NoahLink Wireless - worth it?

[focusandearnit]

hi all,

my Quattro’s are great and have undergone an REM fit. Currently trialing them, two weeks in. however, still feel like they could be optimized further. I may end up trialing Phonak Marvels as well. going to my audi is time consuming and can be long stretches of time in between appointments . I’m thinking strongly about getting the NoahLink. I found one for $215, which seems like an excellent deal. Is this correct? I have gotten my paws on both SmartFit and Target 6.0… is there really any reason not to do this? I see making small changes a little at a time to find the perfect fit as something very helpful for me. doing this with an audiologist ends up changing a good handful of things at once, and sometimes it’s a toss up of what worked and what didn’t on the next appointment.

As long as I save my settings before hand it seems I should be fine. I’m in the medical field, so I have a bit of respect for the damage I could do to myself if I were to, say, crank my aids or something.

just wanting to get peoples thoughts before I spend the money on this thing.

[jim_lewis]

$215 seems a bit on the low side but I guess if the seller has a good rep, etc. Is the seller selling it as new? And will the seller take it back within some time period if you’re not happy with it or is it a No Returns sale? (I’m not very knowledgeable about how eBay works)

You might consider trying what bobd has done with his ReSound Fortes from Costco. Just start out by asking your audi to print out the clinician’s report of all your programs and settings for the Quattro and study those relative to what’s possible in the Smart Fit program (same if you trial the Marvel’s and they have a good clinician’s report).

Terrible Hearing in Noise

For my last two fittings, I’ve asked for and received the Clinician’s report from the Smart Fit software. As far as I know, they’re set to Experienced (Non-Linear). I also have the Smart Fit software at home. Not that I can use it to adjust, but I can look at options. In case anyone out there is a Mac user, I’m running it on Windows 10 inside a VMWare Fusion virtual machine. Before last spring, both ears looked more or less like the right one. I lost a lot of hearing in the left probably due to…

I should have but didn’t do it at the time is to ask my audi to print out the REM fitting measurements so I could see how that actually looked myself. She showed it to me on her big computer screen but it was in one eye, out the other. You might want to do that and get REM fittings and printout after each major adjustment.

As I mentioned elsewhere and as PVC advised me, your audi will be able to tell if you’ve been playing around and changed the settings yourself, so if value him/her, it might be good to see how the idea of you playing around goes down with your audi. At least with the Quattro’s (don’t know about the Marvels), you have the possibility of Remote Assist, so you could study your settings, think about what could be done with Smart Fit that might be usefully different and ask her to remotely implement the changes in your HA’s.

[pvc]

No, you should not get NOAHlink because it is an old (almost obsolete junk) programming device.

But you are probably talking about Noahlink Wireless, not NOAHlink. I think that you should edit your post and change the title to “Noahlink Wireless - worth it?”

[focusandearnit]

@jim_lewis - all great considerations. Thanks!

@pvc- sorry, updated. Do you have any thoughts on my question though?

[pvc]

Well, you can always sell it if becomes not useful for you.

[jim_lewis]

I guess the other thing to think about is whether at this stage in your life with a new kid on the way whether you really have time to invest to learn enough or if you have a good skilled audi(s) and you’ve bought the full package deal whether just having an experienced professional, especially with the possibility of Remote Assist, isn’t a more productive, “cost-efficient” way to go.

I’ve had quite a few temptations like this in my life. Like learning all about relational databases. And that, for instance, has been pretty useful in work I’ve done. But at the time I initially felt the gravitational pull of that interest, it may have been counterproductive. So life is a balancing act and sometimes there is a serious cost extracted from other parts of your life to master a skill that seems oh so useful. OTH, since you will be hearing-impaired the rest of your life (like the rest of us) and you’re young, maybe it’s a skill if acquired that could pay back dividends all your life at least in understanding exactly what your audi has done.

[rnatalie]

I paid $200 or so for my Airlink2/Noahlink. I consider it money well spent. I can’t vouch for the Phonak but it’s pretty easy to back up the settings in my Resounds with SmartFit. My audioloist already knows I have a Noahlink so it’s not a big thing if I need to get her to bail me out of something I did with mine.

The one thing you need to be careful of is to not wipe out your audiogram which is stored in the aids.