I have a moderate sensorineural hearing loss and usually wear ITC hearing aids for it, but recently I've looked around (on the internet) to see the sort of progress made in implants which would correct hearing to the same extent (or better) than hearing aids...
A cochlear implant wouldn't work for me (and, as I understand it, the hearing gained from CIs still has a noticeably robotic quality to it - or am I wrong?), and I've mostly encountered supposedly "implantable" hearing aids which, upon closer inspection, seem to require a rather obvious external component (like this, for example). :roll: The rationale for something like this just doesn't make any sense to me. If there's going to be an external component anyway, what's the point? I'd hardly call it an improvement, especially since normal hearing aids are external and don't need a hole in your skull to function.
But anyway - I did come accross something about one form of implant, the Envoy, that seems to be more sensible, as far as implants go. So, does anyone know anything more about this, or know (or could hazard a guess) when it might be more readily available, and how much it would cost? Would the sound quality be the same as (or better than) a normal hearing aid? Are there any other similar products being developed or already available? Does anyone have, even, firsthand experience with such a thing? Thoughts?
A cochlear implant wouldn't work for me (and, as I understand it, the hearing gained from CIs still has a noticeably robotic quality to it - or am I wrong?), and I've mostly encountered supposedly "implantable" hearing aids which, upon closer inspection, seem to require a rather obvious external component (like this, for example). :roll: The rationale for something like this just doesn't make any sense to me. If there's going to be an external component anyway, what's the point? I'd hardly call it an improvement, especially since normal hearing aids are external and don't need a hole in your skull to function.
But anyway - I did come accross something about one form of implant, the Envoy, that seems to be more sensible, as far as implants go. So, does anyone know anything more about this, or know (or could hazard a guess) when it might be more readily available, and how much it would cost? Would the sound quality be the same as (or better than) a normal hearing aid? Are there any other similar products being developed or already available? Does anyone have, even, firsthand experience with such a thing? Thoughts?
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