Basic & personal advise on my upcoming trail of Phillips 9040

Hearing Aids
#1

Experienced user currently with Costco KS10 (Phonak) & about to trial Phillips HAs. My Costco must order a pair after consultation tomorrow for my trial. My outer ear and ear canal are not unusual. For the KS10s I fall pretty much at the boundary between shortest and next longer ear wire.

  1. Battery Costco would order either disposable OR rechargeable, correct? I’m ambivalent about my current rechargeables and with my increase of zoom meetings and HAs being almost 2 years old, I often have to do partial recharge in evening. $ guess of cost to replace rechargeable battery in Phillips? and how long turn around might be? {For KS10 it must be sent back to mfg for battery RPL}

  2. Order accessories from Costco I assume there is TV streamer, does Costco sell it? If yes, then does it also have the same 6 month trial period?

  3. Currently have custom molds (from Costco) and they had been recommended by private audi, and again by Costco, as well as by some seasoned forum members based on audiogram. Frequency lowering is programmed currently. Another at least fairly seasoned forum member with very similar audiogram to mine (but with significantly better word recognition scores) is using Phillips (after KS10s) with good improvement AND neither molds nor frequency lowering.
    My goal is speech intelligibility: My inclination is: start trial without frequency lowering in part to acclimate to different soundscape and have some baseline exp. with 9040. I
    If a style of domes, be they Phillip power domes or different style fits my ear canal well, then start trial with just domes. If Costco HCP strongly recommends moulds than do those at first fitting, otherwise probably postpone them. Similarly postpone frequency lowering for now.
    I won’t be able to pickup and be fitted til July 25th and have 3 week followup scheduled to tweak programs OR make large changes (add moulds; add frequency lowering).
    I realize audiogram similarity is not good predictor of how my ears and brain will use info provided by Phillips, and my own path to better hearing is likely to be different than forum users with similar audiogram.

  4. Anything else that I should be considering especially for my initial consultation on 17 June which I assume will be paperwork/agreement AND determining what power level of Phillips, and receiver ear wire is best.

I’ll start to read forum posts now to cut my learning curve. Thanks to forum for all of the excellent and thoughtful support and insights. I look forward to contributing my own experience with 9040s. I do some self programming and assume that ease of programming Phillips is on par with KS10/Phonak, correct?

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Edited to change Phillips 6040 to 9040 16 June 17:26 Pacific Daylight time

1 Like
#2

Get the “Speech in Noise” and “Music” program. Programming is similar to the KS10, the Philips has its own set of quarks to work around.

#3

Thanks @Kharri and for your comments in long thread “Started Trial of Phillips 9030 …” all quite helpful to me and others looking at trying these out.

#4

I didn’t find the speech in noise program to be much different for noise or speech but the pure noise program does tone down noise a lot, just a bit muffled so I occasionally boost the volume. The noise program also is probably the one I am tending to use the most lately as I go from 80% ( initial settings) to 90% now. I’m pretty sensitive to loud noises and will probably get that turned way down soon. The Music or hifi program is zero noise reduction and some might find it too much in your face and tinny, at least I did. But that one is worth a try.

#5

On a post from May of 22 it was $135 per aid to have rechargeable batteries changed. However, that’s after 3 year warranty runs out. You can have the aids returned to manufacturer just before warranty runs out for new batteries. It is my impression that they have to be returned to manufacturer for new batteries although since they are similar to Oticons which can have battery changed in office I wonder why this would be the case. If you could clarify this when you go in, it would be useful info for the forum.
Yes, Costco should be able to order a TV streamer. Return period on accessories has always been fuzzy to me. I’ve been told 30 days at one time. Again, clarifying for the forum would be nice.
Do what you wish, but I’d stick with Custom molds. You’re probably going to end up with them anyway and if you go with domes you will be essentially shortening your trial period because you’ll have less time to get used to molds. I’d go with Costco’s recommendation on molds and frequency lowering. I suspect frequency lowering could be helpful.

#6

The music program, they had to decrease some of the high freqs.

#7

I wanted to take my KS10 apart and asked CC if they had done that before, they said they had not. If anyone has I would like to know how, what type of battery, and if it’s soldered in.

#8

@MDB very useful as usual. When/if I get info on the fuzzy areas I will definitely share with forum, although it might only apply to my Costco in Bend Oregon yet give some possible indication about Costco in general.

#9

I love my rechargeable batteries, BUT I’m pretty sure they aren’t comparable. I wear cochlear implant. The batteries are huge compared to any I had with 25 years of hearing aids. When the form factor shrinks even as much as implant to BTE aids, the differences begin to be important. Shrink it much further down to an in-canal aid, and you lose any sense. I’m not surprised to hear that HA users are not often fans of rechargeable. It’s also extremely nice to be able to change modes on the fly. If my rechargeable shuts down when I’m out in the world, I can just screw in a battery holder and pop in batteries. Do HA rechargeables offer that convenience?

I also want to chime in on ear molds. Yes, they’re cludgy. But they’re also very stable under a variety of conditions. Want to play racketball or throw yourself into a mosh pit? Your HA is going stay attached to you and almost certainly will continue to carry sound. I know this isn’t elegant advice, but if the HA slips around or slips off, it’s completely useless

#10

update thank you; apology …

Thanks for all of your comments. My apology for not inquiring during my Costco appt a few days ago about how long the free trial period is for accessories e.g. TV streamer; or whether replacement of rechargeable battery in 9040s can be done in house or only by mailing to and from factory.

The HCP I met with who I had seen once before did (single) Word Recognition testing and on basis of that suggested that I might be better off being evaluated for cochlear implants and suggested audi who herself has implant(s). While I will likely pursue this, I do not feel it is the right call. During an hour of 1 on 1 talk via Zoom with someone I am familiar with I might ask 1 or 2 times for something to be repeated; with car radio and road noise with a trained announcer I might miss a word or two in 15 minutes. These are not very challenging listening situations and I do far, far worse in speech in noise, nonetheless while there is large room for improvement, from what I have read I am not sure that I meet criteria for CI. Perhaps I am in denial, that has happened before!

Two years ago my Word recognition scores were R, L, Both ears were 56% 36. 48
And a few days ago had declined for each ear but stable for Both: 42. 32. 48%

While CC, HCP is will\ing to go ahead with trial of 9040s, he did not feel that it’d make a significant difference (in spite of my comments about some of this forum user comments). Perhaps I’d be better off since I do some self programming to experiment with tweaking KS10s and somehow optimizing for the people I most frequently converse with. Perhaps I’d be better off redoing the LACE training, working on short term auditory memory, and other skills that improve comprehension.

If I do get info on CC and 9040s and the ?s about trial of accessories; and battery replacement I will post that here AND on one of the active threads of some member’s review of their 9040 experience. Again thanks for all of your input and support.

#11

312 batteries from Costco generally lasted a week in my 9010s. They lasted 3-4 days in the 9030 loaners I had while my 9010s were being refurbed. My guess is that the 312s have to be replaced more frequently in the 9040s unless they reduced the current drain, which they very well might have done.