Most powerful hearing aids (for 100 dB hearing loss)

Hi everyone,

I’m new here so forgive me if this question has been asked many times already here. I was wondering if any of you know of any hearing aids that are suitable for a 100-110 dB hearing loss in the upper frequencies. Hearing loss in the lower frequencies starts off at around 55 dB and slopes downward as the frequency increases.

I know that the Unitron Yuu HP BTE satisfies this condition but I was wondering if there are any others out there.

Thanks everyone in advance! :slight_smile:

Do a search on this forum and on the web for Phonak Naida UP and also Oticon Sumo DM.

Both great hearing aids for profound losses.

Here are the high power aids Starkey have to offer:

http://www.starkeypro.com/public/products_solutions/hearing_aid_devices/destiny_series/specifications_bte_power.jsp

http://www.starkeypro.com/public/products_solutions/hearing_aid_devices/destiny_series/specifications_cic.jsp

Note that the second one is an ITE solution. With the new power matrix they have, you may be a candidate for an in the ear solution.

Wow… ZCT … the bte Destiny is ugly! Seems I remember you saying the high powered Phonak Naida’s (which I need) were ugly as well! Payback time :smiley:

see post #36 here. http://www.hearingaidforums.com/showthread.php?t=2088&page=4

At least the ITE solution is available for those that don’t want ugly! I guess my ugly hearing aids match my ugly face. Ha…

Thanks everyone for your responses. I forgot to mention that background noise reduction is a must since about half the time I am in noisy environments where it is difficult to comprehend speech. So are there any powerful hearing aids that also have good background noise reduction / speech enhancement?

The ones I mentioned are exceptional in background noise, and are certainly among the more advanced on the market. The BTE has a multi memory option so they can customize a program for those difficult situations.

:stuck_out_tongue:

Well show me a pretty aid that uses a 675 battery. There’s only so much you can do with the big ones.

Well said… I wish we could had microscopic batteries with unlimited power for us consumers with severe losses. Unfortunately, it seems every improvement in HA’s requires better batteries so nothing really gets smaller. I wonder if rechargeable HA’s with nightly docking stations will end up being the answer of the future?

That would be a pretty good idea since every hearing aid user would take off their hearing aids before going to sleep. If it’s able to last for at least 24 hours (maybe some people are crazy and like to party all night :P) then we wouldn’t have to worry about our batteries dying down at the worst possible time

I think the Starkey one is far uglier than the Naida! I like the Naida as far as a power aid goes. It is at least rounded and ‘sleek’! It is definitely one of the prettier power aids I have seen.

Okay, well I decided to do a completely unbiased side by side comparison. Here’s what I came up with:

This is not a fair comparison. I’m a little dissapointed in ZCT for a misleading picture. I’m an engineer and pay attention to scale and detail.

The picture is set up for the starkey to appear smaller. The Naida couldn’t be any smaller because it is only as big as the battery at the end and reduces in size to the front. I just opened mine up and checked it out. There is no way for the battery end to be any smaller.

The starkey also takes a 675 but appears smaller for the entire length. The battery would not fit in the starkey if it is drawn to scale. You can also tell by the end of the hear hook that the Naida picture has been enlarged (or the starkey picture has been shrunk).

So the pictures obviously are not to scale. “unbiased”??? Nice try ZCT!

ZCT was responding to Jenny’s statement that the Starkeys are uglier, not smaller! Obviously he didn’t take a picture, but took two manufacturer pictures taken from different angles and put them side by side. There’s no way to get them to scale. For future reference this forum is not exact and based mostly on informed opinions.

“Objects may be closer than they appear”

Yes maybe I’m being a little picky, but if they were placed side by side with a realistic scale, I think the Naida would win hands down. But with it appearing bigger, it doesn’t have the affect it would have if the scale was a little more realistic. He called my hearing aid ugly, and I’m merely asking for a fair comparison. That is all.

The starkey is lumpy! It also looks like there are random holes in it for no reason…

First off, where is your sense of humor? I posted the image clearly as a joke. Notice the smiling face (wink in the topic line). The fact that I placed patriotic imagery next to the Starkey aid. It was an obvious play on the bias I have admitted to with the Starkey product.

As for your comments on size, I took both images directly from the respective manufacturers web site. The Starkey image is unaltered. I had to shrink the Phonak to be the same size as the Starkey (roughly). But I promise you I did not alter the Starkey image at all.

I have no clue what the size difference is between the aids in real life. And this joke image was not an attempt to show a size comparison.

Again, Starkey image exactly as it appears on the Starkey site. Naida shrunk to be roughly the same number of pixels from top to bottom, maintaining aspect ratio. I can provide the links to the images if you’d like to verify.

Again, an attempt a humor. Sorry for trying to be funny on this board. :eek:

All joking aside, I agree with you. The Starkey is pretty ordinary looking. They seem to have spent their time, money and efforts in making the smaller aids look ‘cooler’ but have obviously not done much to make their large 675 aid look cool.

I think ugly is a little unfair, but sure, it’s not going to win any beauty awards.

I have not met too many people that need to go to this aid, since the regular BTE which is a smaller 13 battery unit has 70dB of usable gain, which is enough for the average user. But of those I’ve fitted with the larger power plus aid, it is actually reasonably discrete for that type of aid.

Keep up your sense of humor. I’ll try to lighten up :slight_smile:

For what’s it’s worth I thought it was funny.

And the Starkey is ugly.

To all who are agonizing over the beauty of their HA’s I say 'bunk"
First of all if you need to hear & your hearing is 90dB or worse who cares how they look if they allow you to hear!!
Secondly most BTE’s can’t be seen in a woman with their hairdos any way-especially the behind the ear part.
Next if you need super or ultra power you need a 657 battery!
I had a Unitron Moxi -(supposedly power) with a 312 battery which lasted only 4-5 days & even then the insideous part is that starting in day 3 they begin to lose power & you don’t even recognize this except that things sound more distorted!
My current Naida “ugly” with the 675 battery has lasted 18 days & is still going strong. Beautiful- unless you like having the aids die in the middle of the day & carry spares around to change–“Ugly”
For men --unless your ears are flapping in the breeze-- no one will notice them either. My ears are close to my head & the Naida’s do not push on them or feel noticeable!
So if you want to hear, don’t worry about cosmetics!
Also Naida UP’s handle 135dB --Moxi’s only 95dB max output–not enough for profound loss.
Regards, Sylvester