Thanks so much for the input. I’ve had the temples of my current glasses adjusted twice at the optician’s. Currently the new arrangement is that they are hugging my head instead of my ears. Better for hearing. Except they bounce some now and hit my HAs. Worse for seeing because they wiggle some and are triple progressives. But I think you’re right that I am going to need new frames. Likely wire frames instead of the plastic that I have now. I’m waiting on an eye doctor appointment to see if I need a new prescription as well. It’s all starting to wear me out. (Apologies for hijacking the thread. On topic, I’m not faring very well in restaurants either.)
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I erred in saying my frames cross on top of my wires (that’s what I thought was happening when I plopped the glasses down on top of them). The wires go between my ears and the frames but the audi made the wires so short and told me to keep the HA’s close to the top of my ear “crevice” that the relative tautness of the wires holds the HA’s down in the slight “crevice” between the inside of my ears and the ends of my frames behind the ear. - We can claim to not be hijacking the thread as this is about how to wear one’s HA’s in a restaurant to better be able to hear all the noise while being comfy at the same time!
JIm, I had the same problem when wearing sunglasses the HA would sit up high on my ear with a 2 receiver wire … I had my audi change it out to a 3 receiver wire and the problem went away… HA now sits lower
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The Multi-mic is pretty awesome. With it, you will hear your wife better than she can hear you. It also works with telecoil loop equipped theaters, has a europin receptacle, and a 3.5mm stereo input.
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I think the two things that affect her are the total bill that I’m running up - I’ve let her know that maybe I’d like a TV streamer, too! - and the fact that she really can’t put on my HA’s and try something like the Multi-Mic or the TV streamer and appreciate directly how helpful it might be. OTH, when we’re both at the same spot in the gym and the treadmills are whining away and the punching bags are being pounded to smithereens and she can barely hear her own podcast in her ears, she appreciates directly the value that gun muffs or noise-canceling headphones might have. She’s been very supportive of getting the HA’s themselves but she questions how far true need goes and where just fun toys begins - and I don’t blame her for the total cost outlay.
Thanks for the tip! Seeing such positive comments on remote mics really reassures me that the extra cost will be worth it.
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Thanks for the tip. I’m very happy with the position of the HA’s. I think a longer wire might be better just for being able to take a more contoured, circuitous route to my ear canal.
I was actually suggesting to Noreen that maybe her difficulties were caused in part by the HA’s sitting too far back from the top of the ear (her hearing dislikes) and the domes getting dislodged by not enough tension between the wire in the ear canal and the fitting of the wire around the ear to keep things in place.
The wire and the tip of the HA at the top of my ear essentially point parallel to the line of the glasses frame. I know pressure of the glasses frame on the HA, slightly pressing it against the inside of my ear helps keep it in place because if I take my glasses off and rapidly move my head from side to side, I can hear a slight rustling sound of the HA moving against my hair but I can’t create the same sound wearing my glasses even violently shaking my head left to right or up and down.
The ReSound manual says to position an HA at the top of an ear - but has a lousy, unclear line drawing illustrating placement. Oticon has a pretty nice video of HA placement and removal with the user having a nice curvaceous wire that fits ear contours beautifully (I’ll have to show my audi the video on my first fitting revisit!!!). Looks like the person in the Oticon video, given the length of the wire up at ear level, puts her HA’s just a tad further back behind her ear than I do. But I love the perception of sound and localization so much with my HA placement, I don’t want to start moving things around too much and ruin it.
BTW, I loved the pithy instruction of my audi on which HA goes where. “All you need to remember,” she said, “is RED is RIGHT!”
How to put on and remove RITE and miniRITE hearing aids | Oticon.
It is worth it. You know, you can catch good deals on these accessories on eBay on occasion. The multi-mic can be had for $225 to $400+ Just be SURE that you get the right accessories. The older line will not work with the newer hearing aid and vice versa.
Right now, the only one I see is about $370
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Yeah, you’re definitely into the toy area. Much lower cost options were available that would have quite likely met your hearing needs.
To help Noreen get her placement right, here are two pictures of the Quattro on my left ear, front and back. My ear lobe holds the Quattro in place because if I bend the ear lobe away from my head, a slight tension in the wire makes the HA pop up from my ear and move forward. I wish the wires were longer and didn’t come so straight down but the audi thinks #3’s would be way too long.
Don’t know if it was just for illustrative purposes, but Sports Lock is generally curved within the outer ear opening (if I’ve got my terms right, behind the antitragus)
Thanks for the tip. All the Quattro manual says is “Tuck the sports lock in the concha” but it felt if I bent one too far, it was going to break. It took my wife 6 days to say, “What’s that sticking out from your ear?!” so I haven’t been too concerned about it. For a piece of plastic, they are dang expensive - must be military-grade, like the $500 hammers and toilet seats… I will go looking for YouTube videos, etc., on how to do a proper job tucking them in without running up a bill breaking the little buggers.
UPDATE Looking up where the antitragus is, I think my basic problem, if you look at the first picture of my ear from the front (see above), is that I essentially have NO antitragus. I think something like 10% of folks have my “condition.” So, no place to tuck up a sports lock. And actually, this deficit showed up long ago in my life, <<< sob, sob, sob >>>, as because I have no antitragus to speak of, I could never keep earbuds in very well except those like Samsung’s AKG’s, which flare out where the cord attaches and provide friction against the lower ear lobe even though there is no antitragus to tuck them in.
Here’s a decent but not close-up enough YouTube video from an audi demonstrating how to properly insert a RIC HA, sports lock and all (for folks with antitragi or antitraguses!).
Back to noisy restaurants, now that our HA’s are all locked and loaded!
Jim , I have the tv streamer and it works great… also the multi mic can also be used to stream the tv… when I was vacationing and watching a ball game I tried placing the mic in front of tv speaker and it worked nicely… only negative was that it needs recharging
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I would think your audiologist would replace the sportlocks at no cost. Do you think they are doing any good? If not, they are easily removable. It’s my understanding that many people don’t use them.
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Jim, have you tried tucking them toward the back of your ear, toward the antihelix?
Here are my HAs with sport lockes after over two months use, see how they curve back? (note they are reversed, the one on the left is the right ear HA)
Here is an illustration showing them in place. (I can get good pictures of mine, they are too hidden)
In your picture I can see no antitragus, but I see a nice groove for them to lay in toware the antihelix.
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And of course, here’s the relevant Dr Cliff video
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Have you considered trying another brand of hearing aid? Each manufacturer has a different approach to sound. While the Quattros are no doubt very good, they may just not be the best for you. . .
I wore ReSound Linx2 for several years and never felt they were that great in noisy environments. I’ve recently been testing all the flagship models from the major brands - Widex Evoke 440s, Oticon OPN 1s, ReSound Quattros, etc, and while all are better than the Linx2, my brain tends to prefer the sound of the Widex and Oticon models over those from ReSound.
Your mileage may vary. . .
Chris
Thank you for the input. I tried the Oticon OPN 1, but only for 5 days before I had to return them to the audiologist because her trial period (without a purchase) was 7 days. I had trouble with the app crashing, some trouble with the fit, and she only had 1 other brand, Phonak I think. I am a first time user and it was all so distracting that I don’t think I had much of a sense of how things sounded. I wanted to try the ReSound. I switched to an audiologist I felt I could work with better. She only sells ReSound and Signia. I’m beyond the 30 day return, so I can’t return them now. You have to buy the aids to try them, and you have a 30 day return. I am 2.5 hrs away from a Costco where I’d have had more selection and a much more generous trial period. I wish I lived somewhere where I could have tried a few more. And, where I am, if you don’t buy from the audiologist you get charged a restocking fee when you return a trial pair you bought–I found the restocking fees to be as “low” as $200 for the pair and as high as $500 for the pair. So, I’m committed to ReSound. When these die–and with $6K invested I hope they live a long time, I think you are correct that I need to revisit the brand issue.
As a ReSound user, not a professional, it’s my understanding that they give the fitter a lot of knobs to tweak while setting up their aids. Maybe it’s worth paying another professional to look at your setup.
I am starting to feel like a real whine-in-the-butt, but I think I do agree that I need to persist. I hadn’t thought of consulting another audiologist, but it may come to that. Thanks.
Great video. Reminds me of Starkey’s motto that they want to change HA’s from something people HAVE to wear to something they WANT to wear. Would give folks that wore the “HA of the future” almost superhuman power!
I wonder if the “ultimate” device is something akin to MS’s HoloLens or Magic Leap’s headset? That would provide the visual processing to go along with the audio provided by whatever HA’s work a visual headset. Guess the ultimate problem, beyond whether anyone wants to run around for any part of the day with a 1/2 pound to pound device strapped to their head, is where does one get the processing power and the battery to run such a device?? Perhaps if rooms or buildings beamed electromagnetic energy some Buck Rogers in the 25th Century device could always be gathering its power out of the air and also transmitting and gathering processed data wirelessly, let’s say, from powerful servers in the building. I doubt anything like this will come around in my lifetime at a reasonable price for consumers. I think in a Starkey blurb that I read somewhere that the military is very interested in devices that augment hearing for soldiers battling in incredibly noisy environments and perhaps a headset that gave a soldier superhearing and supervision, just like night vision goggles, would be worth buying at a premium, at least for special forces.
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