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Oticon Intent minirite-r vs Philips Hearlink 9050

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I recently had significant hearing loss in one ear along with the milder loss in the other ear and am looking to get my first pair of hearing aids (officially old I guess :slight_smile: ) Note; Buying a hearing aid is like buying a mattress or used car, you really have no clue what your getting.
The office provided the Oticon for a trial period ($5700) I have since found that the same company making the Oticon model makes the Philips model ($1500 at Costco).
As far as I can tell the technology is basically the same for a significant price delta.
Can someone tell me if the Oticon is worth the additional $4200 and why or why not?

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@Hearyou said:

Can someone tell me if the Oticon is worth the additional $4200 and why or why not?

Only you can answer this question, you’ll need to trial them both to see which is “worth” the money, just remember that Costco only sell the premium models, your specialist may not be offering Intent 1 for $5700, but regardless there’s a number of different brands that you could try before setting on Demant, Costco would give more choices, some stores are even offering Sennheiser a rebranded Phonak model.

Thanks, the paperwork says I have the top line Intent and looks to be what you referenced
If it is the same technology then does it ultimately come down to the ability of the audiologist to fit properly?
BTW the audiologist was honest with me an stated that I could get the same technology cheaper, I just found it hard to believe $4200 worth.
Second question, is there any reason not to go to Costco vs the Dr office?

@Hearyou said:

The ENT office provided the Oticon for a trial period ($5700) I have since found that the same company making the Oticon model makes the Philips model ($1500 at Costco).
As far as I can tell the technology is basically the same for a significant price delta.
Can someone tell me if the Oticon is worth the additional $4200 and why or why not?

My personal opinion is that they’re not the same, but they’re very close. But value-wise, the $1500 one at Costco beats the $5700 Oticon Intent hands down.

In reply to @Hearyou

I would say the distance to your local Costco would be a reason to select the Dr. vs Costco.

A second is how much time they can spend with you, and do they have generated voices to help fine tune the hearing aids.

Most of these hearing aids have 20 channels that can be adjusted, plus there are other adjustments such as directionality, feedback, noise reduction, and few more.

The more time your hearing fitter can spend on making adjustments, the better result you are going to get.

Good communication between you and your fitter, and the talent your hearing aid fitter has can make all the difference.

Note you can bring in a person, like a spouse, that can read to you while adjusting the hearing aids, bring in a music instrument that you play, or even bring your own computer with AI generated voices.

If you live close to a Costco and are paying out of pocket, it makes a lot of sense to start there. They generally have three brands of hearing aids to trial, and a 180 day, money back refund policy if they can’t make you happy.

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Just my two cents! try to ask about which brand/model could include the . Not all mfrs include it. some will say it’s old tech; you don’t need it with blue tooth/, but, believe me, when you go to a venue/church/etc., where it is being used, you will not be sorry you have it in your aids. You’ll hear like when you were a kid! Many have not heard of it, but it’s out there. Extremely popular in most of Europe; Oregon has “looped” many many stores, airports, venues, etc. Some states are following the trend. There are even portable “loops” (which I have one) that you can take with you to dr. apts., etc. If you can, ask to try an aid which has the loop in it!

You can try both and compare. Costco has a six month return policy so you can get the Philips 9050’s from them and the Oticon’s from your audiologist where you’ll get something like a 30 - 45 return period. Work to get them both optimized and then compare. Return the one you don’t want.

In reply to @user990

Been using Costco for my aids for years and yes they use ‘real time voices’ and all the “best practices” talked about by the the $5-7000.00 local sellers in my area. In the case of Oticon Intents and the 9050’s {which I own} the basic processor and hardware are much the same but some minor software is missing according to their respective facts sheets. Based on how well my 9050’s work I do not think those features are worth $1000’s more.

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