I didn’t want to write too detailed a review as I’ve seen some excellent reviews on here from @JordanK and others. But I felt compelled to for some of the UK readers because of the issues that I think arise when you are shopping around and trying to find a provider.
I had a bad experience with Specsavers recently. I posted reviews a while back. I had an Advance Elite fitted at Xmas and then decided against it and went with the Nadia Lumity SP (BTE version). My problem is that I am on the cusp of severe to severe/profound loss requiring optimially a BTE. I can wear RICs but the power provided the SP BTE is more comfortable.
Although the Nadia Lumity SP was a good aid, I am now selling it as I have been provided with Oticon Xceed SP 2 aids from the UK NHS. These have been excellently fit with REM. It does not make sense for me to have both, so I am selling the Nadia Lumity SP with the idea of upgrading to the Infinio Sphere.
Because the Specsavers fit was not good, I have looked around for another provider. Ideally I would have liked to go to a local provider but I have found the whole process of enquiring for a price and whether they do REM very opaque. Some don’t want to reveal the price. Some don’t do REM. Boots didn’t even return my calls. So I looked online and found audiological science, who seemed to be a good fit as the CEO/founders have clinical experience and talk knowledgeably on their website.
I phoned them and had an initial conversation. The first red flag - they don’t do REM. But I was assured that they have experienced audiologists. I decided to go with them on a home visit. The guy duly came and was actually very knowledgeable. Took my impressions and said the the aids would be ready in 2 to 3 weeks.
So, the day of the fitting, which was meant to be a home visit, nobody showed up. I rang their offices and explained that I was expecting their audiologist at 9am and it was now 9.30am. So sorry, there has been a mix up, you were booked in at our London branch. Okay, so I rebooked an appointment the next day at their London office, as they could not see me till the following week at home. I duly went to London and when I walked in, they said, do you have the hearing aids with you? Sorry? No. Ahh, we thought you had them.
Shambles.
No problem they said, we have your receivers, but we can provide you with these aids, not the silver grey you requested, but a champagne colour. They actually looked Okay, so I agreed to have them fit.
The 2 ladies fitted the aids, I had previously mentioned that I had had good success with DSL Adult V5, but they ignored me and fitted APD 3.0 instead. They told me it was NAL (which I could see it wasn’t when I got home and hooked them up to target).
I was not happy initially with the volume and some adjustments were made, upwards, particularly in the bass. She said that she could not give any more high frequency gain - I was later to discover why.
I left the offices and tried to phone my wife. I could not connect to Bluetooth for some reason. It was a bit frustrating.
I got on to the tube and sat and listened - this is the only good bit so far. Eventually the Spheric noise program kicked in and I could not hear the train anymore, but 4 people opposite me, in almost total clarity. They were speaking a foreign language I could not identify - possibly middle eastern, but what I could hear was clear. The announcements were totally clear, even though it was an old northern line train which was thunderously loud.
I got on the mainline train home and eventually sorted out the bluetooth connection, once I had deleted everything and re-paired. For some reason it took over 40 minutes, which was a bit annoying.
Now I had had the aids on for a couple of hours, I realised that the fit was horrible. Everything sounded unbalanced, there was not enough high frequency gain. Sitting there with my wife, I streamed a video from youtube, and she said, I can hear that very clearly. Sorry, I said. Yes, she said, that is too loud. I had on a normal volume and I was experiencing feedback. I took out the aids and looked at the vent size and it was wayyyyyy bigger than on my previous RIC hearing aids (KS 10s). So there was enormous leakages. I hooked them up to Target and could see that the high frequency gain was only about 38dB from 2k to 4k, whereas in all my other aids, it is about 48dB. So Target was preventing more high frequency gain because of the risk of feedback.
So I phoned them and have explained this. They are going to do a phone consultation. To be honest, I am at this stage, almost hopping mad. I was expected to be put in front of experts. The whole thing from start to finish so far has been almost shambolic. At the moment there is a 90% chance I will be returning the aids and looking elsewhere. Sorry audiological science. I didn’t want to write a bad review, but it has to be out there. If you want to make claims on your website about clinical excellence, then it has to be put to the test.