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Hearing Aid Practitioner employed at Costco…Ask Me Anything!

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In reply to @Tung

@Tung said:

Wonderful to hear from you. I am just about to pick up the phone and make an appt. with Costco Hearing Aid Center. I’ve heard great things on this forum about Linx by Resound–it works without other accessories with iPhone and other bluetooth apple stuff, but I don’t think Linx is being carried by Costco. Do you have any idea if they will in near future? I am a refugee from a very expensive Audi ($150 for hearing test, $150 for fitting and adjusting and programming plus 6700 bucks for Bolero Q70). If Linx is not availab le from Costco, what is a similar model?

The Kirkland Signature 6.0 is based on the LinX, is 99% the same hearing aid.

In reply to @Sima2180

@Sima2180 said:

fuhgettaboutit:
I was hoping to read some of your input, perhaps you didn’t see my post, ( my comment is the 5th scrolling up) I’m still new here to navigate. Anyway, Im going to Costco now, and see how it will go, not sure this will be my final stop, depending on how any of the brand can help me hearing speech better. I learnt tat my audiogram 2011 shows I have a cookie bite hearing loss… something about frequencies I still don’t understand… I will get a new audiogram today, perhaps it has changed (worse). Thanks for any input that you might have.

Sorry for the delay, missed your post.

Looking at at your , it is best that you go over the benefits/negatives with a professional in person. Both the custom and styles are applicable in your case. Your Word recognition scores show good expectations with a hearing aid fitting, but again, you need to speak with someone in depthly about the options available. You will need lots of power, so these fittings need to be done cautiously and meticulously. The technology at Costco is the same as any other clinic, the difference is in the price.

In reply to @fuhgettaboutit

What is the difference between a Linx2 9 and a Kirkland Signature 6? What is the difference between a Phonak Brio and a Phonak Audeo V90? What is the difference between a Bernafon Juna 9 and an Oticon Alta2 Pro? How do you decide which one to fit?

I am glad to see you get to use real ear verification. Our local Costco doesn’t.

— Updated —

I would sure hope a Rexton Trax 42 is better than an Oticon Epoq P… Thats 10 year old technology!

Hi Justin and others,

Dumb question time. Well two actually:

  1. I know the answer to this is somewhere within the 31 pages of this thread, but can someone confirm if the KS6 is based on the LiNX original or the LiNX2? I’m sure it is the former.
  2. If I were to get custom molds made at Costco for my LiNX2, how long would it take to get them and can they do it for the LiNX2?

The reason for my questions is that we have no Costco stores in New Zealand and I am visiting LA next month for a couple of weeks, so I would like to buy a bunch of domes (they are NZD$4.00 EACH here) and batteries, as well as get molds made while there. It will be substantially cheaper than what I will ultimately be shafted for over here.

Cheers,
Richard

In reply to @fuhgettaboutit

Sorry for last post. really NEW here!

Ok. Just had my first hearing test at Costco yesterday
L R
250 25 35
500 20 25
1K 35 25
2K 40 40
4K 30 38
8K 40 45

33.30 30.00

Recommended Bernafon juna. After all this reading, I wonder if it’s too early for me to be getting . Just miss occasional soft spoken words. What is risk from delaying use? Can this model work for me as hearing declines??

Many thanks!

Sorry its taken me so long to get back. KS6 is based on the original Linx. I don’t work at Costco, but I would assume it takes between 1-2 weeks to order ear molds there just as it does most everywhere else. I got an ear mold back from Starky the other day in 2 days. But I shipped it same day first thing in the morning, and paid for same day return shipping and wrote “rush” on the order form so many times my hand was blue with ink. But normally most labs get them back to you in 7-14 days.

Edited

Justin - my audiologist called about custom molds for my KS6s.

Asked if prefer normal receiver with large vent or HP receiver with smaller vent. Audigram attached.

Can you explain what the advantages/disadvantages are to both options?

Thanks

Kannon


@fuhgettaboutit said:

Hey everyone,

I work at a Costco Hearing Centre as a hearing aid practitioner/dispenser.

To clarify: Costco’s provides hearing aids with THE SAME TECHNOLOGY made by the SAME MANUFACTURER’S as other clinics; Phonak, GN ReSound, Siemens and Bernafon. We employ audiologists and Hearing Aid Practitioners alike. We serve only the 18+ population.

I have worked outside of Costco for several years as well and have a good perspective of this industry. It is an industry full of people (but not ALL) driven by money, not hearing and communication healthcare.

That being said, I truly believe that Costco’s Hearing centres are the hearing aid dispensing industry’s saving grace. We follow standard protocols that are set at the top of the dispensing industry. I have seen life-changing experiences within the hearing centre; tons of satisfied people, and very few adjustment appointments. Simply said; we are doing things right, and hard of hearing consumers are finally realizing it. Gone are the days of $3000.00+ hearing aids w/ little to no verification and validation procedures.

ASK ME ANYTHING!!

Why do you claim that Costco aids are the same technology when it is not. For instance the Phonak aids currently sold by Costco are not the Venture circuit that is Phonak’s most advanced. Costco has misrepresented some of their products for years. Costco only gets to buy the circuits and features the manufacturers are willing to sell them. There are over twenty thousand other hearing aid dispensers besides Costco’s 700 hearing aid outlets. Do you think the hearing aid manufacturers are going to jeopardize their relationship with twenty thousand dispensers by selling the latest products to a low-ball warehouse giant?

Kathyjoe, why do I think you have a horse in this race? :slight_smile:

In the other post you made, I said you were right to a point. Seems true again. Features are more talk than detail. Manufactures and clinic prey on the user with more platitude than fact. The lowest end aids feature the same reliable service in quiet setting. Advanced feature relate mostly to hearing in noise and that may be important for many and is included in Costco aids. Yes, some are slow at introducing their latest product but the only one behind the curve currently is the Phonak line. And the Connect outlets owned by them are currently price matching against the 20K you site. When Costco introduce the KS6 it is reported that 160,000 were sold in the introduction. Seems none can’t be beat on price to features.

It is about time for your industry to change to a new business model.

Edited

I think you nailed it all the way around, Ken. I think kathyjoe is in the business and somebody has stolen their golden goose. Well rather than spread misinformation, how about trying to compete in the free market with reasonable markup?

It is mostly true that Costco is one generation behind the current state of the art from the major manufacturers.

But guess what? I’ve never had the latest and greatest anyway. Ever. Because I could never afford it. I remember $5000 hearing aids 20 years ago and wishing I could afford them but I had to settle for some very decent $3000 aids as a good compromise. And I’ve always been compromising between cost vs performance.

So when my Oticon Acto Pros got broken a few months back and my dealer said I was a couple of generations in technology behind anyway and so wanted to sell me the newer version of what I had… for $6000… I took a walk.

I’m now in Rexton Trax 42 which cost me $2800 at Costco. Were the $6000 aids going to be more technologically advanced than what I got from Costco?

In reply to @greghahn

@greghahn said:

That’s an interesting bit of news. My issue is that I was the victim of random violence- someone playing “the knockout game”. Took a hit directly in my left ear from behind. The HA shattered in my ear. I pulled out several pieces of the shell on site. Two more pieces were removed by an ENT specialist.

…

That is no game… If that happens to me we will be suddenly testing the “Loud Noise” filter as in 9mm… maybe you should look into that as well.

I have Rexton trax and I like the sound, etc. However, I am having problems with Connect Smart hanging device and blue tooth. If I play streaming music, the aids stay on ‘streaming music’. Today the phone worked fine, but then when I made additional calls, they did not go thru my aids. What can I do?

make sure you are selecting Smart Connect as the bluetooth source in your phone app. When receiving a call, make sure you use the button on the Smart Connect to answer the call. Otherwise, audio might switch to your phone. Mine sometimes gets stuck on audio streaming…haven’t quite nailed down the cause…I think it depends on how the music is stopped and whether there is another app open that is using the audio streaming program. May be something the company needs to address in a firmware update.

Evil.

In reply to @Sima2180

The guy who I visited at Costco the other day said he had no idea regarding the db of noise suppression. The Audibel models were clearly shared. The website was of no use. Do you know or is there any documentation on whether the Kirkland 6 has noise suppression and if so how much?

Yes, the KS6 does a fairly decent job with noise suppression. Fairly decent is about as good as it gets. You may prefer one brand over another. That’s a personal opinion you’ll develop and will be different from another persons thoughts. They all have restaurant and party modes that suppress noise but in a really loud room it will never duplicate good ears.

I have about 2000 patients wearing Oticon minirites and we see about 20 button problems each year. And of those, only about 10 per year need to be sent in for repair. I am able to fix the other 10… Usually the problem is excessive moisture, and once I clean that up, the problem disappears. If it continues, it goes back for repair.

Incidentally, the BEST functional noise suppression achieved by a hearing device without some weird modification to the physical coupler is only 6-8 , despite Audibel/Starkey’s claim of a 20 dB reduction in their top of the line product.

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