How I regret that I hadn’t bought a Jodi Vac sooner.
My Phonak Virto V-90 312 ITC have such little Mic Holes, two per faceplate, and they are just about impossible to clean.
Brushing at them, only probably further impacts dirts and ear wax into them, furthering a degradation of performance to a point that is non-correctable by an end user, or trying to pick at them with a needle would be liable to cause damage to the plastic faceplate, or worse, damage to the Mics themselves.
As my Virto V-90’s are at Phonak at the moment, I do hope that they can find a way to clean these Mics and/or replace both on both HAs.
The Virto V’s and other ITC commonly have those replaceable Cerustop Wax Guards. There’s been a number of times that the Virtos would cease to transmit sound, and the cause was the Cerustop Guards being plugged with ear wax.
At that point when such happens, it is possible that ear wax still can bypass the Cerustop Guards and enter the HA internally. Again, not good for performance.
The online vendor with whom I bought my Virto V-90 ITC originally stated that Phonak had a 3 year factory warrantee with the option of 2 additional years that could be paid for per year through the online seller at $350 per year for both HAs.
I recently learned that is no longer the case, that Phonak has changed these allowable policies. Thus, my warrantee for the Virto V’s ends this coming month. They are now coming up on 4 years of age.
I’m going to now be on my own, or go through the online seller to seek 3rd party companies, or others in the event of a HA failure and needed service. Not a comforting thought.
And as some of you might know, 3rd party repair businesses might likely not use authentic Manufacturer’s Parts for the repair, just some generic parts which may or may not be the equal.
All of this was the very reasons why I thought I must step up my game with HA Maintenance, doing the best job of cleaning that I possibly can do. That probably over time, the Jodi-Vac will pay for itself, without a need of costly visits to a vendor-audiologist for proper and more thorough cleanings.
The longer I can make these existing HAs last me, surely the better. While I still saved some decent money by going through this online seller, the Virto V-90 ITC still cost some good money, at $5100 for the pair.