Yes I did exactly that. The first fitter was not that bad but with the distortion I was experiencing I tried another recommended to me and she is very experienced. When I finally gave up on the Rextons I found I still had to take them back to the original store for a refund, a bit awkward. Now I’m going in tomorrow to get the 9030’s and will keep you posted on progress. But you can go to any costco for help.
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Thanks! I put on the Rextons and never even left the testing booth with them they sounded so terrible. Good luck with your new Philips.
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Yeah I had the same reactions with the Rextons but thought, being my first HA, it was what everyone was saying about “just” your brain not used to hearing high frequencies. But I think I know distortion and tinniness when I hear it, lol. And the left one did prove to be defective. It was the worst sounding and possibly the entire source of the distortion. And then there was the very unnatural sounding speech and lack of any directionality in spite of any directional setting, no wind noise reduction and way too much background noise in crowds. I should have quit the first week but wore them 12-14 hrs every day for almost 2 months and many adjustments with two different fitters/techs! They were only slightly better when I had to replace the left one that failed. And when I demo’d the Jabra and Philips both had a more natural and clear full sound to my ears without any tweaking or REM!
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I tried the ope bass domes with a pair of Whisper hearing aids and they provided a nice natural sound. Unfortunately I have too much loss in the low frequencies (more than you), so they didn’t work out for me, but I’m guessing that they will for you. Just make sure you have the right size because they’re thicker than other domes I’ve worn and don’t have much flexibility. As a result, if they’re too big, they’ll be uncomfortable.
Well I now have my new Philips 9030’s. Noise reduction really works well at least in the Costco warehouse. It did make a very noticeable difference that helped.
Music sucks and I mean streaming, car radio, etc. really garbled and thin and even worse than the BiCores which I thought were horrible. I even have a so called hifi settings which has all noise reduction and bells and whistles turned off and it’s still bad. Eq’ing doesn’t help.
When I took these out for their first charging I noticed that these small 6mm domes don’t seem to allow any room for venting on the 85 receiver, which to me, looks to be bent unless that is a “feature” They sort of fit the receiver at a weird angle so some of the vents are actually rubbing the receiver and blocked by it. They do fit easily in my ears and don’t seem to come out though so I don’t know if the next size up would fit the receiver better but the manual says that the next size smaller, 5mm, can only be used with the 60 receiver and not the 85 so maybe the 6mm IS a bit marginal on the 85?
My next appointment is almost 3 weeks from now due to my fitters vacation. But I knew right away, outside the booth, that there were some issues. I’m at 80% to start and still had to dial the volume back to -3 to not hear many voices garbled. And my own voice is like speaking thru a megaphone (annoying) even though the fitter did make some adjustments while in the booth. What you hear in the sound booth is very deceiving with it’s crypt like quietness. And even two weeks between appointments is just way too long unless the HA are almost perfectly dialed in and only need small tweaks. I do have the Noahlink on order and the HearSuite software too but don’t intend to DIY just yet.
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Sometimes your audiologist may not want to invest the time-and-effort it takes to set your streaming sounds to your liking. Why? Because it may take multiple attempts to try each setting and then see if you like it or don’t like it. Oticon, Bernafon, and Phillips all have similar settings to customize the streaming sounds to your liking, and also for each accessory (Phone, TV Adapter, etc);
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Thanks. I have played with the HearSuite program a bit in demo mode. My hifi setting, which boosts bass and treble, doesn’t seem to have these options and in fact everything is nearly turned off compared to the automatic P1. My Noahlink should be here Nov 1st. While I don’t think I’ll try to make any program corrections at first and will go with my fitter at Costco (she retires in May), I do plan to play with some of settings. After I turned my volume down in the hifi program to -3 like in the general one, music began to sound so much better and I did tweak it with both an eq program in my iphone and in the app. I am only at 80% and that is still way too loud at the default volume setting of zero. I did get the larger open bass domes today. 6mm hits the receiver and much of the venting gets occluded by it. 8mm is a better fit too.
The Accessories settings are specifically for Streaming. Also, Yes the bend in your receiver/balanced-armature is normal. I believe it is bent in order to direct the sound towards your eardrum.
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What really sucks is they don’t offer an option to adjust the gain handles in the streaming program directly in the software, they relied on the App, which is just a 3 band equaliser, something like 5-7 band with some presets would be helpful.
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Thinking without custom molds, streaming and music will always be lacking. Just MHO…
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@fbacher1 Ohhh, some of what you’re saying are the concerns I have, like 3 weeks before a tweaking session. Even 2 weeks is too long when things like your voice booming and tinny or grating sounds happening.
I’m unfamiliar with domes since I’ve always had custom ear molds. The fitter who gave me the test and showed me the two sets of aids used a dome. She was going to put my molds on but the receiver was a larger diameter than the hole for it in my molds and she was concerned she’d split the mold if she forced it. She also thought the domes would work fine anyway. Maybe they will, but they didn’t way back when I first got aids. Your experience makes me wonder if they will now.
The Philips don’t work with my phone for streaming (not sure about for the app) so I have to get a new phone but likely I’m going to put that off until I see how these aids sound and feel. Thinking if I end up needing to get a different kind of aid–it may either work with my existing phone or a different phone model than what seems to be best for the Philips (iPhone). I wanted to share this phone part in case you or anyone else have any thoughts about doing it this way.
Thanks for your update/progress report. Good luck getting the Philips smoothed out.
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They put the 8mm version of the open bass dome on while I waited today and gave me some extras. I think I’ll ask if they will lower the high frequency for me and swap out my noise in speech program and put the movie/theater one in its place ( maybe after I’ve worn these over the weekend). The noise reduction works very well, which is the basic noise reduction program and the speech in noise program allows too much noise in for me. I think the music is a bit better with these larger domes. The program recommended the double bass dome which just have two vents but I asked for the open bass domes to reduce the occlusion which might also make music a bit more tinny. I did find that playing around with the EQ helped a bit along with setting the volume to -2 or -3 and streaming improved. I did notice my guitar sounded a bit warbly on the higher notes and again maybe lowering the high frequency will help. It’s going to be 3 weeks if I don’t get in next week since my fitter will be on vacation but I’ve often had her help me as a walk in if she doesn’t have a client. They are pretty good about that.
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Yes you might be right and it’s not the end of the world really. I’m finding non-streamed music is not too bad with the volume set a bit lower.
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Thanks, yeah it looked very weird but both were identical so I figured it might be a design feature but could not find this cool illustration you show. So if it look under features and pick smartphone and then change sound perception to fuller that might help? Low frequency enhancement is already set to max by default. I sure wish I had my NoahLink now, lol.
I’ve seen this statement about only being at 80 percent (or less than 100 percent) and the volume still being too loud in others’ posts before too. Why is it important that fittings be at 100 percent? Or get there eventually? Doesn’t this just mean trying to get settings to match the statistical target an algorithm defined as optimal for your audiogram? If so, that ignores individual variation which seems to me extremely important for hearing aids to work well for a specific person. Meaning getting to 100 percent of target might not be a goal. True? Or no?
I’ll let the experts weigh in here but I think it’s possible that I will never get to 100% unless the high frequencies are reduced more since I appear to have some hyperacusis or sensitivity to loud noises. Will my brain get used to this over time and to what degree? I know after 2 months of wearing my BiCores I didn’t see that much change in this. Even at 80% I’m reducing the volume in the app to -2 or 3 to be comfortable and understand high pitched voices. I “think” that if I get my fitter to reduce the high frequencies (reduce sharpness) 2-4 db (I don’t see her until the end of the month) then I can set the app to default or zero on the volume and maybe even tolerate something greater than 80%, and time will factor into this I’m sure. My high frequency issues also make some of the higher notes on my guitar not sound very clear to me (open B string and above), but sort of distorted/shrill/garbled. And I know that HA will not restore perfect hearing and only “improve” things to a varying degree depending on the individual loss. Just being realistic in my expectations these days.
My high frequency issues also make some of the higher notes on my guitar not sound very clear to me (open B string and above), but sort of distorted/shrill/garbled.
Are you using your hearing aid music program when playing your guitar? Music programs either lower or turn off the feedback manager, which can create havoc with steady musical pitches.
The music program makes it much worse so this is just the general program. Some songs on the radio in my car do the same thing with rock music. The Stones can cause this effect and some other bands at times.
Besides hearing the best you can, I think getting to 100% has something to do with brain activity. When we don’t hear freqs at what our brains perceive to be “correct” levels, our brains either lose those freqs or fill in the missing freqs with sounds of their own, i.e., tinnitus. When we miss these freqs long term, permanent freq loss and even dementia can arise. Not saying you will have these issues, just that evidence seems to be pointing this way
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I hope one of the experts does answer my question. I’d like to know if I’m understanding the targeting mechanism correctly.
My Costco fitting is coming up at the end of this week so I’m reviewing info here about the Philips 9030 and especially info about fitting reverse slope hearing loss. The fitter I first saw at Costco who recommended the Philips said they don’t sell a lot of those because they’re good for reverse slope loss but they don’t see that many people at Costco with that type of loss. That means their fitters “likely” aren’t very experienced with it either.
My hearing curve used to be steeper but I’ve lost some of the higher frequency capability as I’ve got older. Even so, like you I’m still highly sensitive to noise. When I briefly trialed the Phonak P70 I had the audiologist set it at 80 percent (which she didn’t like doing) and still I manually turned it down a notch or two. So I’d like to have a few things in mind when I go to the fitting appointment that maybe should be adjusted differently from the start.
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