I have worn hearing aids for 8 years due to moderate to moderately sever, age-related hearing loss. My hearing environments vary significantly - work includes airline travel, teleconferencing, face to face meetings with people, and occasional visits to facilities requiring hearing protection and safety glasses. Off the job, my hearing environments range from family and friends, restaurants, listening to music, golf, tennis, running, archery, hunting and fishing, riding a large motorcycle, mowing the lawn - so very active in noisy, dirty, wet, hot, and cold environments when not at home. My experience with hearing aids has included 1 year with Lyric hearing aids, 5 years with Phonak Solara CICs, and now 2 additional years with Lyrics. I believe BTE or RIC aids would not be a good fit due to physical activity which requires my bending over frequently, running and jumping, wearing reading glasses, and hearing protection. My issue with the Lyrics is unreliable battery life and cannot reinsert them if I want to indulge in water sports where I may submerge my head. My question, simplified: āAre there one or more reasonable alternatives to the Lyrics?ā
Lyric Advantages
- Sound-quality due to deep placement
- Natural sound - music, directionality
- Donāt need digital software, channels, modes simply to overcome issues of receiver/ microphone placement
- Can shower, get caught in rain, or even swim if careful not to submerge ears
- No daily maintenance due to dust/dirt, ear wax in receiver and microphone - no wax traps or batteries to keep handy for replacement, no dehumidifier necessary
- No repairs - no battery door, typically replaced before dust or ear wax become a problem
- Leave in at night, quickly put to sleep, turned back on
- Much less wind noise due to deep placement
- Little or no feedback when using phone
- No outwardly audible whistle when greeting someone with a hug
- When riding motorcycles, no need to remove aids so a helmet can be worn; simply put them to sleep or turn off with discrete wand; I have bike-to-bike radios that have wafer headphones
- Lyrics can function as ear plug in āoffā setting when mowing lawn or around typical lawn care equipment; trust me Iāve compared them against foam ear plugs
CIC Experience
- My aids automatically adjusted to different hearing environments, at least to a point
- I could remove and reinsert the aids any time I wanted
- Battery life an acceptable 4-5 days if shut down at night
- Hearing quality was not as good, sometimes much worse
- My hearing comprehension was much worse in restaurants than with Lyrics
- In windy environment such as walking or hiking outdoors it was difficult to carry on a conversation due to background noise
- Determination of sound direction was poor especially outdoors
- Conference room voice comprehension was poor compared to the Lyrics
- Comprehension of conversations with soft-spoken people was poor, even just sitting across a desk
- Removed and cleaned microphone and transmitter every night, place in desiccant jar every night; replaced wax traps periodically
- Microphones and receivers got dirty over time (with gradual loss of hearing) and had to be sent for factory repair at least once per year
- Too much sweat would sometimes kill the aids, requiring factory repair
- Battery doors broke on each aid at least once over the 5 years; removal stem broke off from each aid and had to be sent for repair
- Most repairs took 1 to 2 weeks, during which I was without the benefit of hearing assistance in that ear. Over the 5 years each aid was sent for repair at least 5 times. Whereas, with the Lyrics I simply visit the audiologist for new hearing aid
- Always afraid of getting caught in rain or forgetting to remove the CIC aids before showering
- Always had to have batteries handy
Lyric Disadvantages
- Need to visit the audiologist for replacement with new Lyric when battery dies
- Unpredictable battery life - 4 weeks to 3 months+
- Cannot be reinserted by wearer
- Tricky placement to avoid feedback, whistling
- May still have some problem hearing conversations on phone, tv
- Cost
Questions
- Are there hearing aids that provide overall better HEARING QUALITY, if ALL styles are considered? What advantages of the Lyric are given up for this?
- Can any technology help fill in more conversational gaps to speed brain processing time?
- Are there ANY other invisible in canal hearing aids with the sound-quality advantages of the Lyrics, and similar wind noise sensitivity, rain tolerance? My experience indicates digitally suppressing background noise also suppresses things I want to hear
Note that Iām an actual wearer and am only expressing my long-term use experience. After my experiences, and reading this forum and reviews on the web, Iāve come away with these tentative conclusions: 1) the manufacturers of Lyrics have poor quality control on battery life; and, 2) many other hearing aids also suffer poor mechanical quality control, have routine failures due to sweat or other incidental moisture, dust/dirt/ wax in the microphones and/or ear wax in the receivers/speakers, and have mechanical problems resulting in repairs over the lifetime of the hearing aids. With non-Lyric aids, repairs result in prolonged periods without the use of hearing enhancement. I have great confidence in my audiologist after 7 years. Even she is not encouraging regarding alternatives to Lyrics due to my active lifestyle. I do not want aids that are constantly flopping around or falling off, or that you are afraid to run or hike in the rain with.
I do not care about connectivity. Multiple channels where I have to be continually channel surfing on a phone app for one that seems to work for a temporary hearing environment, does not sound attractive, but maybe Iād get used to it. My tentative belief is that most digital hearing aids use algorithms to try to process sound the way our ears naturally do, while the Lyrics take advantage of the natural shape of the ear. I have the impression that you buy a basic hearing aid if all you want is a little amplification, some other hearing aid if you want to hear conversations in restaurants, one with Bluetooth to hear in church, conference rooms, or talk on the phone, and some different hearing aid if you want to hear music the way it was intended. I want it all without channel surfing or suppression of things I want to hear. Most digital aids seem to require expensive accessories (iPhone, remotes, external microphones) that make the cost almost equivalent to Lyrics. Is there an alternative to Lyrics that match my needs?