This morning I had a hearing test at my local Costco. This was my final stop in my hunt for an HA that started last June. HAs in Ontario must be bought from an HA store – no online sales are allowed nor are OTCs available. The hearing aid stores have a virtual lock on the market so if you want a device that is somewhat affordable; Costco is your only option. I visited two other stores along the way – an independent and a franchised shop that is connected to Sonova . I trialled the Phonak Sphere from the latter but at the ‘discounted’price of $8190, I realized that I had to look further . . . which led to this forum and Costco. I am retired out of the Pro audio industry without insurance, so this purchase is out of pocket. I listen to a lot of music - making this my most important criteria . . . since meetings and noisy shows etc are a thing of the past. All of those shows – CES, NAMM, AES, Gearfest etc etc probably had something to do with my fancy sharkbite.
Back to Costco . . . My audi was a real audiologist and not just an HIS and she and all of the other staff were very pleasant and efficient. It appears that my audiogram was virtually the same as the last one I had in June, so my upcoming ENT app’t (which took 6 months to get) may be superfluous. Costco Canada offers Jabra, Phillips, Rexton and some other ReSound SKUs – and they claimed to know nothing about the upcoming Sennheisers. All hearing aids are the same price: $1999.99 . . . which means that – for once – Canadians are getting a bit of a deal versus US Costcos when you factor in the current exchange rate. In Ontario, we get a $500 per ear gov’t grant - which the store applied for - so I walked out with a bill for only $999.99 for a pair of Phillips 9050s. The audi steered me to these over the Jabra (too bright) and the Rexton (better for voice in noise but not as good for direct music listening). I go back next week to pick them up for the initial fitting. Oddly they said that they did not have demo capabilities in the store but then again, I didn’t press the issue.
I am going to let them do the initial fitting and maybe a follow-up or two and then I will probably get a Noahlink and dive into them myself since I am a fussy bugger when it comes to my music. We shall see.