You will, on average, wear your hearing aids for 12 hours a day, every day for the next 5 years – this equates to 22,000 hours of use in a hot and humid ear canal, exposed to the elements of life. It is important you maintain them appropriately.

Fact: Wax and moisture are responsible for about 80% of all faults.

Fact: The microphones or the speakers are changed in about 80% of all repairs.

Proper maintenance will hopefully prevent you being without your hearing aids.

The microphone – please use the brush to gently brush over the microphones or blow across the microphones, thereby removing any build up of dust etc.

The speaker – your hearing aids are fitted with wax guards and these are easily changed. Many new wax guards are now made with nano-coating technology which helps prevent moisture ingress too. The need to change can be anything from twice in a day to once every 2 months. Use the prong on the end of the brush to remove dirt, but DO NOT poke hard into the wax guards. If you have a thin-film guard, simply wipe it.

The earpiece – we advise all wearers to buy ‘Sterets’ pre-injection swabs from your local chemist and to use these daily to wipe off wax and dirt. Clean well into the grooves.

Battery doors – Open the doors and use the brush to clean away dirt in the grooves that has accumulated over time.

Vent holes – for wearers of ITE’s this is the hole that runs through the hearing aid. Push the vent tool through the hole from the faceplate end towards the speaker end.

Moisture protection – We advise wearers to use dry-pots regularly, especially when camping or on holiday in hot and humid places. Silicone crystals can be purchased off the RNID website, or we can supply the electronic Zephyr Dry Store for £60. See this website for more details…http://www.connevans.co.uk/store/viewProduct.do?id=1977485

Infections – For people prone to infections, common in swimmers using hearing aids, we recommend an electronic dry-pot with a UV lamp which kills 99.9% of all bacteria. We can supply the Global Dry Store for £100. See this link for more details…http://www.connevans.co.uk/store/viewProduct.do?id=3999

Batteries – We ask that all hearing aid wearers respect the environment and recycle their batteries. Save them and dispose of them at the tip, or hand them to us to do so.

More information Please feel free to tell any other wearers you know to join this blog – I will soon be starting Hearing Aid lessons.

Join the ‘Hearing Aid Forum’ @ http://www.hearingaidforums.com/ - It’s very helpful!

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Phonak Exelia Art

10/07/2009 by John Lloyd.

Phonak have recently upgraded the already proven top-range hearing aid, the Exelia.

The main upgrade changes being:

Duo-phone - hearing bin-aurally on the telephone with an improved auto-phone feature

Sound-recover - frequency shift technology to restore dead regions in high frequency losses

Here is a video link telling more about this amazing product - Click here (turn your speakers on for sound demo’s)

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Oticon Connect-line

08/07/2009 by John Lloyd.

‘Connect-Line’ is the new accessory package from Oticon to work in unison with the Oticon Epoq and Dual Connect Bluetooth compatible hearing aids. Connect-Line is a proprietary Bluetooth system that has actually been developed in-house by Oticon to work faster than standard type-2 Bluetooth signal transmission, thereby removing any lip-sync issues that have been reported with early Bluetooth systems used with hearing aids.

The package comprises a TV adapter which connects into your TV scart socket, and a phone adapter hub which connects between the wall and your handset, both of which are connected to the Oticon Streamer dual purpose remote control, which in turn streams the audio signal direct into your hearing aids, giving crisp and audible hearing.

The advantage of this is that you can overcome background noise issues when listening to the TV (great if you live near a busy road!), and you hear bin-aurally on the phone.

The Streamer has already proved a boon to many peoples lives by acting as a hands-free kit for their mobile phones, and enabling music to be streamed from a laptop, or MP3 player.

The Connect-Line overcomes some fundamental problems that exist with other Bluetooth hearing aids, such as Phonak and Siemens. Firstly you can switch the external microphone volume between on and mute, so that you can turn then off when listening to music for maximum performance, and turn them on when on the phone so you can hear other people talking to you (say if working in an office) - of course, you can mute them when on the phone too, if there is too much noise. And secondly, you can have multiple devices working at the same time, and not just the last device used - so you can now have a mobile phone and landline phone is use at the same time.

Affiliated to Digital Hearing Care

and Discount Hearing Aids

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Unitron Shift & Unitron Passport

06/07/2009 by John Lloyd.

Wow what a nice new design! - The Unitron Shift is a fantastic new top range RIC (receiver in the canal) hearing aid just launched by Unitron which in our opinion sets the new standard for RIC cosmetic design. This new hearing aid is part of the new PASSPORT range of hearing aids launched at top-range and packed full of the latest technology to meet the most demanding lifestyle needs. The casing really is one of the smallest and most attractive on the market, and comes with a push button option making it more versatile than the Dual or the Audeo which need expensive remote controls for programme change - but to add to it, Unitron do offer a remote control free of charge for those people who want complete control.

The Unitron Shift is a 20 channel instrument incorporating fully adaptive multichannel directionality, speech enhancer, noise reduction, wind cancellation, echo stop, feedback phase cancellation, anti-shock, autopilot, data learning, data logging, and more! This hearing aid is the real deal for anyone wanting pure hearing aid performance.

If you wish to include Bluetooth compatibility then you will need to consider the other ‘Passport’ products, such as the Moxi / Moda 13 or ITE’s. These products utilise a neckloop called the uDirect for Bluetooth connection (which is ultimately the iCom as produced by Phonak - well they are sister companies!), and have a feature called Duolink, which allows binaural synchronization between hearing aids for programme change and volume adjustment. Other than that, all Passport hearing aids include the same technology as the Shift. The ITE’s now incorporate intelligent vent design which models the vent capacity / volume based on the individual wearers loss and canal size.

SMART CONTROL? - This is the Unitron remote control, and is the ultimate way of allowing the wearer to fully personalise their hearing aid settings. Alongside normal functions such as volume and programme changes, the wearer can regulate comfort and clarity balances in different listening environments and save their preferred settings within the autopilot programming; or they can simply press the HOME button to restore the default settings after each adjustment. It does take some getting to used to and is for the more confident user, but for those who like the feature it is a boon to their life.

Unitron Shift

Click here for prices and more details

Click Image

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Hearing Aid Price Comparison

04/07/2009 by John Lloyd.

It is clearly becoming evident that hearing aid wearers are now shopping around more and more in order to get the best price and product.

At Crystal Hearing we fully understand this desire and we monitor all prices regularly including those on the Internet, and we list all our prices for your own hearing aid price comparison.

Savings of up to 50% are typical compared to main high street hearing aid suppliers including Hidden Hearing, Amplifon, Boots / Ormerods, Regional Hearing, The Hearing Company etc.

Enter our main website Crystal Hearing and see for yourself.

Regards

Crystal Hearing UK

Click Image

Affiliated to Digital Hearing Care

and Discount Hearing Aids

Posted in Blogroll | 1 Comment »

Widex Mind 330 / 440

03/07/2009 by John Lloyd.

Widex have recently launched the Mind 330 as a little brother to the awesome market leading Mind 440.

The principle focus of these hearing aids is the Dual Integrated Signal Processor, which is an enhanced processing platform based on the Integrated Signal Processor of the Inteo, Aikia and Flash; which have been setting the standard for digital hearing aids for the past year. Integrated signal processors blend together the key features of these top range products and analyse them all at the same time in an integrated fashion (hence the title!), as opposed to sequential processing that moves from one feature to the next, or parallel processing which analyses each separately and then combines the results at the end; both of which may not get quite such effective results out of the key features. Sounds confusing we know! It’s a bit like brainstorming - where 3 people can work together to produce best results, as opposed to one person doing 3 tasks one after the other, or 3 people doing individual tasks and then getting together at the end.

A key feature of the Mind 330 / 440 is ‘TRUSOUND’. A new compression system that helps to ensure changing between sound environments is made as smooth and fast as possible. The philosophy that:

- Soft sounds, such as dripping water, must be audible but remain soft in character

- Normal speech sounds, such as face-to-face conversation, must be audible and intelligible

- Loud sounds, such as crowds, should be heard but should not be uncomfortable.

The Trusound compression system also stabilises impulse noises such as doors slamming, and loud speech sounds near the maximum output for severe losses so that distortion is prevented.

The main thing to realise when a new aid is launched is that you are ultimately getting a newer faster and more powerful microchip with more memory; like buying a new computer that has more memory and faster processor, allowing it to do more and do it faster than ever before, and this is key to the holy grail of digital hearing systems - Speech discrimination in the presence of background noise. If you seriously struggle in these environments then you should be considering using or upgrading to the Widex Mind 330 or Widex Mind 440.

Also:

Audibility Extender (as per the Inteo) allowing frequency transposition (please see specific article in Widex category)

Smart speak - giving recorded audible warning tones as opposed to beeps, which is so helpful for those people who have several programs.

Speech Enhancer (Mind 440 only)

ClearBand - for hearing aid wearers where music quality is of paramount importance.

More information on Widex hearing aids here

Click Image

More Widex Hearing Aids - Here

Affiliated to Digital Hearing Care

and Discount Hearing Aids

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Information

Manufacturers

Suppliers

Archive for July 2009

Recommended Bluetooth Landline Telephones

Hearing Aid Batteries - £1.60 / pack

Hearing Aid Batteries

Bluetooth Hearing Aids

Hearing Aid Maintenance

Phonak Exelia Art

Oticon Connect-line

Unitron Shift & Unitron Passport

Hearing Aid Price Comparison

Widex Mind 330 / 440