And if so, have you made the leap to using c-shell acrylic earmolds as opposed to standard full shell acrylic?
How did that work out for you?
My audiologist says this is an option and I might take him up on it in a month or two to take advantage of being able to get the Infinio non-sphere version with CROS. There is no physical reason I can’t take advantage of it except I usually have my audiologist turn off all of the automatic features so that it is as linear as possible. I just need to make the change from full shell acrylic ear mold in my right ear to a c-shell acrylic ear mold.
I’m curious if anyone has made the leap to Audeo from the Naidas and if this was a viable solution for them - how did it turn out? Did you like the Audeo over the Naidas or did you hate the Audeos so much that you went back?
Sorry @Bimodal_user, I never got the chance to try them, although I wanted too… The Specsavers Audiologist, didn’t think they would be powerful enough for my level of loss, so she basically declined to go ahead… Strangely enough, I have been wearing my old Marvel 90 RIC’s with 13 batteries, for approximately 6 months now, they are around 5-6 years old, and still function perfectly, I was having horrendous problems with my moulds, for the Naida Lumity 90’s, and no one was willing to make a set of Titanium BTE moulds, 3 times I tried different other combos of moulds, hard acrylic, soft acrylic and hypoallergenic silicone, always to fail… So in the end, I just gave up, tis a PITA, to change Bluetooth regularly, but apart from that, the marvels work okay, they aren’t on the same level as the Lumity’s, but needs must! Cheers Kev
Are those problems due to allergic reasons? Strangely, it should indicate titanium, even in Phonak SDS 5.0 or so; there is a possibility of choosing it. Why did they decline it? Is it a cost issue?
Yeah @Bimodal_user allergenic reasons, this is the main problem with my BTE moulds… I think, the problem with Titanium moulds is twofold, the mould maker, has to be highly skilled, and they are likely to be rather thin on the ground? Thus the actual return rate is very high, so in a sense, it isn’t economically viable to make Titanium moulds, hence the refusal! Although, I am ever hopeful, with the advent of recent digital mould impressions, and I assume these are 3D Printed, this might remove the necessary requirement of the skill factor? Cheers Kev
So the titanium cShells are made not by Phonak, but by another private manufacturer? Interesting. I though titanium is 3D printed, but maybe it is something I don’t know.
I believe Vietnam for Titanium moulds, I could be wrong? Here in the UK, Phonak recently opened a mould making Lab, suffice to say, according to my info, returns have been horrendous, this would also be my experience, it isn’t just ill fitting moulds, the moulds come back to you looking nothing like you actually requested, order full shell with no vents, and you’ll likely get half shell with 2mm vents, it would appear, no one actually reads the instructions, and just make the ill fitting mould, in whatever style they feel like, and they will throw in a couple of large vents for good measure, it doesn’t appear they have any QC…Or perhaps, the Quality Control are learning as the go along, getting a good set of moulds, that fit correctly, and they are what you requested, is a shot in the dark, to put it mildly… They don’t even make a new set, if they botched up the first set, they repair them, and send them back, ffs they didn’t fit first time round, why would they fit next time round, with the vents now plugged with silicone, which I am allergic too…Cheers Kev
Thank you @Hearing_Potential for your confirmation… From my perspective, it would be me whom would actually pay for these, and I don’t actually care about price or indeed aesthetics, they can be any colour, and look absolutely terrible, as long as they fit, and are what I ordered, then I would be happy as a pig in the proverbial shlt… Cheers Kev
Yeah @danka, thank you for your suggestion, I had thought of gold plated, but the thought of Titanium appeals to me… And I am not really a gold person, I wear one piece of gold, my wedding ring, tis “Pictish” style engraved, it rarely comes off my finger… Tis rather worn nowadays. Cheers Kev
I only have second hand experience, but if you’re going from acrylic to acrylic there’s a better chance of it working out for you than going silicone to acrylic. Your thresholds aren’t so severe that the UP RIC receiver would necessarily be underpowered. Often the big issue that users have when switching from a BTE to a RIC is that a full shell silicone mold does a better job keeping in the lows and when they switch to an acrylic canal mold the sound quality is thinner than they would like. But acrylic doesn’t do as good a job at that, so if you’ve been happy in acrylic anyway then you may be fine. It also depends a lot on your ear canal–if you’re canal is big enough that it allows for a pretty big, deep mold then it’s also going to be closer to the sound that you are used to. Other than that, the UP receiver just doesn’t have the same MPO as the UP BTE, which I THINK in your case should be fine but you’ll have to try it and see. Users with more loss who are eeking out the very edge of the UP range often experience the reduced power as sort of a reduction in their hearing bubble.
Other complaints I’ve gotten with a switch is that the wire is thin and floppy compared to the tube, and users are annoyed that the device is more likely to flip off of the ear or find that the thin wire at the top of the pinna cuts in a bit more and is more uncomfortable depending on their anatomy. But it can equally go the other way, where the user is impressed with the device being considerably smaller and lighter than what they’ve been used to. If your ear canal is fairly straight and you are worried about retention, and you are used to a full shell mold, you can consider adding a skeleton lock or a semi-skeleton. The irritating thing with THAT is that the charger well can be a bit too small to comfortably accomodate a skeleton, and you might have to wrangle it a bit or leave the lid open. But again, hard to predict without trying.
Overall, it’s not an automatic fail. I think it would be worth giving it a go.
The machines that print the titanium molds probably aren’t even machined to make full shell molds, if you know what I mean. Starkey used to offer a gold dip option.
Thank you, @Neville for your great insights! I appreciate them! What do you think of going from acrylic (my usual style ear mold) to a titanium c-shell?
That quote reminds me of a quite old article below, which states that we should be careful about having too weak receivers. However, that does not mean it could be the case with RICs UP in @codergeek2015’s individual circumstances.
My point is that silicone earmold grips better to the ear canal than hard earmolds like acrylic or titanium because silicone is softer and can better adjust to ear canals irregularities providing better seal needed to prevent feedback or low sounds leaking.
In the titanium order form, there is an option to choose a rough surface for better grip in the ear canal. I will test it when I receive my new cShell in a week.
There is also another eamold material like thermothec:
I guess my question would be: To what end? You don’t want a smaller device I don’t think–I expect if you’ve been wearing full shell molds for a long time you actually have a reasonably sized canal that will accommodate the UP receiver. If you actually don’t and somehow the titanium would allow it because of the very little amount of extra space it provides then yes definitely. You aren’t a candidate for the active vent receiver. Do you want a custom tip that is hard to break? Are you worried that you might drop the acrylic tip on a ceramic floor? Those could be good reasons to go titanium, it has more longevity although the bushing also tends to pop off the end and it’s harder to glue than acrylic. If it’s free, sure why not, but generally titanium is an up-charge. Six of one half a dozen of the other.
Are titanium c-shells only available on the ITE devices? I was under the impression they may be available on the usual BTE device, except it would be titanium c-shell instead of acrylic.
Just FYI, @Neville these are my aids now - the Phonak Naida B 90 UP plus CROS:
I did this many years ago. I learned about cochlea dead zones that do not need to be calculated in fitting hearing aids. So I down graded to the Audio aids with the 13 battery. This worked great for me for a few years.
Not knowing all the details of your hearing loss and looking at your audiogram I can not see you using UP aids at all. In fact SP aids are borderline too powerful for your loss. Your fitters idea of using the new Audio I aids is a great one. They should work out well for you.
