Something to be aware of in trying out either brand of hearing aid is that the initial fit you are provided may differ from the final fit.
Hearing aid manufacturers want to make a sale. If you’ve gotten used to your hearing loss, you might find all the “new” sounds you’ll hear again when your prescribed fit is met might be a bit overwhelming at first, but you’ll get used to them over a period of time. To avoid having a potential customer say, “I can’t stand all the loud sounds,” etc., and return the HA’s, HA OEMs have created “accommodation.” Basically, you may start out with only a fraction of your required amplification. Over time, maybe a few weeks, the gain is automatically cranked up until you reach 100% of your prescribed fit (or whatever you’re comfortable with and your HCP will agree to).
When I started out with ReSound Quattros, I didn’t want to be “accommodated” and I told my audi to crank it up to 100% of my prescribed fit right away. Still, she had my profile set as “First-time User,” also designed to be “comfortable,” not necessarily my best, full fit. I read in ReSound literature that the best fit for experienced users (for ReSound HA’s) is Experienced User, Non-Linear. The ReSound proprietary fitting algorithm Audiogram+ is also designed with user “comfort” in mind. It backs off the amplification of high-frequencies present in the open-source NAL-NL2 fitting algorithm, referred to by some as the gold standard of fitting algorithms. There’s also another algorithm, DSL5-Adult, with much more high-frequency amplification than ReSound’s Audiogram+. I’ve tried them all, and like the Experienced User, Non-Linear, NAL-NL2 fit the best.
So, Costco may have a certain fitting recipe they follow with each HA brand. You might ask your fitter what the possibilities are and whether you can try different things like the above, maybe not all right away but over time. But whether you will be accommodated or not, whether you need a First-Time User profile or can try the experienced user profile, if there is one, for each brand, and whether whatever brand you favor, will Costco let you try different fitting algorithms to see which one you like best are things to look into. Perhaps other forum users of each Costco brand can tell you what options worked best for them.
There’s a lot of adjustment and fine-tuning that can be done to improve what you hear, and you may want to start out closer to where you’d like to end up rather than being only slowly “accommodated.” In my fitting of the Quattros with my audi, I’m not even sure she knew that she had the default fitting profile for a new patient as First-Time User, and I had to tell her that I wanted to switch pronto to Experienced User, Non-Linear!