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Kind of at a crossroads

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I learned about my hearing loss in June 2020, working from home, noticed my ears ringing all the time. Went to the and discovered my hearing loss, mostly mild, moderate in the mid-tones. I went to their audiologist and tried some phonaks, was pretty happy until I saw the price. Shopped around a bit and got ponak marvel’s from connect hearing. I liked them at first but slowly realized I probably should have gone for the top model instead of the second to top. Also had some regret in not getting rechargeable as the second I would sweat on them they would short out. In addition I wasn’t all that pleased with the audiology side of things, the hearing aids just didn’t seem to get dialed in.
December of 2023 I decided to give Jabra EP20’s a try from Costco. They seemed like a great value. I really wanted to love them, but they have been trouble from almost the start. Mics kept going out, I still struggled a bunch in noise. The fitters seemed great in initial setup, but I learned they really didn’t know much about the functionality beyond the basics. I ended up getting a noahlink and by trial and error am at a point where I can hear okay at loud restaurants. The manufacturer also finally fixed the mic problem by putting a new shell which has a place for a replaceable filter. I still had problems with one mic though.

Last weekend I had a bad day, not sure what was going on but I couldn’t hear my daughter even in a quiet place. It really got me thinking about where I am with my hearing and it’s nowhere close to where I want to be. I feel like I probably should have just coughed up the money for the original phonaks at the ENT audi, I could have afforded it back then and I can now.

Now I’m just over 5 years in my hearing loss saga, on my 2nd pair and I have the itch for a new pair. Even though I can afford it, it seems nuts. I also know that the second I buy a new pair, some new tech will come out and I’ll regret not waiting until my current pair are at least out of warranty.

The reality that I also kind of know is that no tech that comes out in the next few years is going to knock my socks off. Ideally I guess all of us would love a discreet hearing aid that restores your hearing to 100%, and that is just not possible.

I looked at earlens, it sounds cool as hell with its ability to restore more of the spectrum of hearing loss, but from what I read, I have a feeling it either will give me as many problems if not more than my current hearing aids, cause more frustration. Yea, and it’s also 12k. On top of that the tech is about 5 years old, so I have a feeling either a new model will come out soon or the company will die out.

In the end I guess I should just suck it up, stop getting excited about every new model that comes out, take my hearing aids back to costco every time I have a problem, then just over a year from now start looking for a really good audi and research the best of what hearing aid is available.

Sorry, mostly just a venting session. Surely others go through this struggle.

15 people in this conversation20 min readJump to latest

You are not alone, especially when new tech comes out with great advances every year or two.

IMHO we are the latest seismic shift in technology as powered chips start to appear and gets placed in aids.

Personally, Ive worked to a five-year upgrade cycle but suspect that advances will mean this will get shortened to three next time round.

But…

  • find an audiologist you can trust. Its a very initimate relationship, and it has to be right. They will know some of your darkest secrets - how much you pretend you can hear - and keep that confidental.
  • try different makes. Discover what you like wearing, what sound feels great.
  • don’t rush those first two points.
  • ask yourself how the manufacturers, ecosystem works for you. Will it work with your TV, phone, mobile/cellphone?
    –how future proof is it? Does it have Auracast? How many years of firmware support?
  • if the best aids are out of your budget, can you hold out for a few months to save? Do they offer 0% credit? Could you get a 0% credit card and pay in monthly instalments?

Buyer’s remorse is the one thing you can’t afford with hearing aids. Getting the foundations right is important.

But we are here for you!

And remember what works for one person won’t necessarily be the right fit for another.

Did you ever try a pair of ?

The push towards aids has moved the industry away from your kind of loss. Unless you really have a penchant for RIC style or a hang up on Recharging/Phone connectivity, I’d definitely consider a CIC/ trial fitted with , even fitted at the midrange level or lower.

Get them to bang on a 5year warranty too, 2.4mm vent if possible and a good deep fit: you can probably forget about most of the RIC issues you’re currently experiencing. Perhaps find a provider who deals with the ‘off-brand’ versions if the big firms like Unitron/Bernafon.

I’m not saying it will be a silver bullet, but a pair of well fitted CIC are going to cover most of your needs and put the gain back across a flat better than some RIC options.

I think that since Oticon Intent in Feb 2024 there were really great hearing aid released across many companies, which were not incrementally better than previous generations, but substantially better. Phonak Infinio Sphere, Starkey Edge , etc.

And there is new Oticon lineup probably since October, new Phonak in Aug 2026, etc. However already there are much better hearing aids than before 2024.

In reply to @Um_bongo

I have not. For my first pair, I thought ’s would be more sensible. Those ate batteries every two and a half days. Kind of strange because I wouldn’t think my hearing loss would be pushing a hearing aid to eat batteries that fast. Also like I mentioned they would short out, I work out a bunch, sweat a bunch so disposable batteries

I’m not super hung up on phone connectivity, I have gotten used to streaming videos etc from my phone and ’s would prevent me from using airpods. I could solve that by just getting some wireless over the ear headphones.

So what is it that makes CIC’s better? The receiver being closer to your eardrumb and a large vent allowing more natural sound in?

hello my dear friend, your loss is not that far from mine, sorry for the fast and short reply but take a look at the Signia Active IX pro, i got them and I’m still fighting with them to find the best fitting/setting for me (two weeks but i’m a recruit) , but they are awesome, maybe you wold like their features, and we are all here to help each others, cheers

Edited

In reply to @Semiretired

@Semiretired said:

So what is it that makes CIC’s better

There’s a few aspects to this, mainly due to the shape of your loss, but also based on your existing experience.

Just to clarify; I said well fitted lower spec / too - meaning with performed on a Live Speech basis.

Essentially: you have a flat symmetrical 30-50(ish) loss - so Mild/Mod in real terms, but potentially fairly debilitating in the wrong environment. If we were to pipe speech to you through your headphones of choice and give you a volume control, you’d likely get near 100% speech perception. So, this really isn’t a resolution issue (you can tell different notes/speech apart).

Next, sound delivery is concentrated on delivering extra sharpness to deal with what is effectively (macular-like) degeneration of the cochlear: real pin drop accentuation to isolate the high fricatives and plosives in speech. You mainly still hear these unaided albeit at a lower level.

Thirdly, directional mics and small receivers in open canals, mean that RIC units aren’t even engaging in reproduction below 1KHz- sounding tinny to you and missing out a chunk of your loss. Even before you start to consider the overall ‘timbre’ or sound quality.

Fourthly advanced processing introduces both the delays and processing artefacts which further diminish your experience.

As long as you were comfortable (got used to/deep fit) with the venting/occlusion, I’d be tempted just to put the aids in a music program on a lower spec set of aids and give your brain a chance to benefit from the impedance/range improvement of hearing most quieter sounds with minimal processing. If you went for a slightly larger CIC with a push button on the face, it might be possible to have several iterations of the same program (zero processing) just with slight increments of gain.

Edit: deep fit CIC don’t really run huge risk of sweat ingress, though I would put them in a dryer if you are working out with them.

I won’t tell you what make and model will be the magical solution to your hearing loss, because “one size fits all” certainly does not apply to hearing aids. I understand your frustration with suboptimal fitting/programming, because that’s not something you’re likely to overcome with a single follow up visit. Since every person is unique in anatomy and in their idea of the best sound performance, it’s essential for the fitter and the client to be willing to work together making various adjustments - even by remote sessions or downloads.

I will say, from my reading and interactions on this forum, that FOMO when it comes to new gear is something some of us have to quell substantially to have an objective view of the performance of what we’re wearing now. Many people on this forum aren’t wearing the newest big name in hearing aids. Part of that may be financial, but I’d say most of it is that a particular model, though not the newest, has performance that works best for them. You can find people on this forum wearing hearing aids that are several generations behind today’s model, because it works for them best , even having trial wearings of newer aids.

The newest greatest technically advanced heaing aids are worthless if the programming is crappy. As has been said, cultivating a great relationship with an audiologist who knows their stuff and has an interactive attitude toward getting your hearing aids properly set up is valuable. If you want to your programming, there are people on this forum who can and will give you valuable advice. Either way, you can try to get the most out of what you’re wearing now while you consider other options.

I wish you the best of luck!

In reply to @OcramSagev

No worries: points above - consider too that the difference in sound intensity/hearing sensitivity between your lower and upper frequency (sloping loss) is of the order of 128x.

Which puts you in a slightly different boat fitting-wise.

Edited

Did a little bird say to you that you could get a better answer in this forum than Reddit ? If not , I saw someone asking a similar question there

In reply to @Um_bongo

Thanks so much for this explanation. It makes sense. I feel like from the start I was kind of put into a kind of one size fits all model, kind of ignoring that I don’t really have severe hearing loss. It sounds like not only do I not need all the bells and whistles, but those bells and whistles are adding delays, and interfering with the remaining amount of hearing that my ears have.

At this point I just work out with my hearing aids out. I have enjoyed being able to be around water on vacations and not freak out about my current pair getting wet though.

I guess it’s time to find a good audiologist that will treat my hearing properly, not trying to maximize their profit by putting me in the best out there. Thanks again for all your help!

I was thinking the depth would make sweat-moisture less of a factor. But, yeah, the price is ouch-ey.

sometimes a simple solution, such as switching to custom molds, or dialing on programs, or increasing or decreasing a vent in a mold can make a difference. I wear custom molds. Great! One is vented and the other completely closed off. If you look at my audiogfram you might understand why that works for me. I’ve gone from searching for the perfect latest brand to optimizxing the very good Signia aids that I have in hand (or ear if you will.) finding a skilled HA audi or practitioner is more important than finding the ‘right’ brand. The Musician Program on my Signia aids are essentially programmed the way Widex ‘pure’ sound aids are programmed. Etc.

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