If you want to stay at Costco I believe they have at least a couple of different ones that may be suitable. There is the Phonak Brio 3, and the ReSound Vida. I’m not sure of the highest power level of the KS9. It could be worth a listen, and will be less expensive than the Brio and Vida.
Very interesting. My Costco specialist has been exceptionally helpful and willing to tweak various settings on my KS9s but I’m still not completely happy with the streaming quality, either for music or voice, the latest issue being a buzziness we thought was related to boosting the baseline volume but which did not go away when re lowered it. A separate issue is how relatively useless the streaming appears to be for my bad ear in terms of compensating for missing frequencies, and as a result we slightly biased the audio to the right side so I can at least use the aids for phone calls without making my audio sound like long-range subspace communication to the Rebel base.
She and I haven’t talked specifically about tinkering with the streaming voice/music programs, and I wonder if doing so could improve performance. But I already have Automatic, Music and Noise programs in my pull-down menu, so if I understand you, that’s my limit at 3. All of those are useful to me (Music was a breakthrough because I followed another user’s settings of OMNI and shutting off feedback control, to eliminate a trilling sound I was getting on very high guitar-string notes).
I’m going to add that it’s a bit annoying to see a bunch of settings like streaming voice, streaming music, acoustic phone etc. that aren’t spelled out in the Costco/KS9 user manual I downloaded.
Automatic doesn’t count for one of the three.
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Does streaming occupy a program spot on the KS9? On the KS8 which is Rexton, it does not occupy a manual program slot. The aids know enough to apply the equalization on top of whatever program you are in if there is streaming present from the phone.
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Yeah that makes sense, that would be a sensible design, not that I know for a fact the KS9 runs that way.
Major thanks to Raudrive as well.
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The steaming programs work very well with the TV connector, is that how you are streaming?
RDB
No, I’m talking about things like playing a music video off YouTube, and streaming phone calls. My main loss is in my left ear, and while streaming it’s as if the hearing aid isn’t compensating at all for the missing frequencies. I know others here have said streaming can be great, it definitely isn’t for me. If both ears were equally damaged and this is as good as streaming gets, it would essentially be unusable. It made me wonder if the streaming program was somehow completely bypassing the main effect of the hearing aid. I’ve had the same experience with the Phonak Marvel Audeos that I trialed and the KS9s I eventually bought.
So you are referring to Bluetooth which is how the Phone works with the HA’s as apposed to streaming from the TV connector. Regardless, your loss is unfortunate, but check mine, and streaming by either method works quite well for me.
RDB
When you stream YouTube is it on your phone?
The KS9 aids only connect to one Bluetooth device at a time, like your phone or a laptop.
This is why many people are buying the TV Connectors. It is KS9 propriety and doesn’t take up that one Bluetooth device spot.
The differences in your hearing isn’t the problem as it is minor compared to many. What it sounds like is the hearing aids are not linked to each other as they should be. The gain in the left and right is based on your hearing test and attempts to bring them together. My word recognition was 50% in the right and 40% in the left, even though my left is better than my right. With the KS9 whether on the phone or streaming through the TV connector from the tv or computer is excelent and do not detect a difference from one side to the other, in fact the sound being transmitted in this way seems as if the sound originates in my head, very clear. Music which I love had not been of much use to me for several years, until now, I’m now re-discovering just how much it has meant to me. Your HA’s are in need of adjustments.
RDB
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I’ve only had my KS9’s for around a month. When I first got them, I was disappointed in the streaming quality. It sounded tinny and shallow. Also, the sound seemed to be mostly going to my left ear. Then I had the realization that the tinny sound was the high frequencies that I had been missing and the left dominance in sound was because I was now getting full sound in that ear which has a greater loss. Now, I don’t even notice. I think it takes a while for your brain to adjust to hearing things you were not before.
Luckily, there is a six month trial. So, if things don’t even out for you, you can always trade them in for something else.
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I greatly appreciate all the detailed answers. It could be I have unrealistic expectations, or a defective device, or something else.
For clarification, first of all I am humbly aware I have much better hearing even in my bad ear than many if not most on this site. My right ear, in fact, is so comparatively mildly damaged that I didn’t notice anything amiss until I acquired tinnitus, which drove me to an ENT and we discovered the far worse (for me) damage on the left. My and my ENT refer to my right ear as basically generic older middle-aged-guy loss (mid-60s).
For this reason, I don’t need a TV connector; I can hear just fine even “just” with my hearing aids in or even the right one not used at all.
I also am fortunate in that my word recognition score is very high in both ears. I don’t think even the left ear goes below 90% in any test.
And yes, I’m talking about streaming YouTube music (for example) through my phone.
So it’s curious that people including rdboukes can say how much they are enjoying streaming music, with such a higher hurdle in terms of compensation.
Regarding the comment that the devices may not be linked properly, maybe! Fwiw we made the left hearing aid the dominant, controlling one, since I always wear that one. That’s the one producing dissatisfying streaming results–except when I place it in my good, right ear as a test, in which case it sounds fine. So that’s what I mean when I say it’s seemingly not compensating for anything. I’ve been wearing aids, mainly Phonaks/KS9s for nearly half a year now so I think I would have adjusted to the new-user tinniness that many of us are familiar with.
Anyway I’ll run all this by Costco specialist and see if it’s anything new to her. She even had me do a session with a Phonak rep a month ago who made further adjustments to no avail.
Chris, what kind of fittings do you have? Open, Closed, Semi Open? Open fittings can be a problem for streaming unless a major correction is made in the equalization for streaming vs natural sound coming in via the microphones.
Yeah good point, they’re small (because I have small ear canals) open domes. This was mentioned to me as contributing to the issue several months ago when I was trialing the Marvels. I find the open domes very comfortable, really unnoticeable most of the time. But again, on the right where my hearing is much better, the streaming quality is acceptable.
I wore I guess what they call tulips when I briefly trialed Widex Evokes and they were downright painful after awhile. And… I honestly can’t recall what the streaming quality was like. This was very early in my process so I was processing a lot of new things anyway.
I suspect you can get away with open fittings from a feedback point of view. However they need a lot of help when you switch to streaming. When you stream you only get an electronic signal to the aids, and nothing comes in through the open fittings like you would get if listening to natural sound. This is what a Rexton would add for streaming offsets for open domes. This is overlaid on top of your correction for hearing loss. This is just to correct for streaming effect, above and beyond your hearing loss.
Very interesting! I’ve saved this image and hope to make use of it at my next Costco visit. Thanks so much.
Have you tried splitting the sound left and right with Easy Line and adjusting to balance?
RDB
I believe my Costco fitter, at my request, turned off my TV Connector’s ding-ding signals on my KS9s on Friday and for two days it worked great connected to my laptop. Today, however, when I attempt to listen to any videos on my laptop, the audio continuously cuts in and out as my Remote app swings wildly back and forth between Automatic and TV Connector. Anyone else encountering this problem? Any suggestions would be really appreciated.
Finally got the KS9’s on Saturday! WOW!!!
The difference to the old 8 or 9 year old KS04’s I had is huge!
I can hear sounds I did not hear with the older hearing aids! I am blown away!
The streaming from my iPhone to the ear makes phone calls SO easy and effortless. When he programmed them he asked if I wanted the sounds muted while it’s streaming bluetooth. I said no, but at my next visit I’ll get that changed rather. I was out walking and the phone call was so clear but the road noise was bugging me. I tried muting the aids but ended up hanging up my call. I think it will be better to just mute them as I’m listening to the call and don’t need the aids to be sending me noise too.
I got the noise program added. I was at my Christmas party on Saturday evening and I could hear great with these. I found the manual noise program to be slightly better than the auto.
I do want to get the music or Bluetooth program added too as I see that looks like it has options to tweak the balance of surrounding sound vs audio within the app. That will be handy.
I don’t really find much need for the iPhone app. The hearing aids do all I want with the buttons. If I had the tv streamer or the Bluetooth program perhaps it would be more useful.
Is there any way to see battery % anywhere? When in demo mode it shows this but I don’t see this for me.
I’ve heard people talk of acoustic phone mode. Can someone give more info on that and how I would ask for this. The Costco guy didn’t seem to know much about this or if it was even possible.
And then does acoustic phone setting take up a program or is it just a setting that impacts when a magnetic phone is held up to the aids?
And a significant change I noticed Sunday morning is my tinnitus is greatly reduced while wearing the aids. How is that possible?
TIA
Rob