Resound Preza from Costco

A couple more playing with it

So you can see what you can do with the app

Perhaps if you’re writing a post on your phone you don’t get a dual screen view. On a 27-inch monitor using a browser on a Windows 10 computer, I get the raw markdown/forum code of the post in a dialog on the lower left of the screen and on the lower right, I get a preview of what the finished post might look like.

That was on my iPhone X. I have a 27" iMac at home, but the app is on my phone and I’m still at work for another 40 minutes. Although I can come here on my Windows 7 workstation when not busy, I can’t do much like uploading pictures to it. We stay with Windows 7 as it is most compatible with the various VPN clients we use to connect to our County client networks.

Yup! There are those little ol’ quavers. That’s great news and I appreciate you taking the time and effort to do that. I’m excited to get these for the start of next term. I teach and it’s getting difficult to hear student’s questions sometimes.

I am not familiar with the Quattro and ReSound practices, but I have the feeling that these higher end hearing aids all do pretty much the same thing. I am most familiar with the KS8 (Rexton Emerald 80, or Signia 7Nx) from Costco, as I have them as well as the Connexx programming software, so I can see what they do and what options they have. I don’t have the hardware to actually program them though.

From what I see in the software is that the hearing aid gain from program to program, including the three music programs on the KS8’s remains the same. The gain vs frequency strategy comes from the prescription formula. Some are more intended for speech than others. The music programs typically only play with the other features such as noise reduction, Peak limiting, and feedback suppression speed. That said there is nothing preventing the fitter from adjusting the gain vs frequency correction for the music specific program. It is kind of a trial and error process though.

Separate from that is the streaming program. The normal programs are essentially for sound picked up by the hearing aid microphones, and what you get in your ear is a combination of the natural sound and the amplified sound. The balance between the two is determined by how open or closed your fitting is. However, when you go pure streaming, there is no natural sound. That most often leaves the ear canal short of bass which comes in through the fitting. So it is normal to have a streaming equalizer that can adjust the sound in up to 20 bands to correct for the loss of normal ambient sound. This equalization is applied on top of the equalization used in the normal programs.

The other thing you might find of interest is the anti reverb program. It is intended to null out echos that make it hard to understand speech in auditoriums with hard sound reflection surfaces.

Hope that helps more than it confuses…

I don’t have a clue about a thing that you said. All gobbledegook to me. I prefer to let the fitter who knows what he’s doing do a good job for me. My Costco fitter used to repairs aids, now is an HIS. I’m too old to worry about learning new stuff that doesn’t interest me when I have to keep up as it is with election laws and how the program I support is constantly changing to accommodate the legal mumble jumbo. As for the Preza aids, I am really impressed and happy with them. I can hear much better than ever before. It seems counterproductive, but you turn the volume down on the noise control to allow you to hear closer voices. Go figure!

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I have ordered Preza and will get them in two weeks. If I get some useful information, I will share on this thread.

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I’ll be looking forward to hearing what you think of them. My wife , my neighbor, and my boss and co-workers are all impressed by them, as am I

Thank you for all those insights, and very clearly stated. Of particular interest was the observation that the prescription correction essentially remains intact, which makes sense. Then above that is an overlay of adjustments which emphasize certain frequency ranges. I’m no hearing aid expert, but do some audio mixing that includes human speech. The “presence” frequencies are a around the 5kHz region and when lifted emphasize articulation of hard consonants, which improves clarity and the perceived comprehension. Another region is around 2-3 kHz which sharpens/hardens up vowel sounds. I imagine it is these types of frequencies that are lifted in HAs to improve speech clarity (over and above the deficit correction). So I infer from what you are saying, the music mode normalizes these speech frequencies (without changing prescription correction), otherwise many musical instruments would sound harsh or unbalanced.

The strategy to deal with music may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. I can only speak with certainty about the KS8/Signia/Rexton aids as I have the software.

To be clear they do not mess with the equalization or gain vs frequency for the music programs that are intended for listening to live or recorded music. The equalization only gets applied to correct for the vent loss when listening to streamed music.

The frequency vs gain correction along with the degree of compression gets set by the overall fitting formula or prescription. There are various open formulas used like NAL-NL1, NAL-NL2, DSL v5, and 1/3 gain. Each manufacturer also has a proprietory one that they of course claim is best! These are different approaches that are mainly intended to make gain corrections to improve the speech range (200 Hz to 6 kHz). Some of these formulas may be better than others for music appreciation. DSL v5 may be one of the better ones for music especially if you have decent higher frequency hearing. It kind of depends on your loss.

If one of your priorities is music, you may want to do some research on which prescription method may be best for you, or discuss it with your fitter. These formulas a starting point. The next step is to do real ear measurement (REM) to measure and adjust to these targets. Costco always does this. Next the gains can be adjusted manually based on what you hear.

Hope that helps some.

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I think I’m more than up to speed with this now-thanks again. I have mostly mild hf loss. I will mention my requirement when I get the REM done next month.

You might find this article of interest. It is a generic guide to hearing aid fitters in how to get the best out of hearing aids used for listening to music. It does not focus on buying some magic set of hearing aids that is a cure all, but rather takes the fundamental approach of optimizing all the tools in the toolbox that most hearing aids have. I noted that they do not recommend using a different prescription formula for music compared to what is used in other programs.

Music - Counselling and fitting, A guide for audiologists

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That’s going to be VERY useful and an interesting read!

Was glad to find this thread. I am a current KS6 user. I’ve worn Siemens and Resound aids primarily, and have really liked these aids the last few years I’ve had them. That said, the button on one stopped working a few months back, and my speech discrimination has been declining for several years. That had me in the market for new aids, and I had been eyeing the KS8s, but waited too long and now they’re no longer available.

I went to Costco today and got a test. Not much change in my loss. I’ve been using the same fitter and like her, and she first had me try the KS9s. They were ok. She then had me try the Prezas. Since they were Resounds, they sounded better to me right off the bat. I was pretty happy with them, but didn’t pull the trigger as I wanted to do some research before ordering them (I have an appointment next Friday to go back to place an order and she offered to let me try a couple others if I wanted to). She has recommended the Prezas, and also suggested I go with the rechargeables. Finding this thread with another person who went from the KS6 to the Preza was helpful. At this point I’m leaning towards the Preza for the following reasons:

  1. I’ve read on this forum that the KS9 can only connect to one BT device at a time, and doesn’t use the Apple MFi protocol - it’s straight bluetooth. I currently connect to my iPhone, my iPad and I have the phone clip to use with my bluetooth phone in my office. I’m not sure I can give up the ability to connect to multiple devices without re-pairing each time.

  2. The fitter told me the phone clip I have could be used with the Preza, which would be nice.

  3. I’m a little bit nervous about the autoswitching in the KS9. I had aids before the KS6 that auto switched and could always notice it and wasn’t a fan.

  4. I’ve read some of the comments about the direct bluetooth connection and hearing every sound from the phone to the aids…I’ve shut that off with my KS6s and don’t want that.

So all that being said, I think I’m going to go with the Preza and see how it goes. My number one reason for wanting to upgrade is for improved speech recognition (and not just in noisy places). Reading the above I’m hopeful I’ll see some improvement. I’m 53 and still work full time managing a department with 100 people in it, and I really need to get some improvement in this area. Noisy situations have never been great with the KS6s, so if I see any improvement there that would be outstanding also. The fitter seemed to think this would be the best option for me.

I currently have the following programs in my KS6s and will probably keep something similar: 1) All Around, 2) Party, 3) Music and 4) Traffic. For anyone that drives a lot and hasn’t tried the traffic program, I can’t recommend it enough. I can hear my wife better in the car than I can in the house using this program, and hearing the radio again while driving has been outstanding (it’s also great on airplanes and anywhere where you may be experiencing a constant hissing or road-noise type of sound - think hissing air conditioning vents in an office). I use the Music program to watch TV in my home theater, and can enjoy the surround sound again!

Any thoughts from anyone who has made a similar change would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Gary

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When you are comparing hearing aids did the fitter do the full REM fitting and adjustment on each one? The accuracy of first fit programs is notoriously inaccurate without a REM adjustment to target.

While you may have missed out on the KS8 I believe Costco still sells the Rexton Adore Li which is a rechargeable that I believe is very similar to the KS8.

I find my iPhone 7 works very well for phone calls with the MFi KS8. On the KS9 be sure to check the phone call quality. I believe it uses the microphones in the HA’s instead of the iPhone, and some have complained about the sound quality the listener at the other end gets at least in some of the Phonak versions.

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I did just that, KS6 to Preza. WOW!!! Fantastic. I love them. I also had the phone clip. And I can go from car with Apple CarPlay to home Bluetooth streaming to office with phone clip with everything automatically falling into place seamlessly with my iPhone X. My word recognition has increased amazingly. I love the aids and the phone clip. My old phone clip broke on me, the clip breaking off. I bought a clip-on flashlight and salvaged the clip to add it to the phone clip with some epoxy. Works great. And it gives the Clip a good solid unbreakable clip mechanism. I went with the battery version as I do a lot of streaming in the office on the phone The batteries last me 7-8 days. I prefer being able to swap them out when dead and not worrying about a charger being at hand. Plus it is instant new power if they run out at work

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To add on, my Costco fitter has 20+ years in the business, a lot of those as a hearing aid repair person. He works magic doing the fittings. Yes, he did the REM adjustment setting them up. I just had my 2-week followup, and we basically just talked, I had nothing that needed changing. I have been to both HIS’s ( of which he is one) and audiologists, and even an ear - nose - throat doctor and no one could match him. I went thinking the latest Costco aid, he suggested the Preza being more in line to my needs. Keep in mind he gets the same money sale or no sale, no sales pressure. He’s salaried, not commissioned, as are all Costco fitters. I trusted him, and he came through 100%.

He told me that I had a choice of battery or rechargeable and asked me my preferences. He agreed with my line of thinking as far as going battery. Battery packs are small, no weight, easy to carry in one’s pocket, or in like my iPad case which is always with me, in my pockets when it’s not.

I love the Resound iPhone app. We are in close proximity at work, open low wall cubicles, in a corner of the building with cinder block walls. When I have a fellow tech on the phone speaking loudly or on speaker phone, I just set the Smart 3D app to Streaming Focus and it quiets the background noise, even the loud speaker phones, and concentrates the input on the streaming from my Bluetooth connection. I LOVE IT!!! Even not on the phone and one of the guys being annoyingly loud, I set the app on Quite Mode and select Noise Filter and set the volume low and it quiets the loudest voice to manageable, no pain. I’ve been doing hearing aids for about 20 years now and these are by far the best I have yet experienced.

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She did not do a REM fitting…she said told me that and said if I wanted to do that we could schedule a second appointment to allow for more time, but she wanted me to get a quick feel for both the KS9 and the Resound.

My reasons for likely going with the Resound aren’t so much from the fitting experience as the limitations with the Bluetooth and my desire to keep a similar arrangement to what I have. I just don’t see the KS9 working for me if I have to repair every time I want to use a different device.

OK, I was just suggesting that it is nearly impossible to compare what two hearing aids sound like unless a REM adjustment is made on each one. Here is a graph of how much the first fit output varied from the NAL-NL2 target for the top 5 hearing aid manufacturers. The differences are up to 10 dB.

In that same respect, how accurate are hearing tests? Are these all from a single test, or tests on the same subject? Do people’s actual tests match from one test to another? Close maybe, or is everyone or others like me taking the test? I think I heard a beep, or maybe I didn’t, click the button this time or not? I swear I hear like ghost pings, my tinnitus acting up maybe? That makes me question just how accurate the tests actually are. Reading an article on the NAL-NL2 formula, it looks subjective to the parameters entered by the tester as well.