My audiologist has given me a set of Intent 1 hearing aids to demo alongside my existing More 1 aids. She set them up using the same programming which she says is tweaked slightly to take advantage of new capabilities, but I don’t know exactly what those tweaks entail.
Intent generally sounds clearer, with cleaner and louder high tones. In quiet places my understanding of speech with the More was excellent, and with Intent it continues to be excellent. Sound from the Intent seldom shows any weird modulation, while the More occasionally gives an unnatural rapid fluctuation (perhaps I’m hearing feedback management??). Intent is clearer and cleaner sounding, but More is excellent for me in quiet and slight noise, so this upgrade alone isn’t worth the cost.
In noise the Intent turns out to be notably better for me, and easily worth the cost.
I went with three others to a nearby food hall in an old industrial space (high metal ceilings, concrete floors, brick walls) crowded with people half my age talking over each other. This is a hearing in noise torture test. I talked to different people in this environment across a table, often with a parallel conversation between the other two people right next to me. When using the Intents I could hear and understand my conversation reasonably easily, and seldom asked for a repeat. I was able to concentrate on the topic of conversation rather than figuring out what the other person just said. When using the More the general sound was much the same (voices with a significant background roar), but when I’d try to focus and follow a voice it seemed distorted and difficult to figure out the words, and my understanding dropped precipitously. My focus shifted away from the topic to a deciphering exercise. There was no contest, in this situation Intent worked far better than More.
Another difficult test I was able to run with both aids was an family dinner (my wife and I, three daughters and their partners). Most of us were brought up in noisy families, and the dinner table is a sort of conversational free-for-all. There can be three separate conversations going on at once with people spaced anywhere on the table. This is number one on my list of situations where I want better hearing.
With any hearing aid in the past, as the volume goes up I start requesting an uncomfortable number of repeats, then eventually withdraw from conversation (or switch to the smile-and-nod). The More is the best I’ve tried up till now, but still the pattern of withdrawal continued. With the Intent, I rarely asked for a repeat, and had the easiest time I can recall at a large noisy table. I never felt like I was burdening my family, or making their conversation unnatural. It felt fantastic to be an equal participant in the conversation. Simply amazing.
I suspect I was on the cusp of handling these situations, and the Intent put me over the edge. I don’t expect the Intent to have this effect for everyone, or in every difficult situation. I also fear that I’ll buy these, and in a few months be wondering why I thought they worked at all. But in my 10 days of testing they are literally the first hearing aids I’ve tried that make me feel like I can hear well enough in these (and other) difficult scenes.
If it wasn’t obvious already, I’ve ordered a set, and am looking forward to having my own Intents next week.