Aids for toes not financially endowed.

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kc8prz

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Long time lurker to this site. This is my first post at 67 years old...

This is my short reviewish look at two elcheapo aids. They are the ebay $39 Cofoe and the I hear Medical HD model. Both are in ear and take a size 10 battery. I found both to be at the very least OK. and worth the money. However that is with some cautious potholes. I first ordered the IHear $299 HD in beginning of July 2016. It took so long to get them, November late, that I ordered the Cofoe to tied me over.

That the Cofoe's did work as a long shot and surprisingly well is an understatement The Cofoe's are made in China and are bare bones with a supposed German chip being inside. Many complaints were listed against it dealing with the volume control. It does take finesse as the aid goes from mute to full volume in just a quarter turn with the knob being hard to see and connect to. Patience is the key along with trial and error. It worked well and dependably however you could hear water tinkling somewhat loudly as well as some other metallic sounds when your chosen volume settings were otherwise fine. I found that only mildly annoying. Otherwise worked great and felt good to boot. Well worth the price of admission but only if you like/can tinker and have patience. Excellent as a back-up pair.

Now onto the IHear HD. To be fair this is a start-up venture with lots of growing pains. Wait times are/were long. Got them in November and after programing them I found the right side to be defective. I sent the right side aid and program apparatus back fully insured.After many emails it was late December and they said they found nothing wrong with the programmer and was sending it back. Alarms went off. What about the aid itself? What aid? they cantered. We diden't find any in the box you sent. Why did you wait till now to bring the loss up I said. I even alluded to the fact that I sent it to you in my emails?.... Long story short after two months they sent me an aid. I noticed that the aids housing had glossy glue residue that the other original aid did not have. So my replacement was probably a refurbished aid. One month later it came ungluded as it sits in the drawer now.
Performance wise they are very easy to program. Batteries and partial housing are difficult to assemble. Fit was OK but not nearly as good as the Cofoe. The IHear HD's are made in America. They worked plenty good but seem to have a slight numb vail to them. They are factory programmed with some extras built in 9see web site). OBTW the programming equiptment was overly simply and did the job @ $100 extra. The IHear HD's are probably going to be just fine in the future after buggs, construction, and manufacturing site changes are solidly in place. They could be problemish to deal with for awhile though.

BOTH BEAT THE EVERLOVING HECK OUT OF BUYING A $4000 BRAND NAME PAIR as I have always done before now, but will never do again. There are creditable and even very good alternatives out there on the web. I have a friend who dearly loves his Feie S-17A in ear aids @ under $900 a pair. Thank you for your time; Mike
 
To add to the above post, the IHear HD aids were $600 a pair.They had a square fitting siliconish tip. It was a regular tip forced over a square fitting which fit onto the square body. I have small ear canals and used the smallest tip. The body could be felt through the tip, if that makes for clarity. That also tended to let a faint feedback "wantabe" sound that was low level but not good. I learned to live with it. However for most people with regular or large ears it should be just fine. Try them. It is worth your while.

I also tried the Walmart brand, forget the name, but is a creditable company. I tried the slim pair of in ears. They felt tight in my tiny ear canals. And the tapered fit kept working it's way out. Otherwise they were fine. Sorry, I ramble on a bit. Hope this helps to give some insight. I would really like to try the Feie S-17A with built in tinitist control among other things. I think it is also 128 band and is fully loaded with goodies. Lesser equipted models available too.
Again thank you for the chance to expound on my simple research.
 
Something notable to add here. The IHear HD's from IHear Medical are invented by the same guy that invented and sold the Lyric hearing aid originaly before he sold it to Phonac. The inventor feels this is better and completely made in America, Silicon Valley, Calf for the most part. This should be an awesome aid when it matures.
I personally think the battery and battery detachable compartment hood are too hard to line up for older people along with people with arthritic hands. Maybe a rechargeable affair would do? Also have an extruded round adapter to accept normal slip-on silicon ear pieces. It would be then good to go.
A behind the ear model is offered too @$279 ea. I believe I read where both models are 20 bit and they do have four user memories. You can go from one memory to another using supplied or most magnetic devices or raw magnets.
My "old" pair are the "America Hears" brand of behind the ear programmable aid. The programming was much more tedious and complex but worked. The resultant aid was normal and unremarkable and worked OK. I lost one. Don't ask. My last dog an Australian Shepard, @ 18 years, would find them and bring them to me. Her heir, 4 lb. Yorkie pup, won't. The cost has escalated with better competition out there precluded the purchase of another. I wanted to try CIC's anyway. My eyeglasses "catapulted " my BTE aids into oblivion for the last time.
 
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I decided to go with another company. Things size up and look good with them, as far as I can research and tell. AST Austar is the China company name. The hearing aid model is a Audelite T29. On sale this month,@$329 each factory direct with free shipping.. I DID NOT wrangle for a free pair in exchange for a review and nor did I recieve one.

Here are some of the spects:
10 channels & 12 bands, intelligent noise reduction system (18db), tinnitus control, adaptive loudness control, wind noise management, secondary strong noise supression, intelligent volume control learning, program volume recording control, intelligent frequency sprectrum analysis system, automatic feedback compression (dfs) system, Tellicoil, 200hz to 7000hz frequency range, 1.38ma battery current consumption, peak gain 38db.

I will give easy useable summery of use, likes and dislikes of "Mikeys big adventuure" after I get them in and go a week or two with them.. Sounds overly impressive especially for the asking price. Yeah, right! We shall see.. Thanks for taking the time to read this, Mike

OBTW, I canceled the Icube order. Could not afford both.
 
Here it is Friday the third and the new aids are not here yet. I don't expect them for a few days yet. There is one thing troubling me. I looked for user feedback and the site had plenty. It was all positive 4 to 5 star stuff. The user input was very generic with no mention of model numbers. However there was only one user account I could find. It was located in a couple of other areas on the web. It was only one star a definitely not a favorable review. This has got me worried and a little antsy.

On another note while really digging deap into the web, based off of a companies email to one another and some associated from other places like embeded in picture locations, ect. I found evidence of some of this companies hearing aids being rebadged and sold as another brand.. The smoking gun perhaps. Like we diden't know this was going on.
This is put here just to note.... Thanks, Mike
 
May I present to you the AST Austar "Audeable S-T29 CIC", TaDa. Don't get too excited. We drink no wine before it's time. Had them on this afternoon and I am impressed. I have read all paperwork and manuals and decoded all stampings on the aids, and boxes ect.
One thing to note from the manual, is stating that the T29 hearing aids are made from the best parts from Europe and America. It being a good basic manual, no Jinglish.

Sounds all cool so far. Now to break them in awhile and I will report back. Please be patient... Thanks; Mike:)

OBTW, FANCY storage boxes and very nice box containers.
 
Well the electronics have had more than fifty hours to burn in. To let the cat out of the bag, I like it. How much though? Lets face it, a $330 hearing aid mimicking the functions and actions of the top five brands costing thousands more, the deal would be a showstopper, if it's dependable, well built, and functions as advertised with excellent customer service.
The Austar T29 comes in many forms such as, vol pot, push button program control, nothing on top to control but rather with cupped hand air compression or a magnet, ect. Also with /without tellicoil, tinnittis control, high power amp, ect. I was going to order aids with a general "works for most anybody" setup. However I was asked if they could have a hearing test for them to help set things up. This is not what I wanted as I was very unwilling to have to ship the aids back n forth a half dozen times to get them right, just like I have to do with the $5000 models I could have bought here in town. But something made me follow their plan and I gave them my test.
Arrival day and much to my surprise the aids were programmed very well and much to my liking. The aids will not have to go back for reprogramming. Also Austar decided that a more powerful amp was needed to cover future use as well as my tinitius support. The model T29 that I got had just a push button shaft which goes from louder programs to quieter ones, being six steps. That worked out well. When and where it is suppost to be, the unit is dead quiet. Battery life is 4 days so far. Well thats it for now cause Im tired. I will put it through it's pacesand report.
 
OH NO! The right side hearing aid lost it's push button shaft. I will have to contact them and see what to do. In a pinch I found out that a round wooden and ends tapepered tooth pick fit down in the hole and works, just barely kinda.
So we are limping along now. This does not vote well for Austar. The best situation to happen would be for them to let me limp along with the bad one while they reconfigure a right side replacement and when it arrives the package would contain a prepaid DHL (or whoever) return pack of sorts to send back the bad one in. Could this possibly happen?
We all know how the bumper sticker goes, " S _ _t happens". So this does not bother me too much if there is a happy ending. But if not than this broken hearing aid could be an agonizing sore spot to blemish a review showing otherwise very good performance.
Now, where were we? Oh yeah, I wanted to add some more rambleings thought before they ramble right out of my head. Wind noise from table top fans can be heard if only a minor quibble though. The fit is very good with no feedback. Although I was using some extra small double flange Orticon brand 4.5mm silicon tips which are very comfy with no slippage nor feedback once planted. No photos are being provided at this time as the appearence on the aids are so similar to dozens of others in their fleshy color. I know that I just dashed the hopes of many hoping to see that it was a new "Star Wars" design or aids sporting a " George Barris" color shifting metal flake finish. A point to be made here is that boring is good if it lasrs a long time and works well. More later.
 
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Gosh teacher, I guess the dog ate my assignment.
Yup! Golly gee my new Yorkie (Opie), had a $700 dollar brunch. Thankfully it was early morning and the batteries were not in them yet. Don't worry, I did not harm or hurt the puppy. However the dog learned a few new words with specific loud volume pronunciation he won't forget. That little rug rat got one of my el-cheapo Cofoe back up aids as well. &&^%$$%&I*&^^%$##$%^.....
Now where were we, oh yeah, the first day of dog training school, I mean state of condition of the outgoing aids. My Austar contact was Kevin Ho. He was a gentleman, very helpful too. He told me to send back the defective one and my costs would be re-imbursed and a new replacement would be sent out.
It was an incomplete review, but all in-all the T29 Austars were pretty decent hearing aids for the money. The $39 Cofoes were very good too.
I did find, in their pictures of FDA accreditation as well as other documents that showed the Cofoes and the Feie brand both have a parent company which was Austar.
For my next venture I found a non Austar brand called Soroya. The model name is the serena 20. They offer a model 10 (non- digital), a 20 and a 40. The model 20 Serena's seem to best the Austar T29 on the spec sheet and @$54 a piece, considering my doggie culinaria conosure favors aids to kibble an bits, the Soroya's are a shoe in. I will start another "kinda review" when the new ones come in. I think that they use a German chip too. And for thoes who inquired offline from this board, both operations went well. Both right and left sacroilliac joints ate up by the angliosing spondilitus are now pinned by the Mayfield Clinic, Cincinnati where I reside. Convolessing and healing up for now....Mike:mad::mad:
 
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UPDATE:It's been awhile and things have transpired. The Soroya CIC ear aids came in and literally fell apart in my hands trying to get a battery in.The aids are flimsily built and absolute junk. Please due not waist your time and money on them.:confused::confused:
 
Finally a silver lining to all of this.
At one point I had mentioned that I had tried the "I hear Medical" in ear model. I got to thinking that I should try their "behind the ear" model as I would not have to buy the programming kit because I already had that, saving me $100 dollars. The model is called the "I hear Max" which has higher extended amplification capabilities over their CIC model. The "Max" sells for $349 each at Amazon. However if you buy direct from them you get $100 off after spending over $299 which you do not get from the Amazon purchase. I should mention that this is all another endevor from the same guy who invented the original Lyrica.

Now were I did not like the CIC model the behind the ear model, the Max, I find much to like. The aids are dead quiet when they are supposed to be without any back round hiss and the like or in other words clean amplification. The first aids I have had that truly limit the amplification of overly loud noises like door slams and the like. Also wind noises are much reduced over other aids I have owned. It must have a built in telecoil because there is no howling or feedback with the phone receiver, just calls taken as normal. The aids have very close to a natural sound to them if not perfect, and certainly not objectionable at all. So far I find them very comfortable and performing very well. I am a happy camper.:)

The unit comes with four programmable slots. A button on the top of each aid facilitates this. First program is normal volume.The second is for telephone but is really not needed. The third is specially set up to understand speech. And the fourth is a higher volume format that the first slot was. The web site does not give a detailed spec sheet so I can't give you much more information on that other than they do mention that the aids are in design as "20 bit",as opposed to 4, 8, 16, bit devices. But nor are they 32 or 64 bit either which would have been better. Although 20 bit is plenty good if used wisely. The "America Hears" brand self programmable hearing aids that I have one left of were 32 bit and did not perform nearly as well as this Max does. And the America hears 32 bit bte model now sells for just under a $1000 dollars plus the program kit.:eek:

So this is just a sample of what is here after a weeks run. I will report back in a more long term format latter.
 
The new IHEAR Max bte hearing aids continue to impress me over all others I have tested or owned. I did not expect the Max to have a telecoil but it does. Also loud noises and wind and movement noises are either calmed or extinguished.The Max is very small and comfortable. The unit is built very solid and well made and thought out. @ $349 a piece plus $99 for the programming software this has got to qualify as a real gem of a find. And at this point I'll stick my head out and say "I highly recommend buying the IHEAR medical Max bte hearing aid".
 
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