New user - thinking of going DIY

Hi there, I’m currently trying a pair of Specsavers Advance 72 R hearing aids for the first time.

My hearing loss is fairly mild - although it was a bit of a shock when I tried the demo hearing aids in Boots … Taking them off almost felt like I suddenly had cotton wool in my ears!

Boots prices were, however, an even bigger shock! Rechargeable and BT-enabled aids seemed to start at £2000.00 and head north of that pretty fast!

So I thought I would try the Specsavers Advance HA’s. They do seem to offer better value - with the base level starting at around £900.00 and going up to just shy of £2000.00 at the top end. They are very vague about what you gain by paying an extra £500 or £1000, however. Just mumbling about ‘better audio quality’ as you go up the range. I was tempted to go ‘top of the range’, given that it was the same price as the bottom of the range with Boots - but settled for the Advance Premium (Advance 72R) at £1500.00

I’ve only had them a couple of days, and still struggle a little to justify the expense… Yes, speech is much crisper and clearer, but I’ve coped up until now - albeit my wife does tend to ‘mumble’…

The downside of the Specsavers are A: Cost and B: the fact they are locked and I therefore have to make an appointment and also fight traffic in order to have any adjustments made.

I have my eye on a pair of Phonak M70-R HA’s on an auction site. They are going for £270.00, but have no charger or receivers (or even a storage case as far as I can tell)

If I bought them, I’d be looking at the cost of a charger at around £100.00, about £30 for a couple of receivers and about £120 for a Noahlink 2 - so about £500 for the lot?

I very much like the idea of saving £1000.00 compared to the Specsavers HA’s - but we’re talking about a set of HAs that could be 5 or 6 years old? The seller says that the battery life is noticeably less than it once was if he streams BT audio all day (something I would not be doing) but that, otherwise, they do still last all day. (He also says he believes it might be possible to have the batteries replaced for circa £150.00 with someone like Boots Hearing.)

So I should be very grateful for any comments or advice. Does this sound like a good idea?

BTW I’ve already downloaded a copy of Phonak Target and it doesn’t look too frightening. FWIW I also use an auto CPAP machine and have always tinkered with it myself, using the makers software, to great advantage…