I guess you could always ask your HCP is there is a way to turn off the M&RIE mic and do part of your trial with it turned off. Um_bongo or Neville or Eric.Cobb or some other HCP might know but I think that there are really advanced audiological setups where you can have “surround” sound in your environment and listen with just your HA’s on your ears, no headphones. So if ReSound or anyone else provided the right multi-channel audio recording with speech coming out of one channel and noise out of all the other channels, one could really test in a “lab” environment how the HA’s work. ReSound provides all these fancy audio situations in their infomercials - they ought to provide similar advanced audio recordings to HCPs to demo the value of what they’re selling and we as consumers ought to request such in-office demos. Seems pretty primitive for a profession that issues Ph.D.'s to tell the client - “Sorry! I really can’t demonstrate the features of this $7,000 device in my office. But do go out into the real world and try to figure out all by your lonesome what the dang thing does in the next few weeks before you fork $7,000 over to me. Good Luck! All the best in your lonely, uninformed quest! See ya later when you’re ready to pay $7,000!”
Edit_Update: Even better if the hearing care professional could cook up a set of standardized “real-life situation” tests that are widely know and accepted for 3D listening ability just as there is a WRS score and a SIN test, etc., (although the exact ones applied might differ). When REM equipment is $15,000 or whatever and a dedicated sound booth must be quite expensive, surely the profession for the $$$ and Euro’s and every other denomination charged could afford standard 3D audio tests, including one’s users could download and try out on their own speaker systems.
I mean, they forget that their competitors also include their old aids. So if they want people to buy new and more expensive, it only makes sense to properly explain the value new aids could bring.
