Hello all. I am a frequent reader of this forum and have found lots of useful information. I have been a HA wearer for 30 years and am looking to replace my five year old Oticon Opn1’s. I now have about six weeks left on my trial of Oticon Xceeds which are their high-power BTE’s. I wear earmolds on both ears with minimal venting.
In my three weeks of testing with the Xceeds, I am not convinced that I am hearing significantly better than with my OPN1’s. My new audiologist says I should get the best results using the Xceeds and we are making adjustments, but I’m not sure. I don’t know if the technology in the latest Oticon Real (or other brand) HA would give me more benefit then the extra power available in the Xceeds.
I’d appreciate any assistance with this issue that anyone can offer. Should I trial the Reals or an alternative? Does anyone have observations based on my Audiogram? Even with a modest insurance benefit, this is an expensive decision that I won’t be able to make again for another three to five years.
Thanks for any help!
I don’t know but pertinent questions would be if there’s any conductive component to your loss. If so, that would point more towards using a UP BTE. If not, I’d think a RIC with custom mold and a P or UP receiver might do it. Frequency lowering might also be beneficial. Different brands handle it differently. Both Phonak and Oticon have fairly sophisticated ways of handling it, but some prefer Phonak’s approach. Other thing I’d want to know is what your word recognition scores are (percentage score at a certain decibel level, or better yet, done with properly adjusted hearing aids on) If scores are less than 60%, you might be a candidate for a cochlear implant. If you’re on Medicare, it should cover most of the expense. If not, it would depend on your insurance.
Thanks for the reply MDB. My loss is sensorineural and my word recognition is just over 60%. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about the Oticon Real to determine if I should trial it or an alternative.
Hi thalfaker,
I can empathise a lot with your situation as I am in a similar boat. I have a severe to profound loss and in the last 2 to 3 years I have been fit with either a RIC (Costco KS10) with a UP receiver or in the case of our national health service, an Oticon Dynamo SP 8, which is a predecessor to the Oticon Xceed.
I have therefore been in a position where I am familiar with the performance of both styles in relation to my loss. My observations with respect to the differences are as follows:
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Music is fantastic with the BTE
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The performance in noise is about the same with both aids
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The performance in the car is better with the BTE
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Own voice sounds better in noise with the BTE
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The RIC has better (direct) connectivity.
So where does that leave us? Well, the problem here is I am comparing a 2015 BTE with a 2020 RIC. Normally, the conclusion is - 5 year old aid should be inferior. Wrong. It is in fact in some respects a superior fit for my loss because I think it’s bass and low frequencies are coming through. It’s also because it has less compression and a more linear gain.
This will only be relevant to you I think if you are struggling to hear low frequencies with your OPN1. I can see from your audiogram that our left ear is a similar loss (mine is actually worse than is shown - I need to update it). But your right is less severe.
This not being the case, it might be better to stick with RIC as it does tend to have all the latest tech releases - bluetooth, AI etc. Especially in the case of the Oticon Real. And these may give better performance.
If you are wanting Bluetooth connectivity the newer aids will benefit you. Like getting away from intermediate devices.
If you can use frequency lowering it might be the best choice with RIC type aids. This will enable you to use a lower power receiver because your profound loses are in the upper frequencies. A P receiver should be fine.
If frequency lowering does not work for you I would go with the latest BTE UP aids, Phonak Naida.
With 60% word recognition you are on the cusp of CI. The need for great aids fit properly is very important to get some of that word understanding back.
Good luck
Surprising you have that level of speech understanding with your loss. If your AuD does not handle Cochlear Implants, it might be worth going to one who is and have a CI evaluation before your invest in nww HIs I was very borderline, but in my CI evaluation I qualified for insurance to cover it. They do more in depth testing - takes about 2 hours. Cheaper than new HIs. I am a year post surgery and it is much better understanding for me. Booth score is about 95%. Food for thought.
Thanks to all for the replies! Indeed gives me food for thought.
Hi, let me give you one more comment for your consideration.
About six months ago I decided to move on from my Ponak Enzo power HAs. I believe my loss is a bit more profound than yours. I’ve worn HAs all my life and have silicone molds with almost no venting.
I settled on the Real 1s with 105 db RICs. The sound is better than my Enzos, I still have plenty of headroom for increased gain, the HAs are much smaller than my Enzos which helps with sports, glasses, etc, and the Bluetooth connectivity is much better. I’ve been very happy with the Real 1s.
The only caveat I would give is the following: My sense is most audiologists are much more familiar with Phonak Target software than they are with Oticon Genie. To make things worse – and I know this as I’ve started “tweaking” the Real 1s programming myself – it’s not always obvious in Genie how changing different parameters will affect the hearing aids.
What this means is you’ll either need find an Audi who really knows Oticon Genie well, make a lot of trips to your Audi to try out different changes (which really should be made one at a time), or you’ll want to tweak the programming yourself.
If you want to go the latter route, there are many people on this forum who can get you started. It’s not difficult. The documentation from Oticon is also quite good.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.
Enzo is Resound’s power BTE. Naida is Phonak’s
As mentioned.
Phonak s power bte aid is the Naida.
Resound s power bte aid is the Enzo.
The OP would probably do well with any brand RIC aid properly fit.
I have the Real1 aids with the 105 db receivers. My word recognition without aids is worse than you, but with my aids my word recognition is close to 90%. I love my aids and also love Otion and have been wearing Oticon aids for just over 13 years.
Sorry, my mistake.
Enzo is indeed made by Resound.
I did trial the Phonak RICs in addition to Oticon Real 1s so got to know both manufacturers’ software.
Yes, my mistake. I’ve worn so many brands over the years I get them tangled up sometimes.
At the risk of betraying my ignorance, I need to understand more about trying an RIC option. While I have worn HAs for 30 years, I have only had BTEs and earmolds (currently OPN1s). Can someone help me understand the pros and cons of RIC? Also, any thoughts as to why this option has never been recommended or discussed by the various audiologists I’ve seen historically.
All of this help is greatly appreciated. btw, my name is Tom.
Hello Tom,
The Oticon Opn1’s are RIC hearing aids, not BTE hearing aids. Oticon’s Exceed hearing aids are the BTE hearing aids.
A Google search for ric versus bte hearing aids might help you understand this subject better.
Not sure how all of the OPN naming works, but my invoice from 2019 shows Oticon OPN 1 PowerPlus which is definitely a BTE model. I have not ever had an RIC aid, but will research to learn the differences with BTE.
My mistake. You are correct. I missed the Power Plus.
Have you considered the RIC type hearing aids with ear molds?
@TomHalf → just curious, do you use Speech Rescue on your OPN 1 PP? If yes, does it help with better speech understanding?
Sorry for the delay Volusiano. I’m unaware of “Speech Rescue” on the OPN 1 so have no experience to pass along.
If you don’t even know what Speech Rescue is, then obviously neither your old HCP nor your new HCP mentioned it for you, and it’s unlikely that they have it turned on for you.
I think you may be able to get by with a miniRITE on your right ear, but on your left ear, an UP (Ultra Power) hearing aid can help by giving you more amplification. But because your hearing loss in both ears starts taking a dip after 2 KHz, it may be helpful to try out Speech Rescue, which is a frequency lowering technology by Oticon that takes the sounds in the higher frequency range (where your hearing suffer severe to profound loss) and move it to a lower frequency range (at around 1.7 to 2.4 KHz) where your hearing loss is not as severe and profound, so that you can hear those higher frequency sounds that have not been audible to you before due to profound losses in that range.
It doesn’t hurt or cost anything to try out Speech Rescue to see if it helps you out any bit, because the technology has always been there for you and all was needed to be done was to activate it. If neither of your HCPs mentioned and tried to turn on Speech Rescue for you, I would consider it a disservice on their part. I would consider trying that out before diving into something more expensive like the Real.