3 Questions about my new Starkey Signature Series 16 CIC

Hearing Aids
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Brand New and paid $5500 out the door with 18 months no interest financing on Care Credit.

My old ones were Starkey Z Series 70 CIC which were from 2017 roughly.

See the photos I’ve attached and here are my questions:

  1. Whenever there is a loud quick sound such as a clap, door slam, anything quick loud, the hearing aids for like 1-2 seconds go quiet and then softly come back alive again. Is there a way to disable this feature? My Audi is telling me most likely no way to turn this “protective” feature off.

  2. The little plastic pull tabs, I’ve been told serve no purpose except to pull the aids out of my ear. Can I cut them off? This is what I’ve done with my old Starkey aids. However, before I cut them off, I noticed they have like a gold antenna of some sort inside the plastic tube. See photos.

They are not bluetooth capable but I do believe they are wireless because they connect to the Noahlink Programmer wirelessely. But when I change volume in one ear, I must change it in the other ear manually. They are not synced like my old Starkey hearing aids, which were also not bluetooth but would communicate with one another. Weird that new ones don’t communicate with one another.

  1. Last question is about size. These are much bigger than my old aids yet still classified as a CIC fit. I feel they have to be bigger because these are the Rechargeable versions, not the battery version. So I guess there is no way to keep them as small as my old ones and still Rechargeable?
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I recently got the battery version of these. I don’t know the answer to all your questions, but the removal cords don’t look like mine, yours do look like they have an antenna inside so I would definitely not cut them off. I couldn’t get the rechargeable version as my ear canals are too small so I think that will be why your new ones are bigger than your old ones.

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  1. I suspect this feature is to protect what’s left of your hearing from abrupt loud noises.

  2. it does seem like there’s an antenna in there, I’d leave things as designed. In any case, if there was some medical emergency and you couldn’t remove your HAs, say, for an MRI, someone else could need the pulls so they could remove your HAs for you.

  3. I do think it’s because of the rechargeable batteries.

If you don’t feel particularly in love with these, and if it’s still within returnable time frame, you could try something else.

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1, It can be turned down if not removed.
2, Aerials are within the pullcords for wireless comms and programming.
3, Starkey hardware and wirelsss chips are bigger than before.

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