CIC/single-mic versus ITC/dual-mic....help me decide

Hearing Loss
#1

I have had moderate hearing loss within the past year. I have decided on WIDEX, either the completely-in-canal (CIC) or the In-the-Canal (ITC).

Obviously, for aesthetic reasons, I’d prefer people not to see the hearing aid. The problem, though, is that the CIC model is only single-mic and can only be controlled via remote. The ITC model sticks out a bit and is visible to others, but is dual-mic and can be controlled with a button in addition to the remote.

Those of you concerned about others noticing…do you think the trade-off is worth it? Would you go with the superior dual-mic (if it is indeed superior?). I don’t know how much better it is, since I am only 43 years old and haven’t had hearing loss until very recently.

Thanks for any and all feedback!

#2

I don’t have any experience with CIC and ITC hearing aids. I have had ITE (Starkey Sequel) and now wear BTE (Phonak micro Savia). I have moderate hearing loss also. I have been wearing hearing aids for 14 years.

The only people who will notice your hearing aids are other people who wear hearing aids. Most people don’t notice or care. What they do notice is you not being able to hear.

I can’t see that 2 microphones in the ear canal will help. You ear does all the funneling of the sound, the the microphones are going to pick up what ever comes in your ear. IMHO, if it does help it will be marginally.

I can tell you that anything that goes in the ear canal, or in the ear for that matter, will be more problems that a BTE.

The problems I had with the ITE were ear wax build up, moving in the ear canal when I chew or talk, and occlusion. The audiologist did a good job of minimizing this, and my brain did the rest.

The BTEs are a pleasure compared to the ITE. They have a different set of problems. Hope this helps.

Ron
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#3

Ron,

In all honesty there’s a good reason why directional mics are used on ITE aids, the degree of ‘funnelling’ by the pinna is very limited as soon as the aid sits out in the concha (bowl) of the pinna.

Hearing within background noise is the most difficult type of situation that users find themselves in: the directional mics can give 3-6dB improvement of local speech over the background noise. Each dB yeilds approximately a 10% improvement in what we call articulation index. If you want the numbers behind this, Mead Killion of Etymotic Research published lots on it and made the D-Mic capsule.

Agreed that BTE is far more reliable though.

#4

Obviously, for aesthetic reasons, I’d prefer people not to see the hearing aid. then I would investigate my RIC options.

#5

I wore Widex Diva ITC aids for 7 years. Even with the dual microphones, I did not have much of a sense of sound direction. CIC aids, even with a single mic, are much better directionally, in my experience.

RIC aids give better directional sense than CIC aids and are less noticeable.

#6

Directional mics aren’t there to help you sense sound direction, your brain does that.

Directional mics are there to make certain sounds louder in an offset oval largely forward of you; your brain still deduces where the sound comes from.

#7

CIC may be less noticible but it depends on the size of your canal.

I don’t have small ears, but my canal is small.

I trialed a Widex CIC as a first HA thinking it would be unoticible, as described on Widex website… But it was very noticible, as you can see on the pictures that I posted in my profile album. It was a lot more noticible than the RIC I am wearing now. And Widex does have very small and cute RICs (even cuter and smaller than the Moxi I have now!;)).

#8

…and now for something totally different.
I assume you will be wearing hearing aids to improve your hearing? Sound silly, but believe me, there’s non stranger than folk!
May I suggest you go for the best of both worlds, good hearing and cosmetics and look at slim tube products. All of the manufacturers make them now and they would only do so if there was a demand for them. if you go with my suggestion, you will hear much better in all situations and they wont be noticed at all.
Go on… you know you want to! :slight_smile: