Yep, I can vouch for that. I have a Galaxy Note 8, my Quattros are ASHA-capable, and I think the Galaxy Note 8 was hardware-capable of supporting whatever BT and Android versions were required for ASHA but Samsung at the time was not seeing fit to do the work to upgrade “old” phones to the latest Android OS version - I think my Note 8 was only about 2 years old when ASHA started becoming available in Android - unlike my iPhone 6S, which is 6 years old going on 7 and will receive the latest iOS version (15) this fall. Hopefully, Google promising 5 years of Android updates for Pixel’s will really give Samsung a hotfoot on this score to do better. Samsung makes great hardware - if they would only update it longer!
Yup - just tried this out. I turned off Jabra and S21. Turned on Note 8, then Jabra’s, and the Jabra did appear as devices to pair with - selected ok, and thought this might lead somewhere. But they don’t actually ‘connect’, nor can I get any sound to the aids.
This was without the Jabra Enhance Pro App installed. I did that next, and you were correct that I could make adjustments within the App, and even hear the “ding” through the aids. But no streaming, no BT connection established. Oh well…
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Samsung Galaxy a51 model is compatible and has direct connectivity with Jabra / Resound One/ Quattro hearing aids
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Setting aside the Bluetooth and Streaming shortcomings, I am interested in what others are experiencing in terms of the basic function of these hearing aids. Here is what I’m hearing thus far:
- Overall, they’re working reasonably well, with decent speech comprehension, especially considering I’m only 1 week in, with just the initial settings done by the Fitter.
- It seems that the in-ear microphone helps with localization when outside, and also when listening with over the ear headphones.
- I do like the App, although I take issue with some aspects of how it works when you change from one program to another (the EQ carries over, rather than going back to the default for that program).
- They do well in terms of high-frequency feedback, which is virtually absent, but I do often hear what seems to be brief, mid to high frequency artifacts, which are almost like a ‘resonance’ or ‘buzz’.
- While I understand the concept and potential value of hearing aids adjusting automatically to changing ambient sound conditions, I find this is more distracting than it is helpful. Perhaps this behavior can be changed in a subsequent fitting session.
- Regarding this automatic adjustment, is it possible for each side to adjust independently of the other side? For example, I’ll be watching a show, and the left side will change its performance and sound. You know how you can touch the hearing aids, and hear that ‘crackling’ noise - it’ll be present on one side, and not the other, presumably because of it having a different program, or different balance between the mics on the device vs in the ear.
So it’s definitely a mixed experience so far, and I’m curious if others are noticing any of the same issues that I am.
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I’m still curious to hear what others are experiencing with these, relative to my post above.
@Ureout has been wearing the ReSound Ones for some time and when last he wrote, had no complaints. Guess he hasn’t yet gotten the M&RIE receivers to try as he hasn’t updated the thread containing his OP, with his last post back around May 11th. Theoretically, if the Jabras are almost a carbon copy of the Ones, most folks with the Jabras should have his experience.
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I ordered custom molds which should be in on August 16. When I was in getting the impressions done I asked to try the M&RIE receivers again. We swapped in the receivers with longer wires (went from 2 to 3) and medium closed domes (down from large closed domes). While the calibration indicated a potential for feedback, I’ve not experienced it any more than I did with the MP receivers, 2 wires, and large closed domes. With the medium domes the M&RIE receivers fit deeper in my canals, and don’t migrate out, even without using the sports lock.
The sound with the M&RIE receivers is overall better. There seems to be more detail in what I’m hearing. And surprisingly, streaming with the TV Streamer 2 is even better than with the regular MP receivers.
In the All Around program I started out with All Access Directionality, which worked well. At a followup, we switched to M&RIE in the All Around program. I subsequently read the ReSound white paper that indicated that All Access Directionality is the preferred default to allow the brain to hear more sounds, (sounds like the Oticon More, huh), and intend to go back to that when I get the molds on the 16th. M&RIE is the default directionality in the Outdoor program, as the M&RIE receiver has been demonstrated to reduce wind noise over the regular receivers.
If I experience any issues with the molds, I’ll be perfectly happy to continue using medium closed domes. I will ultimately settle on 4 programs - All Around, Ultra Focus, Restaurant, and Music. With the 4 programs I’ll leave the default directionality setting- All Access Directionality in All Around, Ultra Focus in Ultra Focus, Autoscope in Restaurant, and Omni in Music.
I’m really glad I asked to try the M&RIE receivers after the initial feedback issues, and was particularly surprised at the improvement in TV streaming audio. It’s like going from HD to 4K is with TV pictures.
After reading quite a bit about the ReSound One/Jabra aids and the Oticon More and comparing spec sheets, I’m much more inclined to stay with the Jabra aids, enjoy hearing sounds all around me, and pocket quite a bit of savings versus the More from an Oticon-authorized audiologist.
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I’ve noticed a couple of other things with the Jabra aids recently. First, my tinnitus seems to be much reduced and less annoying, even after removing the aids. I discovered years ago that when I wear hearing aids my tinnitus seems less noticeable. It was somewhat of a revelation the last couple of days to realize that without the aids my tinnitus seems much less pronounced.
The other thing I noticed is that while listening to music in the car it sounds so much better, just in the All Around program, than I remember with other aids.
I listen to SiriusXM in the car, streaming it from the iPhone app to the car’s infotainment system. I can hear so much more detail with the Jabras. Percussion instruments, cymbals, tambourines, various wind instruments, piano. And I can hear the subtle details of each of the instruments. Really enjoying rediscovering music that I’ve listened to for years. Who knew that there were birds chirping in the background while Minnie Riperton sings “Loving You?”
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Just to get the exact listening situation, is this with the M&RIE mics operating in a “low-sound level” environment? Or being in the car with wind and road noise, have the M&RIE mics kicked out in favor of the behind-the-ear mics, which get more precedence in noisy listening environments? I know ReSound mentions the transition is done according to the noise level around the listener. Does the app or the sensation of listening give you any distinct clues as to where amongst the HA mics the sound is coming from at any given moment, e.g., can you sense the switch in how things sound coming into your ears?
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It’s in my All Around program which has directionality currently set as M&RIE. I don’t sense any changes, other than great music, whether the car is stopped or moving. I drive an EV so there’s not much noise even at speed. I did also notice that at all but the highest music levels I can still hear the turn signal.
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Today I returned my trial Jabra Enhance aids to Costco and ordered KS10s (after a brief demo revealed nothing surprising).
I had spent a month comparing the Jabras to my “old” KS9s outdoors (bike riding), in restaurants, in a theater, and, over the past several days, in a large fairly reverberant room (high ceilings, hard surfaces, large windows) with 15 people milling about, conversing, kids playing (family reunion), including 7 children, ages 1 to 12 - the 1 year old is a joyous shrieker.
I use power domes at present. I had downloaded the ReSound and Phonak fitting software so I could compare the gains set by the fitter between the two aids. I had taken the Jabras back once to Costco for a fitting adjustment, where, among other things, he significantly boosted the low frequency gain for streaming. After that, I used fitting software to make some temporary adjustments for both the KS9s and Jabras so I could get a sense of what some of the features were doing, for my ears.
On balance, I think I could achieve comparable performance (sound quality and speech intelligibility) with either brand, with enough time spent fitting (even though, as I received them from Costo, they sounded pretty far apart). I had high hopes for the M&RIE receiver, but I really couldn’t tell a difference. I guess I have an “average” pinna, so that the compensation programmed into the behind the ear microphone versions works pretty well. The Jabras do seem to have better windblock. Both the Jabras and the KS9s had occasional (relatively rare) issues with maintaining the Bluetooth connection, depending on the device and the situation.
The big difference for me was my perception of Bluetooth audio quality, particularly streaming music, and the fact that the KS9s and KS10s will connect to my Macbook. It bugged me that I could not understand why music streamed from my Pixel 4a to the Jabras was pretty much unaffected by settings of the 5 band equalizer in the Pi Android music player, but it was significantly affected if I wore my wired Bose Quiet Comfort 15 over the ear headphones on top of the Jabra aids. I thought I ought to be able to get the Jabras to sound similarly to the KS9s, because I enjoy the sound from the KS9s. So digging into the ASHA Android spec https://source.android.com/devices/bluetooth/asha#audio-packet-format-and-timing, I discovered that ASHA is apparently using a G.722 codec G.722 - Wikipedia, which samples the audio signal at 16Khz, and uses up to a 64 kbs data transmission rate over BLE. Digging more into codecs, G.722 is a relatively old codec that was created to allow transfer of “commentator quality” voice on 64kbs channels. It was not intended for music reproduction (see Comparison of audio coding formats - Wikipedia)
Playing with the Pi equalizer, it seemed that the relative “fullness” of music streamed from the KS9 was due to energy in the 120Hz to 460Hz band. My guess is that the G.722 codec in ASHA is filtering out most of the energy there before sampling, which would explain why neither the fitter’s gain changes nor the Pi equalizer had a noticeable impact on making the music from the Jabra more similar to that from the KS9 (which I enjoy).
I did a brief experiment with a bluetooth connection between the Jabras and my iPad, using MFi, and I had the same experience of streamed music sounding “thin” to my ears, compared to the KS9s, but I didn’t go any further to try to see how MFi is implemented
SO (and sorry for going on and on, but perhaps someone will benefit, or respond to improve my understanding of these things), the Bluetooth LE Audio LC3 codec, when it’s finalized and deployed, should be superior (for music) to any of the codecs used by Bluetooth Classic What is LE Audio and LC3, the latest in Bluetooth audio? - SoundGuys. The Jabras seem more future safe in that regard. So maybe I should stay with them and wait for the firmware update. But, my current phone and 2021 Macbook only support Bluetooth 5.0, so I won’t be getting high fidelity Bluetooth LE Audio streamed to them. I’d need a new phone and a new laptop. Android 12 has APIs to support Bluetooth LE Audio profiles, but the phone or laptop would need hardware support for BLE Audio as well. I’ve read that the Samsung S21 that uses Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon 888 will support Bluetooth LE Audio, but lower range Snapdragon versions do not. Have no idea what Apple or Google may do in the next product cellphone product cycle. Maybe there will be Bluetooth LE Audio dongles?
Anyway, given my priorities, I decided to just eat the battery drain cost and stick with Phonak for the time being. My KS9s have always had a problem with perspiration entering the 312 battery compartment (I had one pair replaced under warranty so far), so I’ll go ahead and try the KS10s.
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Thanks for this very detailed and comprehensive post, @garyh. It is definitely helpful to me.
I have an appointment tomorrow, and will be discussing a lot of this. The fitter was supposed to check with their Jabra rep about the streaming issues, but she didn’t get back to me, so I don’t know if this happened.
I have wondered if the BT LE connectivity and audio quality might improve with future firmware updates. I have the S21 Ultra, with BT 5.2, as you indicated, but I generally don’t buy something in hopes that certain weaknesses will be improved. That often doesn’t end well.
I did some casual comparisons today with my prior Widex 330’s. Listening with my Sony on the ear BT headphones (not streaming through the Jabra’s) sounded slightly better with the Jabra’s than my 330’s, but they were close. And for all I know, it could be closer with tweaking of the 330’s settings.
For TV and conversation, the Widex were slightly better, but again after only the initial fitting, the difference could be made up with additional tweaks on the Jabra.
One reason for upgrading is to have the benefit of streaming, but if this is all I can expect from the Jabra’s in terms of music and bass, it’s not worth it, since the basic hearing aid function isn’t a clear winner as yet. I am willing to give her and them more time to see if the speech intelligibility can be improved further, but unless I become convinced streaming will be improved post-haste, I’m not likely to stay with them.
I’ll see if I can demo the KS10’s again tomorrow, but try them out with streaming, as that difference could be easily heard.
I have been thinking about this recently, and it made me wonder:
Since sound normally enters our ears via the pinna and ear canal, why would we want a microphone for a hearing aid to be anywhere but the ear canal? Now perhaps technological and manufacturing limits have made this difficult or impossible in the past, but now that it is available, is this not the most logical place to put the microphone?
There might be some reasons to ‘supplement’ the in-ear microphone with one or more on the hearing aid itself (although I’m not certain exactly what these would be), but wouldn’t it be best in-ear? If so, perhaps we’ll see more aids offering this capability.
I imagine there are other factors involved, and I’d be interested in understanding them.
I agree that it’s a very logical place to put one microphone, which is why I was eager to try the Jabras. I tried Lyrics for a year to try to get the benefit of in-canal microphone placement, but they just didn’t work well enough for me. M&RIE in the Jabras didn’t make a noticeable difference to me, unfortunately. I guess my pinnae are pretty “average.”
Having more microphones let the aids do better analysis of the sound environment, do beamforming, etc., to compensate for hearing loss and changes in brain function. And, I guess aesthetics led to putting microphones behind/above the ear.
A long, long, long time ago, when I was a post-doc, we published some research to better understand the “cocktail party problem” in older adults with basically normal audiograms. The aging brain lost some of its ability to use interaural time differences to localize sound sources. Little did I know that I would embody what we were studying. I think hearing aid tech is trying to compensate for more than auditory sensitivity changes.
If you haven’t read the ReSound M&RIE white paper, it’s pretty interesting. tinyurl.com/4kd6nm
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Precisely on the need for more than a single microphone per ear. But the feedback problem, as ReSound and discussion here makes clear, limits the usefulness of the microphone in the ear. Besides amplification to compensate for hearing loss, there is also the problem with the microphone in the ear as the environment gets noisy. I’ve forgotten exactly why but in a very noisy environment, the One/Jabra microphone reception switches from in-the-ear(M&RIE) to exclusively behind-the-ear. So according to the PR, it’s great for naturalness and directionality of sound in modest sound environments (normal conversation) but behind-the-ear is best, maybe even ULTRAFOCUS, in a very noisy restaurant, etc. I’m still waiting for the next gen of HA’s to come along (BT LE Audio, bidirectional microphones in MFi HA’s, etc.).
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The All Around program defaults to All Access Directionality and acts as Jim describes. I had that set for a couple of weeks and it worked well. You can also have the directionality set as M&RIE and it doesn’t switch away in noisy situations. I’ve had that setting for the last two weeks, and it’s been fine.
In retrospect I should have had one program with All Access Directionality and one with M&RIE for back to back a/b testing. I’ll have that set up when I get my custom molds on Monday and see how that goes.
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I’ve had the Jabra with M&RIE for a bit over 2 weeks now. I had previously trialed the Prezas with acrylic ear molds (was allergic to the black silicon domes) when my K6’s died. I honestly had nothing but trouble with the Prezas from the get-go–very long story and not a typical situation. I LOVE the Jabras with M&RIE!! I haven’t had to have any reprograming done yet. I do miss the acrylic ear mold as the M&RIE can only do the soft silicon for custom molds. They are a bit harder to put in. If anyone had some dexterity problems, they’d probably want a skeleton ear mold vs the smaller one that I have.
I do have feedback/sound loop happening on my right side. We plugged up the vent and the occurrences decreased a lot but was still there. Since it wasn’t happening with my left side, we decided to make a new impression and get a new mold made. We’ll see how that works when I get it.
Impressions: Wow! I can localize a lot better. It’s a small difference but one I’ve noticed. When riding bikes with my child, I can tell that a car is coming on my left where as before, it sounded loud in both ears. At home, the aids are mostly using the Mic in the ear so I’m not getting a lot of rubbing noise from my glasses. I hadn’t experienced the other mics turning on until I went to a clothing store about 3 days after getting them. The sound “opened up” and I could hear the music playing and people talking around me. I honestly thought I had broken them since there hadn’t been enough noise at home to make the turn on 
. It’s not a huge difference when it happens, kinda like my ears popped and I could hear a bit more around me. Then back in the car and they go back to the Mic in the ear, only. I’ve had one side activate while the other didn’t when the sound was only on that side.
I’m a teacher so my big test was beginning-of-the-year in-services. I did pretty good considering we were all masked up. The only time I had a huge issues was when we were given a stretch break and we all started talking at once in the auditorium (it had been almost 2 years since many of us had seen other in person). Wow! that was painful!! I used the ultra focus program. That helped a little bit. It was just too much sound to handle and I had to take them out. I could tell noise suppression was trying to kick in but this was a huge group of teachers, all of us talking . I figure I wont be in that situation again until next year.
I have barely streamed them so I can’t really say much about the quality. I will say that the few times I did, the app locked up and I had to restart it. That’s annoying.
But, I can talk on the phone with the phone held up to my ear instead of me trying to get it on the hearing aid mic. That’s cool (except the thingie sticking out to help me remove the mold).
The main program I use is the one for the M&RIE (can’t remember what it’s called) and it adjusts the mics automatically. Seriously, I’ve had a much better experience all around with the Jabras compared to the Prezas
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I ordered custom molds for my Jabras a couple of weeks ago, and am expecting to receive clear acrylic micromolds with beige faceplates. I confirmed with my fitter that those were what was ordered. I hope they work with the M&RIE receivers, as that was the reason for ordering them.
I will find out Monday morning when I go to pick them up.
Ask your HCP which way each ear canal runs (usually it’s forward and up but one of mine runs towards the back of my head instead). As you gently push on the outside of the mold in the general direction your ear canal runs, pull up and a bit out on the top of your ear lobe for the ear that you’re trying to insert the mold, then slowly release and repeat as necessary. You should find if you’re like me that at some point your ear canal will be open enough that the mold will slide in nicely - if not all at once, then bit by bit with repeated tugs and release of the back upper edge of your ear lobe. If your molds are made like mine, when they’re inserted to the correct distance, the knob on the end of the plastic removal pull-rod will be just at the bottom opening of your ear canal and hardly visible at all.
My Audi said that the M&RIE didn’t come in the hard acrylic. Something about not being able to replace the receiver if needed in the hard acrylic. Because of my previous sensitivity to the black silicon domes, I’m having to monitor my ear canals. Please keep us updated.