Recommended Premium HA for Auditory Processing Disorder?

Hearing Aids
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See write-up below.

Most Important:
⬤ Speech clarity
⬤ High quality remote mic options (leaning towards Paradise for the Roger On)
⬤ Effective echo cancellation
⬤ Effective noise cancellation

Important:
⬤ Streaming from an android, prefer BT Classic over ASHA
⬤ Replaceable battery for reliability and repairs
⬤ Easy directionality control

Nice to haves:
⬤ Hands-free phone calls
⬤ Water Resistance
⬤ Low latency streaming for PC use
⬤ Own voice processing / Occlusion compensation

Unimportant:
⬤ T-Coil enabled
⬤ iPhone features

Background:
I was diagnosed with Central-APD based on abnormal test results, and my own extreme difficulty with hearing in any environment with background noise, multiple speakers, distractions or while multitasking. I was tested on APD specific criteria, such as reciting numbers you hear differently in each ear, where my performance was extremely out of range.
I suspect I also have early Ménière’s disease due to recurring episodes of pulsatile tinnitus in either ear, along with a sudden muting of low frequency sounds, but I have no significant losses on my audiogram.

Trial:
I trialed a pair of Phonak M70 for a week, and I noticed the most benefit when decreasing the gain on low frequencies by a large amount when compared to the mids and highs. Along with power domes, this significantly cut the volume of the low frequencies, and I stopped hearing this constant low-frequency hum/babble that seemed to drown out everything else.
Increasing the gain on the frequencies within speech range, so as to be perceived louder than normal, also seemed to increase detail retrieval and clarity. Raising noise and echo cancellation cleaned up the audio well and made it easier to understand. I got so comfortable that after only a couple of hours with this profile, removing them made my ears feel plugged and muted and I was struggling again to hear others.

Purchasing:

I’m considering a top of the line hearing aid, as these seem to have the best features concerning speech processing, echo cancellation, and noise treatment. I’m really only interested in RIC models for the best value for the features available, as well as disliking how BTE earhooks look and their size. This narrows my search to:

Phonak Audeo Paradise p90
Oticon More 1 miniRITE
Signia Pure 7 AX
Starkey Livio/Evolv AI 2400 RIC
Resound One 9

I plan on buying used HAs online off ebay, and being fitted for receivers and domes locally. I’ve checked with audiologists here (I’m in Jordan) and they will fit hearing aids bought elsewhere for fairly low fees. Hearing aids from the manufacturers listed are available to try in-clinic only. I would prefer not to get Widex aids as there doesn’t seem to be an audiologist here that supports them.

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BTE Aids don’t always have to be used with ear hooks. They can be used with thin tubes and domes.

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If you want BT Classic, Phonak Marvel or Paradise are your only options. Those are also the easiest hearing aids to use with Phonak Roger. I think the main benefit will be from the Roger so you’re not likely to get much value from a P90. You might consider a P30 or P50.

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That’s a great point, but there’s too many situations where I can’t use a remote mic to really depend on it. I plan on wearing the aids full time after I’ve seen how much they benefited me.

I haven’t seen reviews or any comparisons of different manufacturers’ remote mics, so I don’t know if one’s options are weaker than the competition. Roger devices, though a tier above in price, seem to be the best due to the built in sound processing.

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Try doing a search for APD here on the forum, or Roger Focus.
The Phonak Roger Focus seem to be a good choice for your situation.
Good luck

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I have read that some folks use the “Roger Touchscreens Mic’s” for APD, Although I am not sure how effective the Touchscreen is Rick? Perhaps worth some investigation…. Cheers Kev :wink:

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Like MDB mentioned, if streaming and bluetooth reliability are important to you, then the Paradise is the option (or any other Sonova product) that has classic BT pairing. Outside of the classic BT pairing options, I found ASHA to be infuriatingly awful. I spent 6 months trying out the Paradise, the More and the AX, and tried all of them with a Samsung Galaxy S20+. The Paradise were the only aids that were satisfactory for streaming with it. But for me, I did not like the Paradise performance in complex noise environments, namely situations where there were multiple speakers. I found I could not separate out and process on one individual speaker.

I ended up switching over to an iPhone just so that I could have a reliable streaming connection with my aids, as I thought both the More and AX were significant improvements over the Paradise (again, this is just my personal experience) in performance in noisy environments. I would strongly suggest that, if you do consider streaming capabilities a large factor in your decision and you are not willing to change phones, you stick with the Paradise, or I think you’ll find quite a bit of frustration with the ASHA protocols. If you are able to change over to an iPhone, then I personally found the AX the best for speech in noisy environments, plus they have directionality control options you listed as a preference as well. I personally ended up with the More, as I thought they had the best overall “soundscape” profile, and their BT connection stability was marginally better. But I think I would have been just as happy had I ended up with the AX aids. Good luck!

An edit P.S.: I should add that I really wanted to avoid purchasing an extra BT accessory. It seems like you may already be leaning towards getting one, so ultimately, the phone might not matter as much, so my whole post could be useless!

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I would still appreciate not having to charge and lug around a separate mic I can’t use simply for its phone connection. Most places where I’d be on my phone, I won’t be using a remote mic anyway. Plus, the bluetooth enabled ones are much larger than the lapel models.

I’m really interested in how the Resound One 9 compares to these, as I’ve found a good deal on one that’ll run out soon.

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You could get a MultiMic to go with the hearing aids. It’s a decent remote microphone but not in the same class as Roger devices. One can plug a Roger Receiver into it (MultiMic) You’re still stuck with ASHA BT instead of Classic which means you’d need to be careful which phone you had and the hearing aids wouldn’t stream directly from computers. My take: You could make them work, but Paradise/Roger is a much more integrated system.

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@JayS. There is no gain, without some pain… As the saying goes, and if like me, I am within the profound hearing loss threshold, in certain situations, you either lug the “Assistive Listening Devices” about, or you just don’t hear, these ALD’s aren’t by any stretch of the imagination failproof, “Assistive” is the operative word… Profound loss, perhaps, it might be somewhat akin to APD, we miss out on a lot of contextual information, and if you find a remote mic that can enhance your listening experience, then you either lug it about with you, or struggle on regardless… It all comes down to choice, but I do hope you find a satisfactory solution. Cheers Kev :wink:

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Interesting.
Have you ruled out ADHD? Did you consider auditory training at all?

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I’ve already been diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger; in fact, when I was administered the TOVA test as part of the process, I scored borderline on the visual inattention portion, and clearly abnormal on the auditory inattention one. I didn’t suspect an auditory condition at the time, but seeing as how I face so many symptoms unrelated to listening I believe the ADHD diagnosis was also correct.

I think auditory training would help, but finding the right therapist and proceeding with training . Seeing how much even an unoptimized pair helped me, I prefer to combine both approaches instead of relying on just one.

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Interesting, thanks. It can be difficult to diagnose auditory processing issues in the presence of attention deficits, even aside from the controversy that surrounds diagnosing CAP issues in the first place. But at the end of the day, if a technological solution helps you then that’s great.

I am not really recommending auditory training, I’d just be interested to know what your experiences were if you had completed it. There are clinicians that swear by it, but there isn’t a lot of research support to suggest that it is effective.