That really depends on the person and the hearing loss. Personally, I couldn’t disagree more. I recently switched from in the ear to behind the ear, and I can’t imagine ever going back. Behind the ear is much better for me.
Also ReSound has the M&RIE receiver, which for some is the best of both worlds.
The mic’s over the ear must be better than the small one in the ear? I bought a pair of Rexton on eBay as backup to my Costco KS9.0’s and they allow me to select Right or Front or Left or Rear or All - good feature in some places
Just picked up my Philips 9040 from CC last night. I’ve been wearing the KS10s. The occlusion in the 9040s started driving me crazy since they were the smallest closed domes. They gave me several other domes so I switched to the small open in one ear, because he only gave me one. The other ear I switched to a medium open. I’ll stop by today and pickup another small open dome. It’s very difficult to tell by looking if it’s open or closed (in the small size).
The medium dome is a little large but fits more snug. The good news is that it has helped with the occlusion.
The things I’ve noticed so far is that with the 9040s I hear more sounds, but I seem to also hear conversations fine as well (time will tell). The wind noise sounds more like I remember when I didn’t wear aids, but I can still understand conversations. It seems like I can hear sounds all around me which helps with directionality. Finally, the sounds, sound more natural than the KS10 (at least I think so).
It will take some time for my brain to get used to hearing more sounds, and I can’t tell yet if my hearing comprehension is better or worse since I’ve had them < 24 hours.
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The Philips 9040s are still doing well. I can hear well when in a car (I struggled some with the KS10). Loud sounds are too loud, and the music setting the highs are too loud. All this can be adjusted.
Still problems in noisy (restaurant or room full of people talking). I have the noise program and the Airplane program, so I just need to try more situations. Costco said none of the aids work real well in noisy situations. Most of the fitters at my CC wear hearing aids.
I switched back to the KS10s and noticed sounds were not as natural and I couldn’t hear quite as well. With that said the KS10s are not bad and do pretty well, I’m just looking for something better.
I’m impressed with the 9040 wind handling capability (outside, car with windows down, etc.)
I changed the domes from the Philips open 8mm, to the Starkey open 7mm, and this helped a lot with comfort.
We went to a restaurant this evening. There was noise coming from the bar and echoing off the ceiling. It wasn’t terribly noisy, I would say moderate. The 9040s did ok, but I wouldn’t say better than the KS10. I changed the program to noise and it lowered the noise some, but not sure I could hear better. My wife asked if I could hear the music and I said “what music”. She couldn’t make out the words. When I switched to the Music program, I could hear the music, but not always make out the words. This of course made everything louder and more difficult to hear conversations.
I can’t really tell that the AI is working that well.
Most people have told me the Oticon Reals are not going to do any better in noisy situations. Someone that has them can let me know if they do really well in noisy environments.
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I have the Oticon Reals. I can’t compare them to the HAs you have but I did trial the Oticon Mores and a pair of Starkey Evolv AIs. I will say there is a marked difference in two things with my Reals. Sudden loud sounds are not overwhelming. And hearing voices in noisy restaurants is much better. That being said, some noisy situations are just too noisy. But I noticed a big improvement in the Reals.
Made some adjustments to the 9040s and they are working quite well. We went to a restaurant last night that was noisy, and I was able to hear my wife sitting across from me very well. It seemed like the “General” setting worked better than the “Noise” setting. After a little time the “General” setting seemed to be suppressing more of the background and bringing out the speech.
I found out my insurance company will pay for hearing aids (after a copay), after telling me for years that they would not. It even states in the policy hearing aids are not covered, but I got a confirmation letter (email) stating that they would cover every 3 years.
So I have an appointment setup with their provider next week to try Oticon.
SO now my insurance (UHC) came back and said I was not covered under insurance, only a discount program, after saying I was covered. The discount program is $5k for Real 1s, so I’ll be canceling my hearing appointment. Very frustrating!
That’s too bad. I would have loved to hear you share your impression of both the Real and the 9040 comparison.
@kharri a few thoughts, but first context. Being wearing HAs for >8 years, currently KS10ds with both ear moulds and Sound Recover (mapping high frequencies to lower ones). My word recognition scores are still poor, however in actual practice ( 1 on 1 in quiet; 1 on 1 in car; and 1 on 1 in moderately noisey restaurant) except for the last one, my asking for something to be repeated is well within acceptable range. I am about to do trial of Phillips 9040 and/or Jabra Pro 10 in hopes of improved speech recognition without it taking so much of my focus and attention to listen intently and short circuit any emotional frustration etc.
It took me a while to adjust to and actually then prefer the occluded feeling and sound of ear molds with appropriate vents, but sounds like you find it quite annoying-distracting. To me your audiogram suggested that molds would provide some improvement for speech in noise. Similarly Sound Recover might give some slight improvement. As you have probably experienced already tweaking HAs and introducing a new element one at a time, adjusting to it and evaluating before tweaking that one thing slightly again, before jumping to experimenting with another parameter and doing the same. It can be a tedious and time consuming process. Optimizing for “X” often has a negative impact on “Y” and finding the sweet spot can be a challenge.
On a different note, I and a few other people on forum had done the LACE audio online training focused on speech in noise and improving short term audio memory. I believe the cost was $125 and I learned a lot about my hearing challenges and things I could do (and become somewhat automatic) for improving. It wasn’t a magic bullet, but some improvement to my brain processing audio presented to it by HAs. Google search should get you to their website.
I wish for you ease with your hearing/listening and look forward to more of your reports and posts.
Edit to add this P.S. For the KS10s I did purchase used the Roger Select external mic. New I think it is $1,600 and used was even $850. It is incredibly effective even for groups in noisey settings, but insanely expensive. The Jabra pro 10 has an external mic that can focus on 1 person who is wearing it, OR if placed on a table it becomes omnidirectional mic; very inexpensive compared to Roger Select. The Phillips only has external mic for use by a single partner. There are solutions (if one can afford it), and yet each device or tweak adds complexity to audio processing.
Thanks for the detailed post!
I’m doing fairly well with the 9040s, much better than the KS10s. I still miss words and some days are better than others. I’ve adjusted the aids where I can hear in noisy situations much better. Sound Recover has been turned on with the 9040s and the KS10s. Last time I was at CC I had him switch the receiver on my left ear to a 85db (it was 60db). Now both ear receivers are 85db. My audi tries to use the minimal db receiver, he says it can sometimes help with word recognition. I like to have some headroom, for adjustments. So he gives me both receivers for both ears to play with.
Sometimes I get a stopped up feeling and it is enough to affect my hearing. I have a Eustachian tube relief device that helps at least for a while.
Several independent audiologists have said the Real 1s, are much better than the 9040s, but then I say, oh you must have tried the 9040s and all of them have said no. They are just able to quote some specs. I would still like to try the Reals if the 9040s don’t provide enough word recognition.
Thanks for the suggestion on LACE, I looked at it several years ago, but haven’t since.
@kharri culd you elaborate some on “… doing fairly well with the 9040s, much better than KS 10s.” Glad to know that and it is encouraging.
Also I imagine you had considered the Jabra Pro 10, but I believe have not done a trial of them. If considered, why did you decide on Phillips direction rather than Jabra? I also am more drawn to Phillips and the more open audio paradigm as my trial as would be perhaps the largest change from KS10. However, for me big advantage of Jabra would be multi mic accessory (~$350) even though I probably would use it infrequently it is only ~$60 more than the mini mic accessory & I’d opt to spend a bit more to get the option for a remote omnidirectional portable mic.
I was drawn to the 9040s because I had read good things about them, and they were somewhat similar to the Oticon Reals. I liked the idea of trying a more open Paradyme.
I did not try the Jabra, and didn’t really try the 9040s because they didn’t have any with batteries that were charged.
When I say they are working pretty well what I mean is when I first got them I notice a huge difference on understanding my wife in quiet situations. After I wore the for a couple of weeks there were times that I would ask her to repeat. CC made some adjustments (and so did I). There was one day she said I couldn’t hear anything. I think this is more of my hearing being affected by my head being stopped up more than the hearing aids.
Another situation was in church; I have them adjusted so I can hear conversations better but they are too loud (I have to turn them down). Again, I believe I can make some adjustments.
I finally got my KS10s adjusted (after a couple of years) where my speech recognition was 80% (my eval). These settings were not close to the CC settings.
I’m not too interested in the multi mic, because I don’t find many situations that I would use it. I do have the 9040 external mic (you can also use your phone for this), but never really used it.
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Do you use the Phillips TV streamer? Also, do you know if they have the frequency lowering program activated (I believe it’s called Speech Rescue)?
I don’t have the TV streamer for the 9040. I bought it for my other aids and found I didn’t use it. I like to have my aids adjusted so I don’t need a streamer (if possible). I found the streamer didn’t really help me much with speech understanding.
What I’m finding fascinating about the 9040s is that I’m able to understand speech better in a variety of situations (car, quiet, noise, windy). I did not have as good of luck with my other technology HAs.
I have not tried watching a movie or TV with the 9040s (I don’t really watch TV).
Speech Rescue is turned on (except for music). I haven’t tried turning it off, or adjusting the settings.
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If the 9040 behaves anything like the Oticon aids in this department, and it probably does, the pairing action with the TV streamer would install a special TV streamer program automatically into the aids. Then when you want to use the TV streamer, you just select this program. When you’re in the TV streamer program, it would use all the settings you have set for your default program P1. So if your default program P1 has Speech Rescue enabled, you will hear its effect when using the TV streamer.
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Was just at a fast food restaurant (Raising Canes) where is was very noisy. Lots of people and not a real large place. People talking, music playing, and the staff were yelling out people’s names to pick-up their order.
I was able to carry on a conversation with my wife sitting across from me without a problem.
It seemed like the General setting worked about the best. I’ve been playing with some mods to the general which lowered the background noise some. The other settings worked, but general was about the best even though the background noise was higher. It worked like I saw on the training videos.