@MDB I thought the high power is the SP variant for each series, e.g. Bolero B90 SP, such as I have. The Naida V70’s that I tested were indeed RIC’s as @Junkyard wrote.
@rex-hawaii To be honest as a person who is wearing the Bolero B90’s BTE: Go with the Marvel Rics. I wouldn’t worry about what sounds better: within a week or month your mind will have adapted.
Why RIC:
- If your receiver dies on you, repairs are easier and cheaper. You can switch receivers if you find that you need it.
- Now the BTE can compete, but you’ll find that the sound degrades faster than the three months that is prescribed for the change of the slim tubes. You usually don’t notice it, until your in a situation where you don’t hear enough and have to decide a change is due. Every change in the geometry of the slim tubes makes the expected distortion of the tubes less precise: The RIC’s don’t suffer from this at all.
- My SP’s are heavier than the lightweight variants, so I find that the slim tube lengthens over time, making me wonder whether I shouldn’t get shorter slim tubes next time.
- They are crispier because some distortion is always happening when a sound wave has to travel through a tube and an ear canal
Why Marvel:
- It’s a new chip.
- It’s faster, so when new algorithms are created that would normally take too much time, your Marvel can take advantage of them.
- Tinny and digitized are things to feed back to your audiologist, so that s/he can fine tune. (Is this correct English?)
- It’s going to be supported longer.
Too bad that speech in noise is not dramatically improved with the Marvels over the Bolero’s. One can hope, but a series that is marketed by its connectivity is not to be expected to be an improvement on that front. Sadly! However, I don’t expect them to be less, either. I would think that it is again a matter of fine tuning.
Be sure to test speech in noise as a separate program. Otherwise you’re testing the tuning of the Automatic program: Whether it jumps to Speech-in-noise if you want it.
Also test the 360degrees-in-noise in a separate program.*
In my experience they are both really good as long as the noise is not human speech .
*I find that both are good at what they do, but complementary depending on the situation. If I am locked in conversation with one person Speech-in-noise is great. If the conversation is within a group with moving people, I feel like an idiot when I have to move my head to hear someone speaking. Moreover, I tire of it rather rapidly. 360o is than a lifesaver.