I have been using BiCROS hearing aids for about 5 years (have hearing loss in both ears; right ear is diseased/missing parts from mastoidectomy, right ear has sensorineural impairment).
On the plus side, it is no longer a strain on my left side, which processes most of the sound. Additionally, I no longer have that discrepancy between lack of power/clarity in my right ear and volume/clarity in my left ear, although I would miss some high frequency sounds. The trouble is, I am sensitive to high frequency sound, which makes it very tricky to fine tune. I was warned that I would have trouble distinguishing which side the sound was coming from. In general, that doesn’t bother me; I don’t notice that problem except in extreme situations, and then it becomes funny. For example, I was sitting next to my friend in a workshop, and I kept hearing the cracking, popping sound and kept looking to my left, unable to detect the source. I looked to my right, and it was my friend squeezing the plastic water bottle.
The disadvantages are that it increases my sensory overload and inability to discriminate speech and, ironically enough, I still don’t hear speech clearly or loudly from sources to the right of me; sound, yes, that’s amplified, but speech, I still tend to turn my head to hear.
