I tried the Siemen’s Pure700 with the remote and TEK device and they were all horrible. The sound in the Pures was complete unnatural, no directionality, poor clarity, the molds irritated my ear canals. The remote device used with the cell phone or anything else resulted in very poor quality sound. After being tortured by them for the trail period of 2 months with weekly adjustments I sent them back. Needless to say I don’t recommend them.
I am now trying the Widex Passions and the difference is astounding. Natural sound, great clarity, great directionality.
My Pure 500’s BTE’s are still taking some getting used to with 2 weeks in now, but they are not horrible to me. I’m hearing more sounds than with my previous 3 and 6 year old aids, CIC’s from Phonak and Siemens respectively. One important feature to me though is the cell phone and even office phone bluetooth functionality. Unfortunately, Widex does not support the bluetooth technology with their Passions, nor any of their models that I can find, which rules them out for me. As for the molds irritating your canals, then any other manufacturer’s molds will do the same, molds are molds and go in the canal. If the Widex molds are made of different material, you can get the same material used for molds for other brands of aids. That is for your audi to resolve. As for the sounds from the Tek remote, I have to agree that music and TV are not great, although I intend to talk to my audi to see if we can’t change the programming for that to the Music mode, less compression. The cell phone sounds good and clear though through the Tek. I can’t yet say that I love the Pure’s, I am still trialing them and getting accustomed to them, and making adjustments. But I wouldn’t say that they are horrible, by any means. But each to his own, we all are unique and have different needs, different degrees of impairment, and unique ears.
I have to admit that I do wish that the Widex Pures had bluetooth capability. There seem to be only a few aids out there that do. Its a great feature for those who need it.
I second that! I sent an email to Widex and they replied saying that they have no plans in the near future to include bluetooth. They feel that there is not enough demand for it.
Reading through the various threads, the Widex Passion seems to come out as a winner as far as feedback and clarity are concerned. It is just the bluetooth issue that stops me from getting them…yet. I might still buy them because of the user reviews.
There seem to be some people who really like the Pures. But if you are not completely satisfied with them and still want the bluetooth capabilities, there are other brands that have aids with bluetooth. One of them is the Phonak Exelia, but I don’t recommend that one in that I have read some bad things about them in these threads and I also didn’t have a good experience with them. I don’t think it is unreasonable to try one of these different brands if you not completely satisfied with the Pures, they cost so much money after all.
I’ve said this a few times on various postings here; I’ve tried and tried with the Siemens 700s and Tek and was just plan disappointed. I really wanted the system to work but experience all the various issues stated in this thread.
Sound quality, never sounded real. Very mechanical, not natural.
Feedback, just couldn’t be eliminated; no matter what we tried. I went into the men’s room at work and nearly lost what hearing I had remaining. Wow; must have been bouncing off the tiles.
The Tek was a great idea but they just couldn’t execute. Sound from TV and MP3 was terrible and sound from cell phones was barely acceptable. Couldn’t hear at all in a noisy environment and switching devices and getting everything to work was a chore. I needed bluetooth connectivity and really tried to make this work.
I went through several receivers and Tek units to ensure what was happening. I expected more of Siemens.
In the end I tested the Oticon Dual Connect with Streamer and I have to say, I love the design of the hearing aids; they’re cool. They sound quality is so much better and while feedback does occur sometimes it is minimal. (I’m not sure if any of them can really eliminate it.) And the Streamer has performed nicely. Not without some issues but at a level which can be lived with. I get calls on my cell phone and hear the ring in my HA and my phone stay in my pocket, I just click a button on the streamer and start talking. Luv it.
Again, has some quirks; all technology does but I’m using the HA to take phone calls on my computer with VOIP. Everyone else needs a headset in the office . . . not me! Let me know if you have any questions.
I am curious about what the issues are with the oticon bluetooth capability, if you would be willing to share those. In another six years I may buy hearing aids with bluetooth capabilities and it would be good to know what to watch out for.
By the way, I also tried different bluetooth remotes with the Pures to make sure my first remote wasn’t faulty, and the second one also had the same problems.
Hi World89 . . . I certainly hope the issues I’m having today are a thing of the past in 6 years (I hope in one year); technology better move ahead at least that much, even in these economic times.
When starting a call or going from one call to another on the cell phone you need to wait 5 to 10 seconds before you get the go ahead “beep” that you can continue. So, you open your phone, dial the number or find it in your contact list and then wait to proceed. Your waiting for the cell phone and streamer to get ready; once ready, it will “beep” and you can hit “send” to place the call. As soon as you hang up, you may want to dial another number. You find it and then again wait while it gets ready and then “beeps”. Like I said, sometimes 5 seconds, 10 seconds, it’s been longer on certain occasions. I don’t know why it take so long to prepare. Funny thing is when you get an incoming call even after no activity for hours, it comes through to you immediately . . . there is no delay. Go Figure.
Using the various buttons on the streamer; you can’t click away too fast. You must go slowly and deliberately. If I switch programs and then quickly start changing the volume, you’ll confuse it. I baby it.
Another quirk is with a great feature it has. I can’t understand why anyone would not like to have the outside HA mics turned off each time you make a cell phone call. Who needs to hear all that outside noise; I just want to listen to the caller. I need to click a button to do this. Why can’t this be programmed to happen automatically. Also, each time I go from call to call you need to click the mics off again and again. I can understand when the call ends they come on, but really once you make another call again they should be turned off.
The reason that I wanted the TEK was because I knew there was no way I was going to wear a neckloop over my skinny dress when it is the middle of the summer. To my knowledge, the TEK is the only one that does not use a neck loop system, but what good is it if there are so many problems with it, which you can see by reading many posts on this forum.
The Tek does not use a neck-loop but in reality you need to have the device around your neck in order to use it. Just like with the Streamer, the mic is in the unit and needs to be close to your mouth. The Streamer makes use of the neck-loop and puts an antenna in it and I think it helps the device (or lat least it works). The Tek actually comes with a neck-loop but serves no purpose other than hanging it around your neck for convenience.
I use the Streamer sometimes around my neck, sometimes I just have it on my desk or in my pocket. The loop just hangs. It comes with a long loop and a short one.
Yes, my audi said she gets all of her molds from Westone (west tone) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She said that in her opinion they are the best in the country as far as custom molds.
With the TEK - do I have this right? I can have it in my pocket and click away unless I wanted to use a bluetooth phone/cell/mobile which means that I would need it near my mouth to speak into. So in other words: TV, MP2 player and Computer can all be done from my pocket.
With your Streamer: You always have to have the loop around your neck no matter what bluetooth gadget you are using? Is the loop very noticable? Can I hide it under a tee shirt?
If you the pocket you are talking about is very very close to your ears, you can use it while it is in a pocket, but the device does not work well further away. The Siemens bluetooth remote is rather ugly and clunky, so the more high tech looking loops actually might look more impressive around the neck.
The Tek is clunky and oldish looking and I doubt you would be able to get a signal from your pocket, beside it’s big and would create a bulge. Like World89 said in the prior posting the Streamer is sleek, slim, and stylish; must easily fit into your pocket.
I wear the streamer when needed for calls and sometimes its in my coat pocket or on my desk. I even take the loop off at times (nobody talks about that) and use it just for the volume and programming when needed. It snaps off real easy.
Very versatile.
I don’t mean to trash the Tek because it was my first choice and I really wanted it to work; I’m glad it didn’t because all the reasons I like it turn out to be untrue and the streamer ended up a better choice.
In my personal experience, a local dealer does not mean you’re going to get good service. When my first hearing aid was sent back for warranty repair and it was lost in shipping (the audiologist shipped it), the audiologist said they wouldn’t do anything for me because it would be too expensive for them to replace the unit.
I have also found local dealers charge a lot for adjustments, so it doesn’t make it any less expensive to shop locally.
Your mileage may vary, but my next hearing aid will be bought online.
I’m also extremely unhappy with Siemens. They are the only brand I’ve every owned, but I’ve found the quality is poor and they break easily. Warranty repair has always been slow - several weeks.
I agree the Tek is odd looking and it is huge; I do believe it could be much smaller. I do wish the neck loop attachment were on the opposite end so when looking down the buttons would not appear backwards, but I wear it around my neck and carry on cell conversations. Sometimes I tuck the Tek inside my coat or turn it around and have the microphone facing in and I do not have any problems carrying on a conversation.
And it is not perfect the mic will pick up ambient noise. Yesterday I was in a data center, standing between two long racks of equipment and I had to hold the Tek close to my mouth for the caller to hear me over the equipment noise, although I could hear the caller fine. If I am in the car with the top down depending, upon the speed, conversations are a challenge. However, I would not give the Tek up, I will put up with the glances at it and the questions because –for me at least- it works great.
My hope is that each of you find a HA solution that performs as well for you as the Pures do for me.
Updating on my feedback problem with my Pure 700s. Saw the audiologist today. She changed the feedback setting from fast to standard and then, with me using the 10 mm closed domes, she ran a test that indicated that I should not hear FB. She said that the test’s only modification was a slight decrease in high frequency gain in the noisy environment program. She asked me to test the HAs using both the 10 mm and the 8 mm closed domes. So, far, the only time I’m getting FB is when I expect to, such as when I cup my hands over them. So, we’ll see what happens. Hopefully, this will solve the problem.
I am experiencing another issue with the HAs, however. I sometimes hear some low grade white noise (like you would get when you lightly run your hands over fabric). It’s barely noticeable, but it’s there, and it gets louder when the speech or music does. The audie used her stethoscope device to try to hear it from the HA, but she couldn’t reproduce it. I hear it when I talk to people (both my voices and theirs) and when I’m listening to music on computer speakers, but only when the HAs are actually processing sounds, not when I’m sitting in silence, so it’s not a blower or something like that. The audie suggested that it might be produced by the greater occlusion of the 10 mm domes, but I’m hearing it with the 8 mm domes as well. Any suggestions?
I have to say that I’ve had more problems with these Pures in two weeks than I had with my CICs in 6 years.
Have heard about the new Audeo-YES? I just received them from my audiologist this Wednesday. She said that they were just released on Monday. So far, I like them a lot. I had tried the Pures and the Duals and the Audeo-YESs sound much better. They have the SoundRecover feature from Naida that brings more high frequency sounds that are outside the range of the speaker into the range where my HA can amplify it and I can hear it. They are smaller than both the Pure and Dual and can still use the wireless iCom for stereo bluetooth streaming. I just don’t like the name
Let me know if you have any questions.