Oticon EPOQ

[NickD]

Hello all,

I thought I would report in on the EPOQ.  I've been using it for about a month now.  Might as well say right off the bat I'm going to keep it!.
I know this is top end stuff but as a fairly demanding audiophile I didn't want to do this half way.  I would stress though, I needed multiple appointments to get this device set up just right.  Right now I am definitely getting a lot of "I forget I'm wearing it" time.  I am back enjoying listening to music again.  The one downside, although the EPOQ extends frequency response up to a reported 10khz (better than most and only a handful get this high), everything above there is pretty distorted.  This means you need to keep the gain down on the upper frequencies.  Still better than my damaged hearing by a long shot; just not quite perfect.  The model I'm using is the W-RITE.  One side only.  Sound quality is exceptional.  Speech in noisy environments is no problem once again; it's like getting my life back!

Cheers, Nick
 

[sgerrard]

I've been wearing a Unitron Moxi for about 2 months now - also a keeper. Do you know how they compare? I did two adjustment appts. after the first one, and it seems pretty dialed in now. In a few particular situations I still notice I am wearing it, but there are long periods of just hearing things normally.

Steve

[JeWeL41]

I have been wearing an Oticon Spirit 3 for 15 months and it certainly improves 'balance' and I am now better at telling where sounds come from. Nick, can you explain more about the frequency? My audiogram slopes down so most of my loss is in the high frequencies but my understanding is that any aid is only an amplifier and if your ears can't hear a particular frequency you still won't with an aid. I still have great trouble in crowds or noisy environments.

[NickD]

Steve, I haven't compared any others.  I was very specific when I first met my audiologist about what was critical to me; crowd noise and music were my 2 biggies.  She did the research and came back with the EPOQ.

Jewel41, the frequency issue is problematic for me. My audiogram, like most i'm sure, has a nasty downslope from about 1khz.  By the time it gets to 8Khz it's down about 20 db as compared to my good ear.  My audio system is pretty much ruler flat out to 20khz and my analog chain is producing clean up to 65 khz.  I want to hear all this but I know there are limitation to human hearing and to hearing aids.  The Epoq has an advertised amplification up to 10khz (that's the highest on the market at the moment) but in actual fact it only goes up to 9.5khz.  After that, it pretty much just makes noise (distorts).  This means that you need to keep the gain (amplification) at the upper frequencies a little lower than you might like because otherwise you'll be amplifying the distortion (kinda unpleasant).  Now to your question; only the transmission from your ears to your brain is being affected by your AN.  By amplifying the frequencies you are missing you'll be able to hear them, assuming no actual nerve damage in your ear.  There is still a slight timing error but it's not bad.  The key to hearing in noisy situations seems to be in the high frequencies also; they give you the directional cues (where the sound is coming from) so your brain can sort out the noise from the rest.  Again, the EPOQ extends higher than the competition so maybe that's why it helps in this regard.

[Tamara]

NickD, Steve, JeWel, 'm sorry, but I have no idea what the three of you are talking about, beyond that it's a hearing aid of some sort.  More info, please?  Comparison to TransEar or BAHA???

THANKS
Tamara

[NickD]

Hi Tamara,

Yes it's a hearing aid. 

It's just a very good hearing aid (read $$$).  I don't think the application is the same as BAHA or transear (I know nothing about these).  My hearing is "pretty good" without the hearing aid but the hearing loss is nevertheless very frustrating.  I've found this device to have given me back what I lost to a large degree.   Whether it continues to do so as the AN progresses or is treated is another matter altogether.  Let me know if you need more info, I'll do my best.

Nick

[sgerrard]

As Nick said, Tamara, these are regular hearing aids. Or hearing instruments, as they like to call themselves.

The BAHA and TransEar, on  the other hand, are both devices that capture sound on one side of your head (in a deaf ear), and send it over to the other side, through the bone of the skull. This allows someone who is single side deaf (SSD) to hear sounds from both sides of their head. It is not true stereo hearing, of course, but it does improve their hearing in practical ways.

Nick, you are in a different class from me.   My hearing is down quite a bit more, around -60 db in the upper range. My days of enjoying full spectrum audio are over, I'm afraid.    I am now more focused on hearing conversation speech reasonably well. For that purpose, the Unitron Moxi is proving itself to be quite good.

Jewel, when your audiogram slopes down at high frequencies, it doesn't mean you can't hear them at all, only that your ear is less sensitive in that range. Amplifying the sound allows you to hear it again. If you have damage to the nerve or cochlea, your own ear may introduce distortion of the sound, which is something the hearing aid can't fix for you. You can lose hearing both by nerve damage, and by damage to the cochlea. Both can happen with ANs, because they can reduce the blood supply to the cochlea, causing some of those little hair fibers inside it to die off - or something like that.

Steve

[leapyrtwins]

Tamara -

in order to be a BAHA user, you have to be unilaterally (single sided) deaf - not just have diminished hearing in your ear.  I think it's the same for the Transear.

Jan

[Tamara]

OK, thanks!  I am close to being SSD now, and will be in a few weeks.  I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something!

Hey, I just noticed that I've been upgraded to "Jr. Member", though I don't remember posting 62 times!  What the heck was I talking about??

Tamara

[Jim Scott]

I'm SSD but haven't felt the need for a hearing device.  Still, the fact that folks with 'only' diminished hearing can improvre it substantially with hi-tech (albeit expensive) devices is very good news.  While the acronyms and technical talk is out of my sphere of experience, I'm pleased that AN patients have hearing options available, especially when some hearing is retained after treatment. 

Jim

[JeWeL41]

I think I understand better now. Of course I don't have an AN and don't know if my hearing loss is the nerve or cochlear and may never know.