Considering Switching from Oticon (Update: One-week report 12/23)

I’m up for some new hearing aids and after 10 years 8+ years I’m considering switching from Oticon. I have loved my Oticon aids, and I’ve gone from the Alta to the Alta2 to the Opn to the More. They work great when they work, but the last two iterations have just been incredibly unreliable. I keep having microphone issues that require me to send my aids out, issues with speaker wires causing crackle or faint audio, and frequent moisture issues that I can’t get a handle on. With my Altas I could sweat like a pig or stand in the rain and, while they might die of a drowned battery, I could throw them in my drier, replace the batteries, and they just worked. I feel like at least half the time my current aids aren’t performing at their best because of one issue or another.

So what brands should I consider? I have moderate hearing loss, and good speech intelligibility for my hearing loss. I am very sensitive to “processed” sound and artifacts, particularly some of the feedback and noise suppression features. I want as transparent a soundscape as I can get. I wear open domes because I even the Oticon bass ones cause me a terrible feeling of occlusion. I currently get away with open domes and feedback suppression turned way down. I also use a music program with feedback suppression turned completely off.

I have an appointment with my audi next Wednesday. Any recommendations to discuss with her would be welcome.

If you’re sensitive to processed sound, have moderate hearing loss, and value transparency, Widex is worth considering. However, you won’t be able to self-program their latest model, Allure.

Out of all the aids I’ve tried (Signia, Oticon, Phonak), these are by far the ones that sound the most natural to me, especially when using their Puresound feature. I have the Widex SmartRIC.

I use them with Oticon OpenBass domes. I chose these over open domes because, first, they don’t cause occlusion to me, and second, streaming with open domes sounds terrible.

Like you, I’m not a fan of over-processed sounds, occlusion, and noise suppression features.

@CLSnyder said:

I had the chimes on my OPNs but other than the irritation of the chime, they worked perfectly.

I have found that it generally is accompanied by other issues. It is also incredibly annoying and is not fixed by any amount of cleaning by me or my audiologist.

@mami2529 said:

My old speaker wire at the connector pin may have some green on it. But it does not have any effects on quality or faint audio or feel it.

Can you describe how is it look like? I am curious. Picture would be nice.

To be honest, I don’t know; I’ve never removed them myself. But it gets to a point where the sound cuts out or becomes extremely faint in one ear. Then sometimes out of the blue it will get louder, or seem to cut out entirely. I change the wax traps and domes, run it through my dryer, all with no effect. There does not seem to be anything inside the reciever. My audiologist runs it through her drier (which I think is a vacuum extractor) and there is still no improvement. Finally, she replaces the receiver and it works perfectly.

@mami2529 said:

Oticon is one of the best feedback system currently. From what I read around whitepaper and tech savvy. About Noise Suppression. It is mixed.

My complaint is not about insufficient feedback or noise suppression, but about excessive feedback and noise suppression that creates audible artifacts. Particularly of issue are its tendency suddenly to cut out perfectly harmless background noise like fans, ac’s, etc., as well as 1-2 Hz beats caused by the frequency shift the feedback suppression applies to steady tones in music, etc. If I had a more profound loss and couldn’t hear the original tone along with the frequency-shifted one, it might not bother me so much.

@cvkemp said:

I wear Oticon aids and have for 15 years. I have no feedback issues, no wind noise. No issues with device noise. But my hearing loss is severe. The key is your audiologist, and maintenance, up keep of the aids. Keep them clean, changing wax guards, cleaning the microphone ports. And checking the receivers and receiver wires.

I’ve worn Oticon Aids for ten years. For the first 4-5 of them I had not issues, either. My audiologist has not changed, nor has my cleaning and maintenance routine. The summers have gotten hotter and sweatier, of course, but aside from that and the generation of the aids I don’t think anything else has changed.

With the Phonak announcement of the upgrade to the Infinio and Sphere aids it makes the announcement from Oticon, hopefully tomorrow, more interesting to me. At this time I am very much thinking about jumping ship from Oticon to Phonak aids even if I have to go with the MiniRite aids.