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Oticon Real 1 vs Philips Hearlink 9040 (huge price difference)

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In reply to @Hearing-Club

@Hearing-Club said:

The oticon/philips app are pretty similar, as far as ive seen in the demo mode for the oticon app. They dont have an equalizer! Well they do but its only for streaming. I cant begin to say how annoying this has been for me lol. If they had half the app that the jabras do, id probably recommend the philips for everyone. For now, i recommend the jabra for folks who want to adjust their aids themselves and philips if they do not. All you can do in the philips app os change the volume, change programs and use the “streaming only” equalizer. Thats it!! And the oticon app is not really any better, from what ive seen in the demo mode.

Some people like to set it and forget it, others like to tinker with their aids. So the ability to do a lot in an app is not always better for everybody all around.

The simplicity of the Philips app may be viewed as a shortcoming for some, but it’s not necessarily true. It can also be seen as a strength because if a competent can set up the Philips to work well for the patients in the first place, no further tinkering should be needed except for volume and program change. You don’t necessarily want to mess with an equalizer in a real time environment to get the most out of your hearing aids because it may make things worse, not better in the long run. If you find that you keep having to adjust the equalizer for a certain way all the times in an environment, it’s always better to go back to your HCP and ask them to adjust it to have the same effect permanently instead.

A better way to do it is to set up a specific built-in program for that environment (like speech-in-noise or music) and simple select that program, and let that program choose the specific specialization to apply to the gain curves to give it most likely at least the equivalent, if not more likely a more effective result than via a manual equalization made by the user. In my opinion, less can be more. The “less is more” moto can be apparent even more when users report back that they find their default program can handle most listening situations for them and they hardly ever have to any other available buiilt-in programs to get a better listening experience. I’ve heard this comment from some Philips users and I’ve experienced this first-hand myself as an Oticon user.

Of course, streaming sounds always sucks because the receivers of the aids can only amplify so much and is lacking on amplifying in the lows. So the ability to equalize streaming content is appropriate. And in this case, it’s available in the Philips app just like any other brand. But the ability to equalize in a real time environment is not necessarily a good thing because it can mess with and in some cases cancel out any intended benefit that a specialized built-in program (like speech in noise or music) may have been set up to do.

For the type of folks who like to tinker enough that they would prefer the Jabra app over the basic Philips app, so that they can tinker with the equalizer even in non-streaming environment, I would say that a better tinkering approach would be to go the route, get a NoahLink Wireless interface, download the free Philips HearSuite app, and then they can tinker with EVERYTHING (except for ) to their heart’s content, vastly more so than being able to tinker with just a simple equalizer on the app.

In reply to @kharri

Sales covered by insurance at two or three times the cost of a pair of at Costco still costs us. Insurance companies pass those costs on to the consumer in the form of rate increases. I would pay $2k at Costco before I’d use my insurance for $5k hearing aids unless I had no choice, ie couldn’t afford to.

Flipside of this is if everybody bought from Costco, it’s unlikely manufacturers would be eager to spend as much on R&D to support a lower profit margin. I’m a Costco fan but I certainly don’t begrudge people using their insurance benefit on higher priced aids.

In reply to @Volusiano

Older post but adding my two cents.

I have the Philips 9030. And end of the year 22 purchased an Oticon More 1 from audiologist (had HRA $ that suddenly weren’t allowed to rollover and had to be spent or they reverted back to my company).
For the Oticon More they did a new hearing test; I took that test to Costco and asked them to refresh my Philips with the same fitting to ensure a good side-by-side. (Even though because of the HRA I couldn’t return the new More anyway.)

Without tweeking either - just both from the . I find the two aids to be very similar. With the More - I have the specific microshell ear mold only for More - I seem to get a bit more of the depth of sound; with my Philips the sound (standard custom mold) is a bit more clear/crisp.

Before I got the original Philips I had trialed the Opn 1, 2, 3 and 1 was slightly better than the Philips but not enough to warrant an extra $2500. (One aid/left ear)

For me, I have not found significant difference between the More and Philips 9030 - similar to the OPN 1 I would not personally consider any differences enough to justify the significant incremental cost.

Thanks for the comparison, since I’ve been wondering if the Real 1s would be better than the 9040s.
I’ve got the 9040s setup very well, I’m not sure I could really do better with the Reals.

As a side note, interesting that you were able to use HRA to purchase your aids. When I tried to do this they told me since aids were not covered by the insurance plan, I couldn’t use my health reimbursable spending account either. Made no sense to me, but those were the people making the decisions.

Yes it likely depends on your company’s/insurance plan. Mine allowed HRA to be used for hearing aids. Definitely always interesting to see what each plan allows or doesn’t. Good luck.

How could you have had the 9040’s for 3 years since they just came out a few months ago?
Maybe you had the 9040s for 3 months or you have the 9030’s?

Deleted my earlier post and reposting an edited note to correct the Philips model from 9040 to 9030

I had the Philips 9030 for about 3 years now and just yesterday got the Oticon Real 1.

Got the Philips 9030 from Costco for $2000. Last year I lost one of the Philips and recently the other one stopped working. I think I was rough trying to clean it so I won’t blame it on the quality of the product.

Got the Oticon Real 1 for $5,900.

In both cases my insurance covered most of the cost so my share for the Philips was $400 and for the Oticon is $900. A big difference but not as bad if all was out of pocket.

I will write a summary of how the two compare within a month time. I have 30 days to return the Oticon for a full refund.

Overall I was happy with the Philips 9030. I was able to hear and understand TV and music better, I was also able to hear people better in meetings. I don’t think they did a good for me in noisy environment like restaurants. I tried turning them up but the noise goes up too and I still don’t hear people very well. I have a PhD in electrical engineering/communications and understand the technology behind speech, waves, signals, amplifiers, etc very well. I don’t think they do a good job amplifying speech while background suppressing noise.

The service provided by Costco is excellent. Anytime I am at Costco, I drop them to be cleaned to pick them up when done shopping. once I asked them to replace the dome and they did, all for free. I did lose the first pair few months after getting them and they gave me another pair for free, I think it was a refurbished set.

So far I do not see any major difference between the two but it has been only one day so I got a long way to go to compare.

I’ll post a comparison report in about 30 days.

Can you share your by posting it in your profile? Thanks.

Also, the 9040 and the Real have 2 new features over the 9030, Sudden Sound Stabilizer and Wind & Handling Stabilizer. So if the Real 1 doesn’t seem to have any major difference over the 9030 in general, these 2 new features in the Real should make a difference. If you can check out those 2 new features and include in your future review, it’d be much appreciated.

With your “not so bad” , it’s very possible that you won’t find much difference in performance between them, simply because it’s not a particularly hard loss for them to deal with.

One other thing to try to observe is that the Real is supposed to be prescribed to the Oticon “open” paradigm, which is designed to let you hear as many of the surrounding sounds as possible, albeit in a better “balanced” way. The Philips HearLink, on the other hand, is designed to take a more aggressive approach with the noise to help with the speech, although it seems like you don’t particularly find the speech clarity you’re looking for in noisy environment as you have reported.

But in general, the Philips is not supposed to be as “open” as the Oticon More and Real, although many Philips wearers still find the Philips HearLink “open” plenty enough for them already. The “open” paradigm is more of a personal preference, some like it “open” more than others, who may prefer to just hear the speech primarily in noisy environments, and almost everything else should be considered noise for them.

The point is that if you’re looking for key differences between the Oticon and Philips aids, those are the kinds of thing that you may want to focus on. Otherwise, they both should perform pretty well similarly in most cases.

Thank you very much. Last night I went out to dinner and had the Opportunity to try out the Speech in Noise program with the Oricon. It was really loud and I was able to hear all the noises in the restaurant so that I had to turn them down to -2. It was only a couple of us at the table so I was able to hear the conversation. I’d like to see how it works in a bigger table with 6-8+ people. That’s where I have always struggled.

I think the microphone placement is similar,but the microphone openings in the plastic shell are notably different.

In reply to @user1078

Thanks for sharing your .
Hopefully new properly fit aids will improve your word understanding scores. It typically doesn’t happen immediately but will improve as you acclimate to the new aids.

Good luck

Can those that first had the 9030’s and traded for the 9040’s comment on if the handling of artifact noise (hair, wind, etc) is a lot better with the 9040’s? I started out last year at an 80% level and I’m now at 100% with some minor mid and high frequency reductions. It’s been a very long journey as I’m a first time user. Seems I hear all sorts of HA to ear or HA to hair noise much better and transient noises like kitchen noises drive me crazy. My own voice is more annoying as well. When my wife is cooking and I’m in the nearby family room I have to go the noise program to not amplify all the very sharp sounds and the existing transient noise program for the 9030 is set to maximum already. I’m debating if it might be worth it to buy the 9040’s knowing I probably can’t get much for my one year old 9030’s. I do suffer from hyperacusis so loud noises would an issue even without the HA and I know they don’t really have active noise reduction like my Apple Airpods pros do. Thanks

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