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Comments on Costco Jabra 20s / Philips and a question

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So…I am about 4 months into Jabra 20s from Costco. About a week ago, I stopped in at a Costco for a cleaning and was told one of them wouldn’t power on. I got them back a couple of days later and it seems there is something wrong with Bluetooth. They were shipped off for repair for the second time a couple of days ago.

While there, someone was returning their Jabras for Philips 9040s. We discussed why he preferred the Philips to Jabras (more natural sounding came up). While we were talking, the fitter offered to give me Philips 9030s as loaners while waiting for the Jabras to come back. I took him up on it. No streamer or charger; they’re disposable battery models.

After a couple of days, here is what I have learned so far. When I ride a bike, there is no wind noise. With the Jabras, wind noise was so loud, the only way to talk while riding was to mute the mics. Another complaint I had with the Jabras was hair and glasses noise. I have very short hair and always wear glasses. I was constantly adjusting the aids so they wouldn’t rub on my glasses and make a lot of annoying noises. When I complained to the fitter, he didn’t want to adjust the length on the receiver wire because the mics were in their optimal position. With the Philips, I don’t have ANY glasses noise.

General intelligibility and understanding is about the same as the Jabras, but it seems that they don’t sound as sibilant. I am feeling like these may be a better choice for me than the Jabras. The fitter told me if I order the Philips, I would be getting the 9040s, not the 9030s. If I make the decision to return the Jabras, I’ll probably hold off until the 9050s are available.

I still have my old pair of KS9s that I can probably limp along with while I wait. Here’s the question. I have bought a couple of Resound TV Streamer+ to stream television to my Jabras. I bought them online and they’re not returnable. According to Resound, these are devices. Since the new 9050s are also Auracast, will I be able to use these streamers with the Philips ?

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I got a pair of Jabra Pro 20s last Friday. Speech sounded pretty good and the app worked well. All good until I had to take a phone call on my iPhone with them. Then they went to hell-in-a-handbasket. Sound ONLY in the left air. Scratchy and distorted voice. VERY low volume.

What is worse is that when switching from my iPhone to my iPad, I had to turn OFF the Bluetooth on the iPhone. That is bad enough, but my CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) app threw error because the Bluetooth was not on.

Bottom line is that Jabra’s are a non-starter for me. I’m returning them and will continue to use my Phonak Paradise until I can figure out how to replace them.

While researching a replacement for my Phonak’s, I learned that virtually all HA’s have the Bluetooth problem when switching between Bluetooth devices. Any comments on this?

Good luck,

Dan.

Edited
@mrschwarz said:

When I ride a bike, there is no wind noise. With the Jabras, wind noise was so loud, the only way to talk while riding was to mute the mics.

Are you using the outdoor program which is supposed to help with wind noise? I have heard positive reviews with this. I noticed yesterday that there is also a wind noise sensitivity adjustment in the fitting software.

@mrschwarz said:

Another complaint I had with the Jabras was hair and glasses noise. I have very short hair and always wear glasses. I was constantly adjusting the aids so they wouldn’t rub on my glasses and make a lot of annoying noises.

I wonder if your gain is adjusted higher than with the Phillips. When I first started wearing mine, I noticed this a lot but my brain does not pick this up much now.

I guess various fittings with different hearing loss can show a lot of varying experiences.

Edited

In reply to @dan_public

@dan_public said:

I got a pair of Jabra Pro 20s last Friday. Speech sounded pretty good and the app worked well. All good until I had to take a phone call on my iPhone with them. Then they went to hell-in-a-handbasket. Sound ONLY in the left air. Scratchy and distorted voice. VERY low volume.

Disclaimer: I have Android but from reading others posts:

There is an option in the app to assist connections (forget what it is called). Turning this off has been recommended by Jabra support.

@dan_public said:

What is worse is that when switching from my iPhone to my iPad, I had to turn OFF the Bluetooth on the iPhone. That is bad enough, but my CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) app threw error because the Bluetooth was not on.

You should be able to disconnect and reconnect Bluetooth vs stopping Bluetooth. I understand Phonak works more seamlessly but this should help.

When I was getting them adjusted, my fitter showed me that wind noise suppression was set all the way up. When I pick them up, I’ll verify this.

As far as hair and glasses noise goes, I’ve been wearing hearing aids (and glasses) for more than 15 years. I have never had an issue with hair or glasses noise. As I mentioned in my post, intelligibility of the Philips is about the same as the Jabras, but they don’t sound as harsh.

I may have a different conversation with the fitter about the positioning of the Jabras. I will need to ask if the optimum microphone positioning is better with glasses noise or a less than optimum positioning without glasses noise.

In reply to @RSW

@RSW said:

Are you using the outdoor program which is supposed to help with wind noise? I have heard positive reviews with this. I noticed yesterday that there is also a wind noise sensitivity adjustment in the fitting software.

I’m surprised to hear this because that program does nothing to help me when I’m outdoors. I have the Jabra 10, has this been improved for the 20 model? I’ll ask my fitter about the software setting, although I suspect it is already set to minimize wind noise because I put this as a major goal that I wanted from the aids when I got them.

I have been wearing my Jabra Pro 20 for several months now (5 months I think), and have NEVER had a Bluetooth or quality of sound issue with phoen calls on my iPhone. And with the MARIE option I chose, I just double tap either left or right HA to answer a call. My Bluetooth connection has nEVER been lost.

Until less than a month ago, I was using my rather old iPhone that was several generations old. Recently, I changed to an iPhone 15. No change in quality of connection.

I love my Jabra 20 Pros. The feature that continues to most impress me is the way I am picking up high frequency sounds (like the sharp cracking sounds water from a kitchen faucet makes when it hits the sink surface). I had literally “lost” those without being aware of it (like watching grass grow). Their reappearance has been very welcome.

I also had my audi alter the programming to “narrow” the cone of sound heard when I select the noise reduction setting in a noisy environment. That improved my ability to hear my wife and son in a noisy restaurant environment even better than the “standard” nosie environment programming did.

As I have said previously on this forum: I did not want my hearing aids to simply “restore” what I had lost; I wanted them to give me BETTER hearing than I “used to have” even when young. I wnated what “The Borg” had in the Star Trek series. I got it with my Jabras VERY happy with them.

Jim G

Edited
@RSW said:

You should be able to disconnect and reconnect Bluetooth vs stopping Bluetooth. I understand Phonak works more seamlessly but this should help.

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, this is the kind of issue that I want to avoid.

My current Phonaks are far from perfect, but multi-device Bluetooth support is excellent.

I’ve returned the Jabras, will have my Phonaks updated and cleaned, and hope that new Phonaks (August - October?) will be improved enough to be worth upgrading.

Yeah I get it, Phonak has some nice features

For the Jabra you need the ReSound PhoneClip+ to connect up to eight devices, two of which can be active at any time. You also need that for full hands-free… If is not working for you…

You do not need that for Phonak.

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