Dr. Cliff mentioned in his recent review of the Oticon Intent that the streaming quality is way higher with a LE enabled phone compared to iphone MFi bluetooth. It’s at the 9 minute mark. I noticed that streaming quality compared to nice earbuds is generally pretty poor on hearing aids and am wondering if anyone knows anything more about this?
I’ve tried Philips hearing aids in the past because of my genetic RSHL and though I don’t currently use any, I know I will need to get some in the next few years and it’s exciting to stay on top of the new technology.
If the audio quality is really better it really makes me hope that iPhone will support new bluetooth LE protocols eventually, because I recently switched from Android.
I have the Oticon Real and More aids, I have to have backup aids always available due to my hearing loss. I have the Samsung galaxy S23 phone which sounds much better tome than any of the iPhones i have owned in the past. Now do they sound better than ear buds I don’t have a clue as ear buds flat don’t work for me.
Also there is a difference between Bluetooth le and Bluetooth le auto, le auto is newer and much better and I wish my aids had it as my Samsung S23 has it.
I’m about to cross the 48-hour mark with new Oticon Intents. I haven’t done much if any streaming in that time, and will pay attention going forward and report back. I did have a long cell phone call last night with a friend and asked him about the sound quality on the receiving end. He said it was just fine. I have an iPhone 13 mini. I suspect the LE stuff may be on newer phones and I’m a long way from switching phones.
I will have three days of “speech in noise” in two weeks when some friends come in from abroad for a reunion and we do four restaurant meals, so I will be better able to judge the Intent’s performance across the spectrum of my uses.
@eliotb → I invite you to share your Intent’s personal experience on one of the 2 Intent announcement threads in this forum. I believe that you’re probably the first Intent user that I’m aware of on this forum. It’d be great to hear some personal anecdote after you’ve had some experience with it in noisy places, but I’m sure earlier on experience would be much appreciated as well.
I’ve seen doctor Cliff’s comment about how the BT LE audio experience on his Samsung S23 is substantially better than his MFI streaming experience on his iPhone. I’m not so sure how a hearing impaired person can really discern the fine subtleties in audio quality between different audio formats in the first place, in light of the limitations from the tiny receivers in their ability to reproduce good bass sounds to begin with.
To me, the main difference between what sounds good and what sounds not as good for an average hearing impaired person with the typical ski slope loss is in the ability of the receiver to produce the low sounds, due to its size limitation. The closer to normal hearing of a typical ski slope user can discern very well the inability of the receiver to reproduce the low frequency sounds faithfully. The HA receiver are good enough in reproducing the highs and mids, but what separates it from a bigger ear bud or a pair of headphone is mainly in the low frequency reproduction.
The main advantage of the BT LE audio is the LE part (low energy). I don’t have any doubt that it might also have a better audio format compared to MFI audio. But I have doubt that an average hearing challenged person might be able to tell a difference easily between the two. I suspect that Dr Cliff has a milder type of loss so maybe he can discern a difference better than the average HA wearer. But to hear him say that BT LE audio blows MFI audio out of the water is a (not very believable) surprise for me. I’m already happy enough with the MFI sound quality. I’m only not happy with the receiver’s ability to reproduce low frequency sounds well. But that’s the receiver’s physical limitation, not an MFI audio format limitation.
It’s more to do with Apple’s shocking quality control when it comes to releasing new iOS or devices with regards to accessibility and connectivity. The connectivity issues with iPhone 15 Pro models was an absolute fiasco and took three months to resolve with Apple engineers. Not what you would expect for a company that is experienced with Made for iPhone connectivity so I’m glad that Oticon is starting to provide more options for better connecting to other devices including LE Bluetooth.
I’m being fitted with Oticon Intent in the next three weeks so I’ll update the forum too with regards to my experience using rechargeable for the first time and compared with my Oticon Reals.
Glad to offer my thoughts. I also laid on one of my once-in-a-decade visits to movie theater as well, but at the fitting I had the audiologist turn off the telecoil setting that had been opened in the Real 1s because I go to large public venues so rarely. And I’m not inclined to buy a new phone just to try out the super-duper streaming of this BT LE stuff. That can wait a few years until we make a phone upgrade again.
With those caveats, I’ll report back after I take my visitors to several restaurants during their visit and see the movie.