Low End Hearing Aids, eg Phonak Naida III UPs.

Lau2046 said:
Been there done that....

What you buy for hearing aids has to be your decision since you're wearing them. If you don't expect much, or want much or care much about the quality of hearing then really it's an easy purchase. In that case, if the low ends are working for you and it's not breaking the bank, than that's what you should continue to do.

However, if you value things such as clarity of speech, TV, Music, nature or language study, then you need to look at the high end. I "saved" too when I bought my first digitals and I'll never make that mistake again. Thank God when I'm able to make another purchase, I'll be able to get the insurance coverage for part of it....

Laura
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When I got mine - entry level was all I could possibly afford.
Also, because of my specific type of HL and the APD both my audiologist and I were uncertain as to how beneficial the HA would actually be, how much I'd use it and if I'd need to convert it to a BiCROS HA ... for all those reasons the MAXX was what we made the educated choice to get for me.

Had either of us had known the difference it would make or now much I'd end up wearing it we would have looked at higher end models and I would have waited another year so I could save up for it.

My choice certainly wasn't made because I "didn't care" how I heard etc and it wasn't an easy choice (because we had a LOT of unusual variables to consider when fitting me). We made the best choice we could at that time. I don't regret getting the HA, I just wish we'd had additional (yet impossible) knowledge about my fitting needs.
 
NaidaUP said:
Hearing aids won't last a life time. Average life is 5 years before manufactures would say no to repairing them. If they are still going them that's good. Some people like to upgrade due to improvement in features. Many reasons as to why people upgrade.

I know LoveBlue upgraded from Oticom Sumo to Phonak Naida as she wanted more features. Oticon Sumo and Phonak Naida basically are the same power and both use 675 batteries.
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I know they don't last a lifetime :) and that analogs will last longer than a digital but you've missed my point.

The first fully digital hearing aid to be commercial came out in 1996, that was 17 years ago. If someone got them when they first came, and they upgraded every 5 years, they'd have only upgraded twice. Kind of hard to judge a trend with 2 instances.
 
ambrosia said:
I know they don't last a lifetime :) and that analogs will last longer than a digital but you've missed my point.

The first fully digital hearing aid to be commercial came out in 1996, that was 17 years ago. If someone got them when they first came, and they upgraded every 5 years, they'd have only upgraded twice. Kind of hard to judge a trend with 2 instances.
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There are many people who upgrade after 3 years because their insurance pays for HAs every 3 years.

17 years with digital aids, means that they would be on their 4th set of HAs if they started in 1996 and upgraded every 5 years. 5 years + 5 years + 5 years + 2 years.

All you said in your pervious post was why would someone need to upgrade unless there hearing changes.
 
NaidaUP said:
There are many people who upgrade after 3 years because their insurance pays for HAs every 3 years.

17 years with digital aids, means that they would be on their 4th set of HAs if they started in 1996 and upgraded every 5 years. 5 years + 5 years + 5 years + 2 years.

All you said in your pervious post was why would someone need to upgrade unless there hearing changes.
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No, I asked how often would they need upgrades if their loss isn't progressive.

There may be many people that have, but probably more that haven't because insurance covering hearing aids isn't all that common and is fairly new. I would imagine most people aren't going to shell out money just because if their hearing aids are still working for them. I've seen far more posts about how long someone has had the same set of hearing aids than people talking about how many times they've upgraded.
 
Anij said:
When I got mine - entry level was all I could possibly afford. My choice certainly wasn't made because I "didn't care" how I heard etc and it wasn't an easy choice (because we had a LOT of unusual variables to consider when fitting me).
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Neither was mine, I was broke from paying for surgery and braces, neither of which my health coverage would pay for - about $13,000 at least.... I was also earning peanuts so I opted to go cheap. I recognize that people can't afford it, I was one of them; But you get what you pay for and in my case I was willing to spend money I didn't have to hear. I did say if the low ends are working for you, you should stick with them....
 
ambrosia said:
No, I asked how often would they need upgrades if their loss isn't progressive.

There may be many people that have, but probably more that haven't because insurance covering hearing aids isn't all that common and is fairly new. I would imagine most people aren't going to shell out money just because if their hearing aids are still working for them. I've seen far more posts about how long someone has had the same set of hearing aids than people talking about how many times they've upgraded.
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There are many people on hearing aid forums who have upgraded every 3 years for the last 15 years due to insurance covering 100% of the costs.
 
NaidaUP said:
There are many people on hearing aid forums who have upgraded every 3 years for the last 15 years due to insurance covering 100% of the costs.
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If you say so, but nobody has really answered your question. :dunno:
 
Well, you're clearly right. Just looking at the features, they have really added a lot of the 'higher end' features to the lower end models.

I am upgrading my S IX to a Q90 because my audi got Phonak to extend my return period and they came out with the Q90 4 weeks after I received the S IX. I think the most noticeable difference between the two is Soundflow gets a speech in wind mode in the Q90. Going from the S line to the Q line makes far more difference in the lower end models, which get things like DuoPhone now... that was restricted to the high end models.

Honestly the only reason I am getting the top end model is for the extra program slots. I would hate having a more limited number of program slots. I have 5 on the Naida but only 3 on my CI. The new Naida CI processor will have 5 slots at least.
 
DeafBadger said:
Friend of mine told me she only paid $1,000 for a Phonak Naida, which surprised me.

I'm used to price tags of $6,000 for two hearing aids.

Have prices really come down a lot for quality hearing aids, or did she buy a low or mid-grade hearing aid?
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No prices have NOT come down. between $2,000 to $3,000 is about the going rate for a good quality HA today. so $6,000 for the pair is pretty normal, maybe a little on the high end.
 
Why would you need so many program slots? HAs are meant to be as automatic as possible these days. Mine are automatic and only see the need for a FM program and that's it?!
 
NaidaUP said:
Why would you need so many program slots? HAs are meant to be as automatic as possible these days. Mine are automatic and only see the need for a FM program and that's it?!
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A few common programs are:

"Normal" Listening
"Noisy environment"
Telecoil (100%, mic off)
Telecoil (blend of Tcoil & Mic)
FM/DAI etc (100%, mic off)
FM/DAI (blend, mic on low).

I only have Mic and Tcoil on mine (with adjustable volume). It's a huge pain in the neck because I really do need a VERY different listening program for noise versus quiet enviroments.

Also my HA has the TCoil volume fixed based on the mic volume (they aren't independent) which is horrible because I need significantly more TCoil volume to make it work versus mic.

How many programs one needs really depends on the lifestyle of the person, and their specific hearing (amount of hearing loss, type of hearing loss and how they process sounds etc).
 
Anij said:
A few common programs are:

"Normal" Listening
"Noisy environment"
Telecoil (100%, mic off)
Telecoil (blend of Tcoil & Mic)
FM/DAI etc (100%, mic off)
FM/DAI (blend, mic on low).

I only have Mic and Tcoil on mine (with adjustable volume). It's a huge pain in the neck because I really do need a VERY different listening program for noise versus quiet enviroments.

Also my HA has the TCoil volume fixed based on the mic volume (they aren't independent) which is horrible because I need significantly more TCoil volume to make it work versus mic.

How many programs one needs really depends on the lifestyle of the person, and their specific hearing (amount of hearing loss, type of hearing loss and how they process sounds etc).
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I do agree you need a noisy program but with the Naidas, there is sound flow which has many program's within the one for noise, quiet etc. Thats what I was meaning, as in, you don't need program's where you have to adjust yourself, they all do it for you :)
 
So you actually like the automatic programs? I hate them. I would rather manually choose than have my hearing aid think it knows what it is best for me. SoundFlow always makes music sound terrible. I am not a fan of the HA just randomly choosing what it decides to play. I usually am on the custom program as I don't like noise cancelling or directional microphones. I want to hear the environmental noise, my own brain is much better at picking out words from the audio signal than any HA filtering algorithm is. I also don't use ClearVoice on my implant processor except in places where it's unpleasant not to use it (loud restaurants).

My programs:
Custom1 - Everything off, Naida acts like an analog aid
FM/Telecoil
Speech in Noise
Music 1 - custom settings for compression
Music 2 - Like program 1, but no soundrecover
 
I have heard that people don't like the automatic program's. Persomally for me, I go into each program at the right times and don't come out of the program's until it should. I don't know if I've just got lucky or what but I've never had a problem with being in the wrong program of soundflow at the wrong time.
 
I rather pick and choose which program to use depending on the situation, rather than have the hearing aid automatically switch on me. I remember being in high school with the Claro hearing aid set on the automatic setting, and being in the noisy hallways, my hearing aid would switch to Noise setting, then switch back to normal after 5 seconds, then switch back to Noise, and on and on and on... drove me up the wall! Yeah, don't like automatic setting.

I currently have regular setting, noise setting, t-coil, FM, and FM+mic on my hearing aid. I haven't even used the FM+mic so whenever I see my HA audie again, I'll request to have FM+Mic removed.
 
NaidaUP said:
There are many people on hearing aid forums who have upgraded every 3 years for the last 15 years due to insurance covering 100% of the costs.
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I'll be upgrading mine as soon as the three years is up, and God willing, I think my insurance will cover more than $2K.
 
cdmeggers said:
I rather pick and choose which program to use depending on the situation, rather than have the hearing aid automatically switch on me. I remember being in high school with the Claro hearing aid set on the automatic setting, and being in the noisy hallways, my hearing aid would switch to Noise setting, then switch back to normal after 5 seconds, then switch back to Noise, and on and on and on... drove me up the wall! Yeah, don't like automatic setting.

I currently have regular setting, noise setting, t-coil, FM, and FM+mic on my hearing aid. I haven't even used the FM+mic so whenever I see my HA audie again, I'll request to have FM+Mic removed.
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I think I seem to be lucky with my Soundflow. I have no idea why mine works so well and others don't.
 
jgirardi said:
No prices have NOT come down. between $2,000 to $3,000 is about the going rate for a good quality HA today. so $6,000 for the pair is pretty normal, maybe a little on the high end.
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I actually work for a company that sells private label hearing aids. They are very good quality and you can get a lot of features for less than $1500. There is even a trial period and you can send them back if they don't work out.

You pay extra for the name when you buy one of the big names like Phonak through an audiologist.
 
Wyoming medicaid will cover new hearing aids when the previous set is at least 5 years old and no longer under warranty. I typically wait until 5 or 6 years to get new hearing aids. My last one (the Supero) was over 6 years, having to be sent in for repairs often enough I was fed up with it haha. I had the Claro for 3ish years, and was maxed out volume-wise and I was needing more volume. Before that, had analogs that I have had for quite a few years. Got my first set in 1986 (analogs), got a new set around 1994 (analogs), then got Claro in 2001, Supero 2004. Naida I think 2011ish, don't remember for sure.
 
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