Should my KS10 hearing aids with custom ear moulds have wax guards? (I conclude, yes)

1. Yes wax guards should be used, your using a receiver, that’s what they are for.

2. KS10 are Phonak models and use the exact same receiver.

3. I wouldn’t like mine made like this, the mold seems a bit short with a lot of the receiver sticking out, but maybe this is your ear canal is very short before the bend, so they had to?

@Edma said:

Photos I have seen of custom ear moulds show a wax guard sitting flush with the opening which makes it both accessible

Sure for hard acrylic but not the soft silicone type.

@Edma said:

whereas with mine the sound enters a tiny diameter air space bouncing off of silicone mould for a distance of about 3mm before exiting into air space of ear canal.

That’s not going to make any difference that you could possibly tell.

@Edma said:

Given the severity of my hearing loss, perhaps recessing the receiver within the mould is correct,

Wouldn’t make much difference for your loss,

@Edma said:

in her opinion put the mics slightly farther to the back of my head and probably had some impact on the processor comparing differences in sound from the front and rear mics

Well I’d think I’d take your audiologist who fitted them over a “friends” advice, but if your really that concerned you can easily buy some shorter receivers on eBay and try yourself.

@Edma said:

and software best shot at optimizing my hearing.

Are you doing DIY?

@tenkan said:

Thank you very much Tenkan who I partially quote below with my responses in bold.

@Edma said:

Photos I have seen of custom ear moulds show a wax guard sitting flush with the opening which makes it both accessible

Sure for hard acrylic but not the soft silicone type.
Perhaps true yet the YouTube photo I show in OP from audi actually shows silicone with flush wax guard and is the same material as my moulds yet mine are recessed.

@Edma said:

whereas with mine the sound enters a tiny diameter air space bouncing off of silicone mould for a distance of about 3mm before exiting into air space of ear canal.

That’s not going to make any difference that you could possibly tell.
glad for your opinion/experience yet clearly this is significantly different acoustical environment but expect that any impact in context of my audiogram might be insignificant.

@Edma said:

Given the severity of my hearing loss, perhaps recessing the receiver within the mould is correct,

Wouldn’t make much difference for your loss,

3. I wouldn’t like mine made like this, the mold seems a bit short with a lot of the receiver sticking out, but maybe this is your ear canal is very short before the bend, so they had to? I have no reason to believe that my ear canal is very short. I never specifically asked any audi or fitter but I do gather as much info from them as they are willing to share. Just looked at older Phonak HAs which had been fitted by audi first with silicone mould with very similar depth into canal as current moulds done via Costco but one by Audi has wax guard flush with mould, so I conclude that one from Costco is done incorrectly with it being recessed.

@Edma said:

in her opinion put the mics slightly farther to the back of my head and probably had some impact on the processor comparing differences in sound from the front and rear mics

Well I’d think I’d take your audiologist who fitted them over a “friends” advice, but if your really that concerned you can easily buy some shorter receivers on eBay and try yourself.
Well my friend is actually a semi retired audi and pays a lot of attention to detail and customizing so most often I find her input/comments more pertinent than Costco fitter.

Are you doing DIY? Yes, especially so that I could play with Sound Recover settings, but have not done any tweaking in many months.

Again, thanks so much for your detailed and helpful comments.

===============
My conclusions:

1. Costco and/or Phonak in making silicone moulds erred in recessing receiver within mould AND in my (perhaps most situations) wax guard should always be used to protect receiver from ear wax.
   2 Whenever I have other reasons to do in person session with Costco, I will push on them at their expense to redo moulds which it seems were done somewhat poorly; and will inquire as to whether my ear canal is unusually short.
2. As with most HA areas, on internet and even here in forum there is often at least somewhat contradictory information on same topic. Only some of this inconsistency can be attributed to “correct” answer changing with newer technology or with audiology research on best practices.
3. For me who still at times strains with speech comprehension in relative quiet, I prefer to give myself the best opportunity for improvement by optimizing hardware and software so that even minor sub-optimal audi/fitter choices do create more obstacles - trying to find a sweet spot between ‘good enough’ and the ‘elusive perfection.’

Ok so sounds like your on the right track, let us know how you get on, DIY is the way forward for a lot of people who just can’t seem to get the people their working with, to find the “sweet spot” on how they like to hear.

@tenkan said:

Perhaps true yet the YouTube photo I show in OP from audi actually shows silicone with flush wax guard

I’ve never seen this done with soft silicone,what I mean here is the wax filter is glued onto the mold, but of course if the end of the receiver is flush with the mold then the wax filter is fitted into the receiver and not the mold as such, however I understand there’s a type of silicone that is very much like acrylic, just a bit softer, possibly the video is showing this?
But ether way you know what you want, so just get the Costco fitter to do a remake (and show them the video you have) of how you want them to be made, Phonak may or may not agree, they’ll most likely get the last say on how they get made from the impression supplied by Costco.

Good luck