RITE vs BTE in terms of pure sound quality and comfort, putting aside looks and cost

Hello,

I’ve been HA user for more than 10 years now and I’m considering what should be my next choice.

Until now I’ve had two pairs of BTE hearing aids and I’ve never had RITE pair. I can’t say I’m totally happy with BTEs because it happened many times my molds came done badly fitted.

So, if you consider my hearing loss given below

What is difference between, say Phonak Audeo B70 and Bolero B70?
But putting visuals and cost aside, just in sound quality and comfort terms.

I would love to hear from someone who migrated from BTE to RITE and has similiar moderate-to-profound hearing loss.

This Search Link is your friend.

That a purdy audiogram. :grinning: Though, if you are going to stick around for a while look at Tip#2 in Hearing Tracker Tips in the Forum support category.

When you are reading a topic/thread (like this one) you may notice that some avatars have a little “avatar flair”/headphone icon at the lower right of the avatar. That indicates that they have entered their audiogram for other members to view. Click one of those avatars now to see what your audiogram will look like after you enter it.

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You have a moderate to moderately severe hearing loss. Your loss isn’t in the profound range at all.

You should do well with RITE / RIC hearing aids with your loss.

Got it. However my audiogram starts with 125 Hz and forum’s audiogram starts with 250 Hz. But I suppose it doesn’t make a big difference, since you usually look at general level of hearing loss without being so detailed.

Yeah, sorry. I meant moderate to severe, just forgot there is another range between moderate and profound.

Well, my audiologist explains it to me in such way, like BTE is my only choice. I think he is very knowledgeable but I proved him wrong couple of times, so this is why I started looking into RITEs :sunglasses:

I’m also in process of moving to new city, so I’m going to consult it with another audi I hope is going to be at least as good as my previous.

I would wait for the move to complete. Most clinics sell their support along with the aids. If you buy now you will end up paying for that support in the new location – paying twice for the same service.

The lower frequency that are good relate more to volume than to speech understanding. The mild loss has limited bearing.

As stated, RIC should serve you well.

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Agree that RITE (RIC) or BTE is personal preference, but I do think you’re going to do best with custom molds and getting a good fit will be critical.

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BTE will have more distortion than RITE (RIC) due to placement of speaker in HA and large tubeing itself RIC with custom mold is appropriate

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Still a useful search link! Thank you!

7 years later! You gotta be kidding right, he he

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I have always preferred BTE, but with full shell custom molds and standard tubing.