAs are the same underlying technology. The specific models you are looking at, as well as how they are configured, are essential to the comparison. Please don’t read anything more into that beyond what I have written here.

Edited

In reply to @Torbill

The Philips HearLink and Oticon More 1 are both from the same company, Demant, and the sound is nothing like the KS10, which is a Phonak aid.

From my personal listening experience the More 1 and Philips HearLink have a very similar sound, certainly much more open than any Phonak aid I’ve ever tried.

Oticon and Philips seem to mirror each other when changes occur. Every time there’s an update to the Oticon On app there’s a corresponding update to the Philips HearLink app shortly after.

Oticon just announced the Oticon Real, and update to the More 1. Philips is shortly releasing the Hearkink 9040, no doubt similar to the Oticon Real.

Edited

In reply to @greg.smith

@greg.smith said:

I’m not saying anything like that, only that Philips HAs and Oticon HAs are the same underlying technology. The specific models you are looking at, as well as how they are configured, are essential to the comparison. Please don’t read anything more into that beyond what I have written here.

I disagree with this. If by “underlying technology”, you mean “core” technology, then Philips and Oticon HAs don’t share the same core technology. Yeah, they both use for their core technologies, but I believe they use AI differently. The Oticon More use AI to mimic a deep neural network and the focus of this is to train the on how to best balance the sound scene while still give the user access to all sounds, yet have them balanced out such that speech clarity is not compromised amongst all the sounds.

The Philips 9030, on the other hand, use their AI not with a focus to give a balanced sound scene, but with a focus on how to best suppress the noise to give speech better clarity.

Because Oticon is a subsidiary of William Demant, and Philips is a licensee to HA technologies from William Demant (not a subsidiary like Oticon is, though), they do share what I call “peripheral” technolgies → things like , transient noise management, fitting rationales, and accessories like the Bluetooth intermediary streamer, the TV adapter, the receivers, chargers, molds, etc.

Their differentiation (despite all being under the William Demant umbrella) is that they have different core technologies. And the Philips 9030 definitely is NOT a rebranded Oticon More, if that’s what you’re getting at. Not in the sense like the Costco KS10 is a rebranded Phonak Paradise sans tinnitus.

We have a poster in our forum who used to wear the Oticon OPN, then he tried the Philips 9030, liked it enough but missed the openness of the open paradigm, returned the Philips 9030 to Costco and went for the Oticon More and stuck with the More. That’s not to say that the Philips 9030 was not good enough. That’s only to say that the Philips 9030 is not the same as the Oticon More and they don’t share the same core technology (or underlying technology as you call it).

You also have a user who has tried both the More 1 and the Philips HearLink, me.

My experience is that the sound of the More 1 and Philips HearLink are very similar.

I’ve read all the claims and literature about the differences between the More and HearLink 9030, but my personal listening experience is that they are much more similar in sound and “openness.”

Edited
@jay_man2 said:

You also have a user who has tried both the More 1 and the Philips HearLink, me.

My experience is that the sound of the More 1 and Philips HearLink are very similar.

…my personal listening experience is that they are much more similar in sound and “openness.”

Of course everybody has different opinions, depending in which listening environments they’re most engaged in.

By the way, the user whom I was referring to is @Abarsanti. He’s created a number of threads to share his experience with the Philips 9030 and the Oticon More. I’m sure a basic search will yield all these threads.

In terms of “openness”, Oticon is the only mfg who promotes the open paradigm on its OPN, then OPN S, then More. Philips’ marketing information never promotes or mention the open paradigm. So if the OP (@Torbill ) specifically said that he wants to try out the Oticon open paradigm, referring him to try the Philips because you personally think they’re all just the same would be a disservice in my opinion.

The fact that the Philips and More are very similar in sound is natural, because most likely they share the same proprietary fitting rationales under the William Demant umbrella ( which is what I call a peripheral technology).

Regarding whether they’re similar or not in terms of the openness, I would preface by not saying that ONLY the Oticon HAs are open and all other HA brands are closed (meaning they don’t have the same openness). In most normal listening environments, where significant noise is not an issue, most HA brands are open just the same. Most HAs let you hear everything. Why not? There’s no reason to suppress anything. So it’s not surprising to hear folks say that they don’t find their HAs any less open than the Oticon HAs.

The difference is when one enters a very noisy situation. Most HAs will try to focus on suppressing the noise to bring out the speech (even the Philips whitepaper says that their is specifically focused on suppressing the noise). This is where the openness becomes different. Users of most HAs that focus mainly on suppressing the noise are mostly very satisfied with the result because they can understand speech in the noise and they don’t care to hear the noise. And it’s not like Oticon doesn’t try to suppress the noise, because they do, too. But they don’t get overly aggressive in suppressing the noise. It’s more like they try to “balance out” the noise in favor of speech clarity, so that you can still get the speech clarity, but if you want to focus on the noise, you can still hear all the sounds around you because they’re not snuffed out, they’re still preserved, albeit not given the priority like the speech. THIS is the difference between the open paradigm and the traditional paradigm.

By the way, I’ve had a chance to trial the Sonic Enchant 100 a number of years back. For those who don’t know, Sonic is another subsidiary of William Demant like Oticon and Bernafon is. This is when I was wearing the Oticon OPN 1. I’ve also posted a thread to review the Enchant 100 on this forum if anyone is interesting to read it. While I found the Enchant 100 to be a very respectable HA, I definitely NEVER got the sense that the Enchant was just the same as the OPN. They’re very different HAs and the Enchant definitely does not have the openness like the OPN. So the often-used logic that just because a company is a sister company of Oticon, therefore their HAs must be the same as the Oticon HAs doesn’t hold any water, at least not to me.

And by the way, the reason I got to trial the Sonic Enchant 100 for a couple of weeks was exactly because of this same debate. This who used to be on the forum said that he has the Sonic Enchant 100, and it’s just the same as the Oticon OPN because they’re sister companies. I told him that I didn’t buy it, so he offered to send me the Sonic to try it out to myself to see, and just wanted my honest opinion back, either to prove him wrong or right, he doesn’t care. So I took up on his offer and tried it out and gave it my honest opinion in terms of a review written on this forum.

Edited

You’ve posted all of this several times. Nevertheless, my actual listening experience is that the HearLink and More are much more similar than they are different.

And with regard to the original question regarding the KS10, my experience is that the KS10 is a much different listening experience. It’s a much more forward-focused sound, whereas the HearLink (and More) is a more balanced 360 degree sound.

I started with More2 and switched to More1 during my trial period. I asked my audiologist what they would be doing with my returned More2s and she said they would just be returned to Oticon. She even packed up my charger and gave me a new one; I thought that was strange, but she said it was important that everything in my package be warranted from the date when I got the More1s.

So while my audi did have to fit me twice I don’t think they suffered any financial loss for the actual HAs. I believe the manufacturer eats that as a cost of doing business.

Edited

In reply to @jay_man2

@jay_man2 said:

You’ve posted all of this several times. Nevertheless, my actual listening experience is that the HearLink and More are much more similar than they are different.

I totally respect what you’re saying here, @jay_man2 , and I don’t doubt that it’s not true (I believe in what you’re saying).

But what I want to be careful to caution here is that just because two companies are under the same umbrella, it doesn’t mean that they must have the same technologies and therefore if you want to trial the more expensive brand but want to save money, then just trial the less expensive brand because they’re the same anyway. But they’re not. And they’re not a rebrand like the Costco KS10 is a rebrand of the Phonak Paradise either. They’re two different companies with different aids.

Personal anecdotal evidence that they do sound the same to an individual doesn’t mean that they will/would sound the same to other individuals. Different individuals have different listening environments, listening needs, different listening taste, etc. But of course there’s nothing wrong with sharing your personal experience, which is what you did, and it’s totally respectable. I would only caution others who read into this not to reach the conclusion that if this person finds these 2 brands to sound the same to him, that for sure they actually are going to sound the same for me, too. If you’ve been on this forum long enough, then you should already know that you will need to try out both to decide for yourself.

I agree. We all hear differently and have certain preferences best determined by a trial in our particular listening environments.

My personal experience with the three aids was that the KS10 is very different. I heard very little behind me, as they and the stereo zoom effect were very forward focused.

Both the More and Philips aids have a more natural, balanced sound to me, and in my listening environments the HearLink works for me. I hope the OP finds one that works better for them.

Edited
@Torbill said:

My question is about how to get a trial without a financial commitment.

Does Costco carry a hearing aid that has a open presence, like Oticon? I see that Philips is owned by the same company, but it seems that they don’t have the Oticon sort of open sound philosophy. Is there another brand at Costco that I might try?

Before Philips, Costco used to sell Bernafon , and Bernafon (plus Sonic and Oticon) are all subsidiaries of William Demant. But when Costco decided to bring in the Philips brand, they also decided to discontinue selling the Bernafon brand. So Philips is the only brand sold by Costco that is affiliated with William Demant.

But Philips is not owned by William Demant. Philips simply licenses the HA technologies from William Demant and slap their brand name onto it.

I just want to share with you that I’ve read on this forum several instances where people trialed certain HAs at Costco, then returned them, they were black listed from being able to try out and buy another HA brand/model from that Costco store anymore. But my understanding is that it’s probably just for each particular local store. It may not necessarily be a corporate-wide policy at Costco. You may be able to go to a different Costco to trial and buy HAs there, as long as they don’t compare notes, I guess. So although Costco do have a 180 day return policy on HAs, they do have local discretionary power to prevent it from being a pattern with specific customers if they think that there’s a pattern of abuse of their policy there.

@prodigyplace: I’m asking for your take in it because your statement sort of flies in the face of similar assessments advanced by @Abarsanti and @Volusiano . Those of us who wear expensive More devices would benefit from knowing about the cheaper alternative, if they are, indeed, comparable.

I also remember seeing something on the\is forum after I had ordered mine that made me grateful I had chosen More instead.

@prodigyplace: I’m not trying to waste your time or be argumentative, but - if the two devices are more or less the same - it would benefit those who want the More features, but can’t afford the Oticon version to have the information.

I am rather skeptical of the equivalency of these two devices, hence the challenge.

My search turned up something interesting. Apparently Philips os not owned my Demant. Philips had their own aids years ago and exited the market.

It appears Philips decided to license some of Demant’s hardware and technology. Demant has been licensed to be able to sell the Philips branded aids. There is some independence there, apparently, Of course, the Philips aids at Costco do not have the tinnitus features but I never found them useful anyway when I tried Phonak’s feature years ago,

Before I decided to go to Duke, my Costco considerations were wither the Jabra (Resound) or the Philips. I had an extremely horrible test & trial of the Resound One 9 in late November. Even then I would have considered the Philips had I not gone to Duke Health.

Yes, a good number of people seem satisfied with the Philips’ performance, but there appears to be controversy over the equivalence of Philips and genuine Oticon™️ brand More hearing aids That’s the issue that has my interest ATM.

I tried reading this whole thread and finally gave up. Since I get my hearing aids from the , cost was not a consideration. But, did this person finally get an answer to their question or just get uncalled for comments thrown at them through 39 posts so far?

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