I haven’t got a clue, but I’m going to make a wild guess. Could it be that the wired headphones fit less tightly to the ear than the wireless ones do? Perhaps the wireless ones seal more tightly and create feedback and shut the hearing aids down? I’m really reaching to come up with a story that makes any sense. Curious if anybody else has any “stories?”
I have had the same result with my Rexton Trax 42 and wireless headphones. They would keep rebooting (I think) and playing the musical notes. I finally decided to just take the HAs out when using the wireless headphones. I can hear and decipher pretty well without the HAs when using the headphones. Another possibility might be to go back to your HIS at Costco and have him/her make a program or adjust existing program to minimize effects of feedback. I haven’t gotten around to trying this yet myself.
I was able to use corded headphones without issues, so t is probably not related to feedback behavior
Are the wired headphones of similar design? My stereotype of wired headphones is of having a little sound chamber that surrounds the ear whereas I think of wireless ones as fitting flatter on the ear. Hence my feedback story. If that’s not the case, only other story I have is that the bluetooth interferes with the HAs in some way. This seems less likely to me, but who knows. I’d go into Costco with one of the wireless headphones that creates the problem and ask them.
I think we may be talking about the difference between supra-aural (over the ear, smaller design) versus circumaural (that sit around the ear, usually completely enclosing it). My wireless headphones are circumaural which I think would tend to produce feedback since they also enclose the mikes that are sitting on my ears.
Bob
Hi the KS5 is basically the Resound Verso, the KS7 is almost the Trax42. Both with a few tweaks / Tinnitus features removed.
I have a comparison with both against the KS^ / Linx 2 if you would like it.
Email me on ian@brittstuff.co.uk
Regards ian
Why don’t you post it here or create a thread? That is a purpose of the forum
I would love too publish my report here. But for some reason even though i have done over 10 postings it keeps saying i do not have enough postings to be able to start a thread?? Maybe a mod here will know what the issue is. Also it is very long like 3 pages.
Regards Ian
Ian, hope you don’t mind. I’ll go ahead and post here. To be clear, this is Ian’s post. I’m just posting due to his technical difficulty.
Hi firstly let meapologise for this long winded post. Please bear with me; I think youwill all find this interesting.
I recently had theopportunity to trial some of the very top end (and some of the socalled budget versions) of aids from 2-3 manufacturers. All at thesame time, place and conditions, thought i would share my experience.
Main reason for doingthis was to see if stepping up from the Resound Verso’s to the newLinx2’s and or changing to other manufacturers, could i get anyworthwhile improvement with speech in sound. Was it really going tobe worth spending extra monies to get that improvement?
I have already spouted onin the forums how we in the UK have to pay up to 4 times the cost ofthe same aids in the US, so let’s not go there. I had to pay £3500for my current pair of Verso’s (around $7000). Now they sell theLinx2’s for £2800, ba-humbug.
This is a short term testand to make sure all were on as equal footing as possible, all aids(apart from my verso’s) were new out of the box. All set up to thesame audiogram “mine” (i even reset my hand tuned Resound Verso’sto manufactures first fit for a week, before these tests, to make itfair. All aids were installed with similar or the (same in somecases) receiver RIE size 3 standard or S receivers, with 10mm opendomes. All were set up by the same experience audiologist (afterperforming the vast array of tests on me (their new customer). We hadnever met. All i will say is Cost-Co in Farnborough rocks.
Testing carried out atthe tills and around the food hall, where most variations in noiseand peoples speech was present.
Remember this is aperceived performance test and not necessarily very scientific, it isrelevant to my particular hearing audiology and performance.
However it does relate toa real person, in a real environments, with a real hearing loss andreal life situations / noise. Aids and perceived performance, wasfound to be as follows
My original aids -Resound verso’s 961’s as a standard to compare other by. I havebeen complaining that these struggle with speech in sound (especiallyin noisy environments).
Resound Verso 961 - Withlow background noises, low, medium and high sounds mainly verynatural. Tills alarms, high pitches sounds people close by talking,generally very natural with speech reasonably clear. However asbackground level increased, or more than one person spoke at the sametime, i found it harder and harder to understand their speech. Loudlow level noises, seem to flood out the higher speech, with F’s andS’s disappearing completely and lower vowels becoming blurred, tothe point it was hard to comprehend anyone, other than someone veryclose and load.
Kirkland KS6 –Virtually the same as my Verso’s, apart from some a very smallamount of background noise. A little hissy sounding on my own voice.Other than that they performed as good as my Verso’s. Good news isthey are considerably cheaper than my Versos.
Trax42 – compared tothe Verso’s, generally the quality of sound was richer, with midtones being much fuller (more like i used to hear). I would comparethis to the difference in sound between vinyl records and CD’s.High pitched sounds were a little brighter, but certainly not harsh.Speech in sound was clear and it not flood out so much, as thebackground level increased. Only when a set of had driers in thetoilets came on (with doors open) did they finally give up and all Icould hear was the driers. Overall I would say they performed betterthan the Verso’s, especially with speech in sound. As a point tonote these cost less than half the price of my Verso’s.
Linx2’s – Virtuallyidentical to the Trax42’s, possibly a little better on speechclarity (in very quiet moments). Definitely better at speech in soundthan the Verso’s. Overall performance I found to be almostidentical to the Trax42’s, however these cost twice as much.
Phonak Biro’s – onputting these in i was immediacy taken back by the harsh high pitchedlevel of noise. All high noises were painful to the ears and lowpitch sounds were nonexistent. I returned to the audiologist whochanged the receivers, domes and did a refit to the originalaudiology. This was a little better and reduced the high pitchedsqueals. However on test there was little improvement in soundquality, trolleys crashing together were high pitched and painful.Tills beeping were high pitched stabbing points of sound. Speech wasclear but over processed and clipping, especially when someone talkedloudly or was very high pitched. In all I could only stand these infor 5 minutes on each occasion. I tried 5 or 6 times, each with thesame harsh results. Overall i would say these are pitched way toohigh for the standard audiogram. They sounded like someone had tunedthe base all the way down and the treble and volume all the way up,on a poor quality transistor radio. They might be ok for someoneless concerning or with a more severe loss, but certainly not for me.
Overall I would say theTrax out performed everything except the Linx2. However the Linx2’scosts more than double that of the Trax. If you do not need toprogramme yourself, it’s a no brainer. All out performed thePhonax, which in my opinion is only fit for the bin.
If you are on a tightbudget, then save up for the Trax42 or the KS6. Yes it’s all amatter of opinion, and what is good for one is not the same foranother. What i will say is find yourself a good audiologist who willspend the time to explain and work with you.
Regards Ian
Long Term Linx2 Trial.
1[SUP]st[/SUP] week. Aids settled infound size 3 wires slightly too long, domes touch eardrums whenpushed in. Pinched nibs off domes to make more comfortable. Domessupplied size Large.
Discovered Major issue, quality ofsound when streaming from I phone to aids or when taking a call viathe phone to aids direct link is crap. Worse still Linx2 will notstream to Ipad 3 (says non supported device)?
Strange as ipad does connect and streamto phone clip on Bluetooth ok. Apparently the Link2 will also streamto an Ipad air2? I have not confirmed this.
Had to changed 1[SUP]st[/SUP] batterieson 4[SUP]th[/SUP] day of trial.
Changes primary programme to spacialsense. Low to medium sounds were very natural and rich in sound. However load background noises became harsh on the ear and theinitial gain would have to be turned down. Interestingly speech insound was a little muffled.
Reset to Bi-neural for main programme.
26/08/2015 – Increased wind settingto moderate to reduce wind effect when out walking
26/08/2015 – Increased directionalmix to high to try and improve speech in sound focus. Aidsparticularly bad when lots of different background noises drown outspeaker in front of you.
30/08/2015 – Batteries flat.
05/09/2015 – batteries flat.
Batteries lasting around 4-6 daysinstead of previous 3-4 days.
08/09/2015 – Switched sound shaper on– set to mild at 4k
08/09/2015 – Switch to Naturaldirectionality focus ear LEFT, to see if there is any improvement inspeech quality.
09/09/2015 – During the day hadproblems with audibility, aids not communicating with each other andnot clear, replace batteries as left aid went flat early in the day.Better but still not good audibility, speech in sound very difficult.
10/09/2015 – Replaced wax guards.
14/09/2015 Lost communications betweenaids again @ 20:00 hrs. Restart made no difference
15/09/2015 – Replaced batteries. Aidsnot communicating with each other. Restart and connect to Alerasoftware, reboot aids with sound shaper off and Focus ear on LEFT.
Update24/02/2016
Apparently there has been a softwareimprovement that corrects the connectivity issue, I have not beenable to confirm this. What I can advise is that the performance wasmuch better (especially at speech in sound) than my versos, but theTrax42’s are equally as good and considerably cheaper.
In short, if you want to programmeyourself, then the Link2 is referable over the cosco variety’s, asall the aids at Costco are locked to their software. If not then theTrax 42 is 30 % cheaper. If you do not need to programme yourself anddon’t mind return trips to Costco to get it all settled in (not bad thing). They also have several other branded aids sold there thatare as good. Widex trax42, (is a tweaked Siemens pure binax 7’ish). One last thing if you don’t already have a TV sound bar thenthe Bose Solo TV bar is really good at improving speech from flatscreen TV’s. Worth a shop try out.
Hi, Just starting out with hearing aids, can someone point me to what the tinnitus features are in the ks7s that were removed? I looked at the trax42 info but can’t seem to find anything documented. Thanks for any help…
Nevermind i found it on the siemens web site. https://usa.bestsoundtechnology.com/hearing-loss-and-tinnitus/tinnitus-information/treatment/
Hi, Picked a pair of the KS7s today, can anyone point me to documentation on what the performance levels 60/12 or 80/16 mean, they turn on the directional microphone feature but can tell a difference between the two or when the are off. Thanks
You’ll want to pick the 80/16, or better yet, get the scanner code from Costco and it will choose the right option automatically. It will also give you access to the battery level checker. The 80 and 60 refer to different levels of Rexton aids. I’m not sure about the 16 and 12 (maybe gain handles?) The 80 has more options for microphone directionality. The app is meant to be used with multiple Rexton aids as well as the KS7s
thanks for the information, odd that they don’t include the code with the ha’s or mention the functionality. Is there a list of the available programs that you know of and what specifically they do? tweak the volume, bass/treble, mic direction? thank you for any info or links you might provide.
Nevermind, i found info that was useful in this thread if anyone needs it.
Costco KS7 user experience
Glad you found what you needed.
Very happy with the KS7. Bought in February, tuned up earlier this month. Fit is so comfortable that I looked for them about 30 minutes before realizing they were in my ears, just not turned on.
I am getting some strange bloops from time to time and seems like the program changes (volume, direction change). But when I check the iPhone, all seems good. Any thoughts?
I bet they are notification sound from the iphone. Lots of folks have that happen until they turn off the notification sounds they don’t want. Any notification can be set to silent.
It may have already been posted but I had found the following CostcoTV video about the KS7. https://youtu.be/VhJJt4h6k7s
Hi Doc,
Yesterday I compared KS-7’s to Resound Cala’s and am trying to decide which to buy. Your post quoted above makes me wonder whether to take headphones with me on my next trial to compare the aids. I just listened to a bit of the Rachmaninoff Symphony #1 on some Bose headphones (not noise canceling) both with my current KS-5’s and with no aids and the music does not sound much different.
WHat do you advise?