Philips HearLink 9030 observations (new Costco aid by Demant)

Hearing Aids
#43

Welcome to the forum.

You sound frustrated but are actually doing very good. All your points are on line for a first time hearing aid user plus you have a reverse slope hearing loss. Your ears having different degrees of hearing loss also create more of a challenge to be fit properly and for you to adjust to.

All these things make it very difficult for you to acclimate to hearing aids. Even with the best fitter you need time to adjust. Your brain is hearing all these new things. It takes time.

I believe you have great aids now. As you read more here on the forum about hearing aids and your hearing loss, you will get educated. This will help you ask good questions and help your fitter help you.

Hang in there and good luck.

2 Likes
#44

This was such a helpful article! It described me so well I started crying!

#45

Thank you. Yes I need to take a deep breath and be more patient and I’m so grateful for the wonderful resources and articles I’m finding here, it will definitely helps! Just out of curiosity, Is this also normal when first starting to wear HA to start getting bulging forehead veins? I’ve just started getting them on my temples and thought maybe it’s my body’s reaction to the shock of hearing all these sounds I’ve never heard before?

#46

Usually for first time wearer, most hearing aids have some kind of acclimatization feature to start out in lower volumes and automatically have the volume increased gradually in phases over the weeks so that it’s not an overwhelming experience up front for the wearer. Ask your HIS to set this feature up for you if not already. In the mean time, the workaround is simply to manually reduce the volume in the beginning to ease you into the adjustment period.

1 Like
#47

The difference from my old Phonak Solana BTEs (8+ years old) is subtle but there are improvements.

  • They are lighter and smaller than the old ones. When wearing glasses and a mask they have a harder time staying in place.

  • Hearing and understanding TV seems better.

  • Understanding voices over noise (tv) seems better.

  • Hearing faint sounds seems better (eg plane flying over the house when I was inside).

  • Big difference between the Music setting and the General setting. The Music setting seems louder and not muffled.

  • No problems using the phone app or doing streaming. As normal, the streaming sound lacks bass but it’s OK for phone calls and podcasts. I did boost the bass to max in the app. I use headphones for music and watching TV.

  • Haven’t had an adequate chance to try them with live music (which is important for me). I expect that it will be quite a bit better than the old HAs.

  • Battery usage seems OK with a bit of streaming included. After 17 hours yesterday, they were down to about 30%. The ASHA (LE) bluetooth on my Android phone doesn’t seem to wear down its battery too quickly.

  • Considering that they cost me a lot less (through Costco) than the ones I bought 8 years ago (through an independent Audi), I am happy with the performance and the value.

  • The Costco Audi seemed to be very competent, knowledgeable and thorough.

5 Likes
#48

I should have noted in the previous post that these are my observations after 3 days of use.

#50

Are you programming these with Oticon software?

#51

Pretty sure Phillips has special software and that Oticon software (Genie2?) wouldn’t work.

#52

I’m just wondering if he managed to get a copy of the Costco software

#53

My understanding is that standard Phillips software works. Consensus seems to be that only Costco aids that require Costco software are Resound.

#54

okay, I thought I had read somewhere else in this forum, maybe incorrectly, that the Phillps were tied to the Costco software

#55

No, Philips has their own software. Philips HearSuite software can be found via google. Not specific to Costco.

3 Likes
#56

I had heard that too at one time, but then Abarsanti confirmed that they are not locked to Costco. I’ve tried to correct in any old posts that I passed on what I’d heard.

1 Like
#57

Roughly 5 weeks with the Philips now.

Here’s my take so far.

-Good sound quality on par with Oticon OPN. I’ve not tried the newer Oticon More so not sure how hey stack up on terms of the sound quality there.
-good streaming sound quality
-For my speech in noise program, I have the aids set for fixed directionality. They perform better than the OPN on directional mode. The mics just seem better able to focus and not bring in the background noise as much.
-OPN had the “open” paradigm and I’ll admit in my general automatic program, I don’t notice that much of a difference but it’s also possible that in forgetting what the OPN sounded like since I’ve only been wearing the Philips the past 5 weeks. I do remember feeling that they sounded similar to the OPN when I first got them though.
-these are not in anyway miracle aids, but being an experienced user at this point I have an idea of what to expect from aids.

Wishlist:
-more robust app. I’m jealous of the Phonak and resound app capabilities compared to the modest Philips app which allows streaming adjustments.
-more color options on the aid itself. Very boring color options. I have black but I added blue diamond vlinf stickers.

6 Likes
#58

HAH! Be jealous of More1’s rich and vibrant Faex spadix catti colour! No stickers required!

I read your 9030 posts with interest. They seem to bear witness to the importance of the competent fitter as a determinant of HA performance.

I wish you continued success!

1 Like
#59

Bluejay, in what way is the Philips 9030 similar to the Oticon? It doesn’t seem to have the open sound paradigm, which is the Oticon trademark these days.

#60

There’s no similarity other than they’re both made by Demant companies. You know this … I know this.

#61

Take a look: Oticon More Hearing Aid | Product Info, Reviews, Prices, and Videos
https://www.costco.com/philips-hearing-aids.html

#62

Okay.

The thrust of the Philips 9030 is to improve hearing in noisy environments using a fairly traditional approach of noise reduction and directionality enhanced by AI. The Oticon More is using a novel approach of exposing the listener to the full 360 soundscape and separating speech out via DNN while still maintaining access to the rest of the sounds and depending on the brain to focus on what’s important.

Where’s the similarity?

2 Likes
#63

You’re reading marketing. Look at pictures of both devices. Notice any similarities? As far as I know they use the same receivers. They use the same approach to frequency lowering. I suspect if you compare individual features you will find many similarities. For that matter, there are huge similarities among all major hearing aids. Properly setup, they will all do a decent job.
And no, I’m not saying that the Phillips 9030 are “the same” as Oticon More, but “similar” (resembling without being identical), yes. My suspicion (but that’s all it is, because I can’t prove it) is that they share much of the same hardware.