I had the Widex Mind 330s and have just been fitted with the Evokes. I had a couple of bad set ups due to inexperienced dispensers when I couldn’t hear well. As soon as they were set up properly with an experienced fitter I walked out 1st fitting, went to a noisy Christmas party that night and it was incredible. I heard all other 7 people around the table no problem. A properly set up pair of Evokes will blow you away & as a long term Widex user, nothing else will ever come close. From streaming to cinema, shopping trips to quiet time, they are making me happy everyday!
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Well you must of gotten you’r money worth out of the Widex Mind 330 because they came out in 2009. So your old HA’s must be eight, nine years old. I’d be curious to find out what software settings your AU used to counter act background noise with the Evokes. Are you just using a standard noise app or profile when in a noisy restaurant or has your AU fine-tuned (made adjustments) within noise level setting?
Hi, Craig
Why not lay off the Costco thing? As others have suggested, you have gone elsewhere, found a setup that works. Others do different things. There is no need to repeatedly harangue other folks about the choices that they freely made. There is lot of online advice besides what you are offering now. Presumably these folks sought advice, including that from friends and relatives, and made their choices as wisely as they could given the opportunities available in their locales, etc… And most respondents have said that wherever they go, they usually pay full price and only get a refund on returning the HA’s minus a restocking fee.
I once had a lab mate in Berkeley who was a very radical person. She thought one problem with America and Europe were all the different car models. It was a tremendous waste of economic effort. What the world needed was just one standard car or at most a few generic types (I don’t even know if she was allowing for a preference in colors!). This would be so much more economically efficient and avoid a tremendous waste of human effort in making lots of different cars and styles, many of which no one buys, and all the extra effort of marketing, etc.
What I found scariest about this person was not that everyone should just have one of a few generic car models but that she was relentless in insisting everyone should think her way. It’s wonderful to live in a country that gives us a lot of freedom to think and purchase as we want. It would be great if you could grant that liberty to a lot of other folks on this forum and stop trying to sell us just one type of car as the only way to go. Didn’t buy it > 50 years ago. Ain’t gonna buy the idea now.
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Right, I don’t know anyplace who does it that way, not one. It makes no sense for a hearing aid pro to rent a hearing aid for a month. I have heard of very short term lending, a day or two, but nothing more. I don’t know where you are but it is not the norm here.
But why would that matter to you? Things are done differently in different areas.
About Costco, they provide good products and service for a lot of people. Does that matter to you or are you associated with another outet, because it is starting to sound like that?
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We have made no adjustments, I stay in the universal programme which has 11 automatic sound classes. I don’t notice them changing & when in noisy surroundings my hearing is as good as everyone else round the table. The crucial part is the sensogram. I have custom aids & the hearing test is then done directly through the aids during fitting, meaning the prescription is as accurate as can be & holds the hearing strong through out all the sound classes. Music is a joy, I have briefly tried other aids but they don’t come anywhere near the Widex sound.
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The Evokes are amazing aren’t they? I had never thought of Widex until I was looking for something that might do some justice to music because the Alta2 Pros were so horrible. And now to find out they do everything else as well. And the app is simply terrific. No one gets it except other users. Couldn’t be happier.
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They really are. How were yours fitted-did you have a sensogram & have you made any changes since? I am so happy with mine & having found an audiologist who correctly fitted with the sensogram, I bought some for my son too. He had the initial fitting, a check up 2 weeks later & the only change made was to slightly increase the volume.
Mine was done with REM. I added and deleted programs, and tried some settings that were available in the software–high frequency boost for example–to see how those affected things. And I like playing with the app and tailoring sounds to the situation I’m in, especially the music program and what I’m listening to.
How do they do a test in booth for background noise with hearing aids on? If they use inserts, that can’t work because you already have aids in your ears? If they use a headset, how do they place it? Over the aids?
I have the Marvel M90R hearing aids (new user two months thus far). My audiologist has a very sophisticated office setup and her soundproof booth is quite large and comfortable. She did my test for background noise by placing me in the booth with my aids inserted and then she “piped in” the test recording through speakers in the booth so no headphones needed. The test had a voice saying short sentences with noise in the background and I had to repeat each sentence. The background noise was increased after each sentence until we finally reached a point where I could not accurately repeat the sentence. She told me my score but I don’t remember what it was. She mentioned we might want to go to a custom mold for my right ear when I come back for my six month visit but first she will run that test (and others) again.
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They play through an external speaker. A woman’s voice is used to speak a sentence where there is background noise which you are required to repeat. With each sentence background noise is increased.
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I think it’s other way around. It’s “Buy then you try” for 30-45 days trial.
I would like to propose this to the audiology association and request they adopt this as standard practice. Shall we all start a petition together???
I saw my audiologist yesterday to try to decide about molds. She told me my word recognition score with the piped in sentences and gradually increasing noise was 92 with the Marvels which she said was quite good. She has recommended I not go to molds at this point because getting the venting size right can be problematic. Also because I am doing well with the vented domes she doesn’t believe molds will have much if any benefit for me. Further she told me she doesn’t like silicon molds at all and always recommends acrylic molds when the decision has been made to go with molds.
It take 40+ hours on a powerful computer to process 30 minutes of audio to achieve perfect speech extracted from the background noise.
So, no hearing aid is going to be leaps and bounds ahead - All are similar in the overall outcome, although different people will prefer the sound of one HA brand over another.
What’s really important is proper ear molds, proper venting, proper programming - where every piece in the chain adds up to improved speech recognition.
That’s why a top-notch audiologist is more important than the brand of hearing aid.
Wow! I’ve been to many audiologists in my decades of wearing hearing aids and never had this degree of testing. Your experience sounds like the way it should work.
I realize this thread is from 2029 but it’s certainly never been my experience that you only put down $200-$300 to trial a hearing aid. No way. All of the price or at minimum a large percentage plus agreement to pay any cost above what your insurance doesn’t pay.