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Resound 4 years old left aid stopped working, then works again! Water damage?

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Hi, I think my left aid temporarily quit then started working again and this was probably due to water. Has anyone experienced a similar occurrence? Just wondering if this could indeed happen.

Here’s the background.

I had gone swimming (aids out!) then dried my hair before putting the aids in, but the hair behind my ears may have been damp when I but the aid back on and perhaps gotten the microphone wet.

A few minutes went bye before I realized I wasn’t hearing well out of the left aid, and my hair was kind of wet behind my ear. I took it out an replaced battery, but then didn’t hear the start up chime, nor could I hear the normal feedback when cupping the aid, or when removing the aid from ear horn. However the app said both aids were connected!

I removed the ear horn and left the door open to dry for about 30 minutes. Connected all back again, put the aid in my ear and turned up the sound with the button and heard that in my right ear, so I thought perhaps my left ear was blocked with water from swimming. Still no feed back when cupping or if I removed aid from ear horn.

I broke down the ear mold/horn/aid again and opened the battery door for another 30 minutes or so, Mean while I cleaned out the ear mold (although it wasn’t blocked) and since I had been swimming I flushed my ear with 70% alcohol again (as instructed in the past by my ).

Put the aids back in ear and heard faintly, the start up chime. Yah, things are better… took the aid out and cupped it, lots of feed back! Initially the sound was very faint then in a few minutes the volume in that left aid sounded normal.

My question is, can the the aid (microphone ?) be reversible damaged by water and come back to life so to speak? I wonder if I my aids life span has been reduced by this. I do believe they were truly not working temporarily, ie, it wasn’t just water in my ear because I did not get the normal feedback.

Thanks goodness, I am back 100% now, just took a couple hours. I would be rather lost with out these Resounds as I talk on phone and use the TV streamer.

This brings me to another question, my warranty is up, has anyone returned aids after warranty for repair and know what the cost would be to replace microphones?

Thanks!!!

7 people in this conversation7 min readJump to latest

If it is water damage, it needs drying out and not used for a minimum of 24 hours.

I wear my Aids with long wet hair all the time and never had an issue myself.

It won’t be microphones since you couldn’t hear the start up bongs. So more likely it’s the receiver. Or water got into the electronics. Of course the microphones could also be affected.

I think the warranty and what happens post warranty depends on where you live. I gather that in UK Resound will repair any of their aids for free up to five years old. After that I don’t know.

My aids would cut out if I sweat. After being in the home dryer, they work again. This got annoying, so I bought hearing aid sweat socks and have not had the problem recur. FWIW, the last time I had my dry my HAs, he pulled out 4.3 micro liters of moisture.

Edited

My Resound Linx Quattros have consistently broken about every 6 months over the last 4 years, but always covered under warranty. They just broke again a couple of weeks ago and they are now out of warranty, l believe the issue is with the mics since streaming was still working. The tech at my audiology center said she thought it’d be $900 to repair both which is more than I was previously told a 5th year repair would cost. I was also told that with the repair fee I’d get an addtional 1 year warranty. I decided to proceed one more time while I trial some new Widex aids. I think my issues have likely been caused by moisture like sweat or wet hair but no one has definitely ever given me a answer. I’ll update you when I get the final bill, should be in the next week or so.

My experience with two sets of Quattros (one rechargeable and one with size 13 batteries) was that they suffered badly from sweat affecting the microphones and both sets had to go back after about twelve months for repair.

But the Resound Ones that I then used for about 18 months were fine and the Resound Omnias I have now are ok so far!

In reply to @eyesgreendeaf

I wouldn’t say it is unnecessary to avoid wet hair. I usually always do, this was a bit of a mistake because it was just the hair behind my ears that was damp. Normally whenever I wash my hair I dry it just for this reason. I have had aids for about 25 years, my first set was Resound, then I had a couple different Phonaks. I do like the Resound based on sound and the seamless integration with iphone and Streamer to Computer or TV, but now I recall I had this issue with my original pair of Resound. With in the first few months, the audi had to return them a couple times because I put them in after taking a shower and had wet hair! So I would say avoid water, but don’t give up if the aids fail! Let them dry, as Zebra mentioned 24 hours is a good recommendation. Mine where probably not that wet so they were functional after an hour or so.

In reply to @BrianC

Thanks! Interesting it seems this could be due to moisture as well. I would probably go ahead and pay the 900$ as well, new ones are lots more! It is always good to have a spare pair too. I still have two functioning Phonaks and they are old, maybe models from 8-14 years ago. I use “top of the line” because of my loss. I haven’t tried the oldest to see i it still works but the second older one still works fine, It is my back up.

In reply to @david.hendon

Good to know. Yes, I am in the US and the manufacturer offers 3 year warranty, you can extend I believe but not sure the price is worth it. My current Audi didn’t ask if I wanted to extend. It seems they just want to sell you another aid. I am in the market for another Audi so I didn’t think to ask either.

In reply to @pageskipro

No I think it’s a different design of microphone. I had LINX, LINX 2, LINX 3D and none of them ever had a microphone failure. But both the LINX Quattros did and then since then it’s been ok. Basically it’s a weakness of the Quattro design.

As you can see I change my hearing aids often, basically a year after each model launch. I’m lucky I can afford to do that, I know.

In reply to @david.hendon

Good to know about your other later Resound models. I still might try the Omnias but I’ve been hesitant because the Quattro issues and my audiologist did not think they were that much better, just that I’d have a new warranty. Have you found much performance improvement between the 3 models?

The Ones are just better sounding than the Quattros, smoother and less “digital” sounding. But the performance on speech in noise isn’t as good as they said it was. Nevertheless I was happy with those.

The Omnias are in many respects better than the Ones The so-called “organic hearing” is more analogue sounding and the performance for speech in noise is better. But the stability of Bluetooth connection for streaming is less good than the Ones, which were perfect. It’s easy enough to work around though.

Right now I would stay with the Omnias, but I could live with the Ones. I wouldn’t want Quattros again, but I trialled the then best Widex and at the time I was buying them, the Quattros way out-performed the Widex for me, especially for music.

The only issue I have at the moment with the Omnias is that I get some distortion on my better ear when streaming high quality audio. I think this is possibly an issue with clipping on audio streaming only. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. But I need to play around with the settings with this insight and I’m not where my SmartFit software and NoahLink Wireless is at the moment.

By the way, my Audi told me that her regional manager had told her that the moisture sealing in the Omnias was a major improvement.

Thanks for the review. I’m trialing the Widex Moment Sheer 440, I’m liking them a lot right now, much more natural sounding than my Quattros. When I get my Quattros back, I’ll be able compare more side by side and maybe I’ll decide differently. I’m a musician and I found the Quattros distorted the sound a lot, other than the Music program which was decent. Might be because I use open domes. Music sounds natural on just about all settings with the Widex, I have a few more weeks, so we’ll see how it goes.

I really don’t think you are stuck with the Smart 3D at all actually. You can see it all on their website.

In reply to @pageskipro

So audiology shop just called and the repair will cost $295 per aid (in my case, $590 for the two). This is the 5th year price and it’ll be guaranteed for one year. I’ll keep them as a backup and hopefully they’ll last longer.

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