All valid points, for sure.
I based my comment on how I approached making a decision when I 1st started the search 13 years ago.
I read reviews, checked the hearing aid forums, and compared specs, features, and satisfaction of users.
My choice was based on that criteria, but I also knew from my research, that as your said, the fitter is an important piece of the puzzle.
When I went for my hearing test, and the audi reviewed the results, she actually recommended the exact brand, make, model, I had chosen, so for me, I’ve been a happy Oticonian since!
I agree that knowing what features you want can be important. I have an Android phone and two PCs, so the KS10s were the obvious Costco choice 3 years ago and I was pleased with the performance. I just went with the Phonak Sphere I90s for both the features AND performance and after only a few days I am pretty happy. I tried Jabra 20s and they did not cut it for LE streaming and the voice in noise was not that great.
I’m thinking of upgrading from KS9s and was recently seen at Costco. I’m delaying hearing aids until after an eval, but the Costco person said they’re recommending Phillips for people with more moderate losses and Jabra for people with more severe losses. People like “the sound” of the Phillips but find the Jabra harsh, but with decent speech clarity. I think I’m likely to break from Costco and try out the new Phonak Sphere.
I’m responding to the month-old query from tribalrose about the 9050s now that I have 30 days of experience with mine. I have found the Bluetooth streaming to be pretty good. Since I got the 9050s I had one day when the aids connected to the app in the morning but would not stream sound until I restarted them. I had one time when one aid suddenly lost connectivity with my phone completely, and I had to restart it. Otherwise the reliability has been good.
Previously, I had Oticon Opn 1 aids with the ConnectClip. When streaming from my phone (in my pants pocket) with the Clip (in my other pants pocket) the sound would sometimes drop from one ear or the other. This does not happen with the 9050s, though sometimes I get a little scratchiness that I think is due to data loss/errors in the Bluetooth stream.
Another difference is that when the phone wants to suddenly make a sound, like a notification for a text, or new instructions from a navigation program. With the Opns, the first 1/4 or 1/2 second of sound would be lost, and one ear might start later than the other. I have not had that happen with the 9050s.
I have the Philips AudioClip, and have used it to stream from two windows PCs. That has worked OK for streaming from the PC to the 9050s. But on one of those PCs, I tried to use the microphone in the Clip for a Zoom meeting. The microphone showed up in the Windows sound source menu but I could not get it to work.
I also tried to use the 9050s with each PC without using the Clip; that failed on both. I believe the Bluetooth hardware in those PCs is to old to support direct streaming to hearing aids ().
I’m responding to the month-old query from tribalrose about the 9050s now that I have 30 days of experience with mine. I have found the Bluetooth streaming to be pretty good.
Thank you. All I’m interested in is phone calls. I don’t stream anything. I have KS9s now, and they’re great. Never had any kind of problem with them coordinating with my not-new inexpensive Android Tracfone. I know I’d need a new phone for the 9050s and undoutedly a more expensive one, which is a negative in considering them. Right now I’m thinking of just trying them. Before any other consideration they’d have to let me hear better than I do with KS9s or there’s no justification for them. I tried the KS10s and turned them back in for that reason. They were fine, but I didn’t hear any better with them than with the KS9s.
SoCal
