Hi, Not exactly an answer to above, but an FYI regarding my experiences and experimentation with CROS set-ups. Warning. It’s long-winded, and unfortunately no golden solution at the end is provided. Sorry! : (
- I have had single-sided hearing loss, unilateral hearing loss, assymetrical hearing loss (actually don’t have HL in one ear, so may not assymetrical) for last 15 years; from my late 30’s! My HL in my left ear is 70db level; so not gone, but hardly useable. Also, sensorinaural; so not improved with increase in volume.
- Trialed CROS set-ups over the years (most recently last year), as HA technology improved. Trials were generally full 3~6 months periods; since the audiologists were also very kindly and professionally intrigued to find the best solution for my type of hearing loss.
- The main issue I felt was that as good as the sound transfer to good ear is, and further background noise reduction ability of the HA in your good/perfect ear, the ear tip/dome needs to be OPEN to let in natural environmental noise too, which will also let in and allows for the noisy background & environmental noise to seep in. This “seeping in” noise greatly overcomes/exceeds (over-shadows?) any signal or HA transmitted noise also coming in the ear from the HA. (i.e. Seeping Noise>HA Noise)
- Maybe it works a treat in a perfectly quiet environment, with minimal, low-volume environmental noise; however normally most UHL suffers can “get by” in such environments. Also, personally sure I want to fork out +$9000 just to avoid person on my left tapping me on the shoulder to re-ask their question.
- Whacking up the volume higher cannot compensate enough, will probably damage your good hearing ear, and of course your Audiologist will not adjust to such a setting.
- Also tried one potential solution, changing the HA tip to a fully closed tips; so more limited natural environmental noise seeps in. However, would only use the expensive CROS HA ($9000+?) in specific environments; or rush to put them on when such environments suddenly arise. Also, you will lose all your “natural” hearing, and totally rely on the mechanical sounds and voices produced by the HAs. I did not keep the HA in all day, since most of the time I did not want, and would be dangerous to have the fully-closed HA tip/dome my good hearing ear blocking out all sounds!
- Other idea, I tried was a remote mic device (e.g. Phonak Roger) + HA, to serve like and instead of a CROS transmitter hooked onto my bad ear side. Price is about the same; and maybe allow for more on the spot flexibility with directional mike capabilities etc. However, same issue about the fully-closed sound-blocking HA tip.
- Final observation. With the fully-closed HA tip in a good ear, I was surprised how much annoying & distracting background noise was also being transmitted by CROS transmitter; even supposedly after being further processed by the very top tier (90+) HAs in my good ear! (Maybe the just released Infinio AI-powered HA will change this?)
These are my observations and the frustrations I found. However, I am constantly being told of how many people are very happy with their CROS set-ups. Our experiences, expectations and satisfaction must be a very individual, personal, and relative thing.
Really hope you will experiment yourself; and if you find your own “golden solution”, please share it with us all here, so we can try it too. Thank you!