Costco cheat sheet

It’s minimal “work” to add a program. My take is that they realize that success with hearing aids is largely getting used to them. If one is constantly fiddling with changing back and forth between programs it becomes harder to get used to the way they sound. Everybody I’ve dealt with is happy to add programs but they’d really prefer that you give it a few weeks to get used to the aids and then see what’s bothering you.

What @MDB said, but also they are supposed to be getting really clever at automatic sound scene analysis and selecting the right parameters for that situation. That’s what the fitters are being told anyway. The hifi music program is kind of essential for the Philips aids I think. I don’t bother with speech-in-noise any more. It doesn’t really help me.

That all makes sense and is consistent with the message I got from the fitter- most people don’t need the programs because the aids are smart enough to handle the environment changes automagically. Next week I’m going to be spending several days in large, noisy in-person groups at work, I need to be really sharp, so I’m worried the General program may not cope. I’ll see what he says today. Thanks all, will report back.

Remember to adjust the volume with “Speech in Noise”, ie, lower it to reduce the surrounding noise. It essentially directs the pickup forward, so it might not help with comments made to your side, in a large group situation.

I have 4 programs
1 General
2 Restaurant
3 Music (radio, pop, etc)
4 Live Theater (to be used in classical music performances)

Costco now has a promotion to throw in a free Philips TV interface when you buy a pair of 9050s. I’m past the 30 day automatic price adjustment period but my audiologist said “No problem; you’re close enough.” I did need an appointment but that was just for them to do the paperwork for the free interface.

When you pair the aids with the interface, it adds a 5th program to the 4 I already had (Noise, Speech in Noise, General, and Automobile). Now I can boost the heard volume of the TV without affecting the TV speakers. It comes with several different ways to hook it up but I was surprised that my old (2011) TV actually has the optical cable interface that they recommend. The connection was pretty easy. The functionality isn’t perfect, cutting out momentarily once in awhile, but it’s plenty good enough to be a big help.

The normal price is about $239, which would probably be worthwhile if you have problems with volume for other viewers.

On another issue, the Automobile program works very well. I can hear my wife a lot better even on very noisy roads at 75 mph.