Hearing aids

When are we going to see each other again, it would be nice to understand what we're saying to each other? lol

The Blaids Neuro hearing aids are supposed to be on par with the Phonaks, with some saying they liked the Neuros a little better. I wore the Neuros yesterday from 8:30 am till 11:30 pm and the battery held up fine on a single charge.

My phone is too old to stream to them but I can do it from my wife's phone or tablet if I wanted to. Not something I typically do anyway. I just want to be able to hear conversations better, which they accomplish. Really early to do any in depth review, but so far I am liking them. The battery life is a huge difference between these and my last set.

Interesting, I started wearing hearing aids about 8 years ago. I have hearing loss in both ears, so I managed to get them from the V.A. The first set I received run on a battery which last about two weeks, I hated to wear them, but they are good. I went back to the V.A. for an updated hearing test and they we're shocked that it had been so long since I had an updated hearing aid replacement. I ended up get a pair of Phonak's, they're great, they're rechargeable and I can control volume and also listen to music from my I phone and talk hands free from my I Phone. I actually wear them now. I should have gotten them when I was in my late twenty's.

FWIW - When I say "frequency bands", The best way to describe this is for us old schoolers that remember having a graphic equalizer booster on their stereo. Yes, I know I'm dating myself ;-)

Anyway, instead of just bass and treble settings for the highs/lows, it broke the sound into frequency bands that you could individually increase or decrease. This is what you really want with hearing aids.

Most people with hearing aids can hear, but they have losses at certain frequencies. Certain letter sounds tend to happen at specific frequencies, making certain sounds hard to pick up. The result is that you can hear a conversation, but you can't always understand all of the words being said.

Good hearing aids are like having a graphic equalizer booster. They allow you to increase the volume of certain frequency ranges, among other things like directional microphones and noise cancellation. The hearing test identifies the bands you have issues with and how much boost is needed to compensate. The test results are referred to as the audiogram, which is a graph showing the amount of boost needed (if any) for each of the frequency ranges common in speech.

Worthy of note is that if you buy hearing aids through an audiologist, they will likely be way more expensive, but that is because you are paying for the service and knowledge and not just the hardware. None of the info here is really rocket science, but can be intimidating to someone that is tech challenged. If you can easily figure out how to use a cell phone, you likely have the skills to figure out hearing aids on your own as well and the savings can be substantial to do so.

I was going to put this under the Senior forum but you don't have to be a senior to have enough hearing loss to need hearing aids. Anyway, figured that my search so far for them might be of use/interest to others.

I started out with some inexpensive ($199/pr) in-canal type. What I quickly discovered was that, even though they claimed to have multiple channels, they had no way to boost different frequency bands. They were essentially sound amplifiers. Not only that, but even with all of the various silicone cones that came with them, having something that large and rigid in my ear hurt my ears after a couple hours.

Next I got some behind the ear types. These were a lot more comfortable and had an app that did a hearing test to produce an audiogram, and allowed you to push those settings to the hearing aids. I could have been OK with these, but in less than a year the rechargable batteries went from holding about a 8-9 hour charge (10 was claimed), to only lasting 2 hours. They also didn't allow for streaming from your phone to the hearing aids to take calls or listen to music.

The brand name of those was Eaarck and they had an amazing amount of tech in such an inexpensive package ($299/pr), but the battery life made them impractical for daily use.

I just ordered a set of Blaids Neuro hearing aids. With the current coupon, they were $600/pr on Amazon. They arrive tomorrow so we'll see how they work, but they have an app that does the hearing test and adjustable frequency bands from 250hz all the way up to 8khz. They also have batteries that will let you stream for up to 12 hours (which normally drains batteries a lot quicker), so just for hearing, they should easily last all day between charges.

I've picked up a lot of interesting info on this topic and hopefully others find some value in it. I'd also like to hear from others (no pun intended ;-) that have experience with this topic.