I’ve worn hearing aids for almost 40 years. My speech comprehension with four-year-old current aids leaves much to be desired. Nancy of Hoser’s Hearing in Saginaw, Michigan let me try out a new pair of Oticon Vera 2 Pro hearing aids, and my comprehension was much improved. I’m more or less sold on these Oticons but wonder if Hoser’s isn’t gouging me on the price. They want $5,500 for two Oticon Vera 2 Pro hearing aids with a three-year warranty. But I’ve seen the same model offered on eBay by a hearing aid shop in Colorado for $3,390. What have others with Oticon Vera 2 Pro hearing aids paid for them?
I just purchased a set if Alta2 Pros for 6200 at O’Connor Hearing in Ann Arbor. You might ask your provider what their price on the Alta2 pro is and it might provide a gauge for you.
If you have access to TruHearing (via medical plan), the Oticon Nera 2 Pro are listed at $1595 each. Seelink. Your current audiologist might even be connected to TruHearing, but won’t tell you that. Contact TruHearing to see if you qualify.
I bought mine at Costco; would have gone through TruHearing if Costco didn’t work out.
I am in the process of getting new HAs and was quoted the exact same price for two Nera2 HAs with a 3-year warranty. Since my speech discrimination scores are excellent and don’t often find myself in challenging environments, I opted instead for the Ria2 Pro Ti model. Although I get a 60-day trial, so in the event I decide to upgrade I can.
I just got Nera 2 Pros last Tuesday from Hozer’s hearing in Caro, MI. I am not happy with them. Everything is high pitched, screechy, major background noise from fans, Etc.
I have found the stuff on ebay to program them myself and am considering going that direction. I am an audio engineer and I need them tuned perfectly.
— Updated —
oh and I paid $5500 as mentioned above. Now I am feeling like a fool.
That’s retail pricing. Whether or not you’re being ripped off depends on the quality of your audiologist. A good one is worth every penny. A lousy one can nullify all the benefits of an excellent aid. And the Nera2 is an excellent instrument.
Thanks for the feedback. I have reservations about this person. I asked her about the button on the trailing edge. She told me it was for others models that share the same body. That mine did not use it. If looked online and found out that is BS. It’s for changing profiles. She told me that they auto adjust and learn the various sites and places that I go. I don’t know if that is true either. I kept telling her that I was an audio engineer and the music has to sound right. Right now everything is screechy as all get out. Sometimes the background noise like people talking a ways behind me will drown out the person in front of me. When I listen to a feel of my favorites like Norah Jones and Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac) I know dang well that there voices were not tinny and screechy. I have been listening to long before my hearing went south in the last two years. So I am kind of worried about it. I had to run the audio at Church last Sunday and I had a heck of a time. The vocalist, guitars and Cymbals sounded screaming. When I asked the other audio guy he said they actually could be turned up a bit.
Well, I don’t know if you are using molds or what domes she has you in. Tinny is a common complaint for new users who haven’t heard the high and the brain rebels. That usually clears up in 6 weeks or so. That doesn’t say the prescription is right on. Your audi should have done a REM test where she places tube in the ear and listens to what is the result of her settings. I didn’t know of any aids that had an unusable button although they often aren’t active at the start. The user can then select the features he wants.
Music is a nasty subject with digital aids. It is difficult to get things just right. If you do a search on Musician72, you should locate a number of threads that include engineers and other musicians. He did very through testing of brands to come up with what he felt best for him. Some professional musicians have two sets of aids. They preform with old analog aids which lack the features that can be difficult for many audiologist to adjust away in digital aids.
You really need to use the aids for a month or two to get your brain to accept the new sounds. But that is assuming that the audiologist is a very good fitter and that isn’t always the case.
Thanks for the info!
Quick question. What is the difference in Bass Dome vs. Open Dome in regards to what you hear? I tried open dome at first. Seem like everything was extra shrill.
And one other thing about my story. The Audiologist took out the manual for my HAs and X’d out every page that talked about the majority of the features like changing programs button, ConnectLine, etc. and said none of it applied to my Nera 2 Pro HAs. Weird.
That sounds crazy. Nera2 pro is a pretty good package. Streaming and other features should be par for the course. I could understand somebody saying to try it with the Automatic prog to start with, but there’s no reason to exclude other options.
Sounds like a lazy shop where she doesn’t like being bothered. I’d think about a different provider.
Sounds like she does not want to, or does not know how to use the program correctly, I would be either asking for a different audi there or I would go somewhere else. Why have hearing aids with all the functions if you cannot use them if you so wish.
Follow this link. It will take you to the basic fitting protocol of the Ria2/Nera2/Alta2. You should have been walked through this on your initial set up. And that is just a starting point. You need to go somewhere else.
Yes and there are other more advanced parts of the program that can be gone into, My Audi goes in to a lot of the advanced areas due to my cookie bit hearing issues and most of all to get my voice recognition the best she can get it.
You probably already found this out, but the button does work. I tried out a set of Nera 2 Pro’s and the audi gave me 3 programs. The first was “Universal” and automatically adjusted. The 2nd was for loud environments, and the 3rd for Music and had a noticeably wider frequency response. So your audi is very suspect. Is there anyone else in that shop?
I’m very new to HA, and have only tried Oticon Nera2Pro and Widex 440, and am now trying some Oticon Alta 2 Pro Ti. The Oticons, for me, do a great job with speech and spatial orientation, but are a little “harsh” to use the old autiophile term. I was hoping the Widex would have “better high’s” and they did seem a bit better, but I have trouble making out what people are saying with them. They put 4 programs in the: universal, urban, music, and zen (plays random tones). After 45 days I’m taking them back and trying the Alta2ProTi’s. They are a bit harsh on the high end, but I feel like “i can hear” better, and better understand what people are saying. I don’t know if I want to try more brands or not. Will do some more reading on this forum. There seem to be far more adjustments than my audi is interested in using. I hate to bail on them after these trials, but i might.
Take a look at the link I placed in my previous post. You should have been taken through all the steps shown and given options based on your sound preferences. The audiologist I used had two monitors–one for herself and one placed on the desk so I could see everything she was doing and associate the changes with what I was hearing. I had four, 2 hour sessions getting them where I wanted them. Subtle changes can make a significant difference in what you hear. The Alta2s are fantastic but it takes a patient audiologist who knows how to get the best out of the instruments to take advantage of their capabilities. If all yours did is punch in the recommended settings and send you out the door you got cheated.
Concerning the harsh high frequencies Oticons have a fairly broad range of adjustments for that. You can choose to have the sound softened or made brighter and you should have been made aware of that on your initial fitting. I had my set at maximum brightness and I’ll admit that it was harsh. So when I went back at the end of the first week for adjustments I had them reset to a softer sound. It did mellow them but I also lost a bit of clarity. So at the end of week two I had them put back. That was two months ago and what was harsh then is no longer so. You adapt. You can also choose to have more or less suppression of ambient noise. I chose to hear more because I want my hearing to be as natural as possible. People with normal hearing don’t have environmental sounds suppressed, they focus on what they want to hear and ignore what they don’t. That’s what I did prior to my loss and I am learning to do that again with a bit of patience and work. The second day in them, (I’m a new user), I was in a coney island where the ambient noise level was a steady 80 decibels with some spikes higher than that. It was obnoxiously loud. But I could hear the folks I was with. I have been back there several times since then and it is no longer sensory shock, it’s just a loud restaurant. As long as the instrument is able to present the speech at audible levels the mind learns to shut down the extraneous noise just like it used to. Is it perfect now? No, of course not. But it’s really good and it’s still getting better.
Oh so much to say…
The button can do just about anything. It can be a mute, a volume control, a program switch, a tinnitus noise generator, etc…
That being said, Nera2 Pros are great hearing devices and they are full automatic. I would not recommend using the buttons unless you find there is some weird anomalous situation where you want to adjust the volume up or down just a touch.
It sounds like she was trying to either dumb it down for you (probably unnecessary) or she is being lazy. I often tell my patients what I just said above. Think of it this way… if had perfect hearing and walked into a loud restaurant, would you tug on your ear and poke your belly button to lower the volume? Nope. Normal hearing people hear background noise. It is part of life. Exposure to noise over time will improve your brain’s ability to filter it. That being said, Nera2 Pros are Oticon’s mid-line device (however, they are better than the vast majority of devices out there)… So depending on how bad an SNR loss you have, they may still not be as good in noise as the Alta2 Pro, Oticon’s best device.
My practice sells Nera2 Pro minrites for $5500/pair. That is a little bit higher than industry average, but we also provide the most comprehensive and top notch service you can get. So $5500 is not totally out of the ballpark, but for that price, she should have been more communicative and supportive to you.
Online businesses like Truhearing give a good initial price, but you don’t get the same level of service as an office like mine. They have the mistaken belief that a hearing aid is like a cell phone. You just buy it and you’re good to go.
Hope that helps a little.
Thanks for all the info everybody.