hi,
I’ve had my epoc’s and streamer a few months. I’m fourty something years of age, and been wearing aids since i was old enough not to eat them. and this is my fourth set of digital aids. I am not in the business in any way, matter, shape , or form.
I paid $5500 for mine with the streamer. Sound quality, by themselves the epoq is the best i’ve ever had. i can actually listen to my car radio with the top down. My previous ones (widex diva) i just had to turn off from the wind noise. I can now also converse with my wife when we drive with the top down or window open.
My ability to communicate with people is by far the best ever. and i can now wear sunglasses normally due to size and shape of the aid, with the in ear reciever.
the programming really is awesome. it DOES fluctuate up and down in volume dependent on circumstances. It took a month or so to get used to, but is very beneficial to me, since i can usually set and forget the aids.
There are rare circumstances that confuse the aids, like i was is a boutique hotel in Miami, where in the lounge area, they played slow music with heavy bass. the aid kept trying to compensate for the changes. from the quiet passages in between, and intermittent loud thump.I am going to ask my audiologist to add a ‘music program’ that doesn’t have volume compensation or compression, for music listening. somehow turning my head slightly made the problem go away. i haven’t figured out why yet.
The Streamer, sigh, is another story.It’s like a movie that’s almost great, but is disappointing because it’s simply good, and you know with a little more effort it could definitely be a winner. I wish i could open it and see why it’s so big, I should be able to control my TV with it given it’s size. The device is mono, there’s no reason it can’t be stereo, by simply adding another inductive circuit, being they are digital, and assigned.this hurts sound quality when listening to music through it. Music quality is barely tolerable, such as useful when mowing the lawn in mute mode. although it’s a definate improvement when my boss is in lecture mode, and i don’t have any wires to give away that I’m smiling because I’m listening to something nice. The streamer is the main reason i bought the oticons. The reason i didn’t give them back was the quality of the aids. Mostly I wanted the streemer for motorcycle riding. so i can listen to music without tangling myself in wires whipping around in the wind, which at 65 mph can have a bit of a sting. my previous answer was dei booties, on the diva’s. which actually wasn’t too bad musicly. and oddly the best was having taken a pair of rather cheap ear bud’s and removed the speaker elements and glued between two pieces of rubber shaped to sit aside the aids, behind my ear , in telecoil mode. But for the electrical engine noise of the bikes, and their tendency to move out of position sometimes…
cellphone wise, they are pretty good, a big advantage to finding a bluetooth that works well with aids. it’s nice to have it onboard, but i am not always amused by the wonderment of how far we’ve progressed from the hang on your chest aids of 50 yr ago.
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My advice, probably need to learn to adapt to the new technology, unless you hear a ‘beep’ when the volume changes, that’s a malfunction.
the audiologist might not have a lot of experience with programming this aid, might want to talk to oticon about sending you elsewhere.
if all else fails, sell them on e-bay, at what you paid you’ll make money.
peace,
wolf
