ReSound Hearing Aids

In my opinion the top end hearing aids are pretty similar - it is the competence of the audiologist that makes the big difference. All three of the Audiologists at the Orlando Costco are excellent, but I can't say enough about Frank who has been so patient and caring over the past three years. The aids worked well from the start and Frank paired them with my iPhone and TV streamer. The wire detached from the receiver a couple of times but this was easily fixed while I waited (no appointment necessary). When I felt my hearing was getting worse Frank retested my hearing and upgraded to power receivers and when finally my hearing got really bad he took a custom mold of my ears and replaced the domes.

I now have 30% hearing in each ear and am having Cochlear Implant surgery in one ear on July 8. Three years ago I paid $2,600 for the two aids and most of the upgraded were covered under the warranty or the charge was nominal - $160 for the two custom molds. For value for money and customer service I can't understand why anyone would go anywhere other than Costco.

The hearing aid I have is the ReSound LiNX 3D and everything, basically, is good with it, other than I’m still having a hard time having it paired to my phone. I had an appointment to have regular check-up and the only problem is with the COVID-19. We’re all restricted at home. So, right now I sometimes uninstall the app off my phone, then I gotta install it again, then I have to pair it again in order to get some control off my phone for my both cochlear and my ReSound. And I never had that problem before with my ReSound. Right now, I have an upgrade on my cochlear that may be the whole problem. They work and then they don’t work. They pair, but they don’t. So right now it’s just sort of a frustrating situation. Other than that I’m happy with the hearing aid.

I did a whole bunch of online research and chose ReSound for its combination of technology and features. Probably one of the other things that contributed to my hearing loss over the years is me being I’m an avid music listener and my musical tastes are stuck on 70s and 80s rock. I wanted something that was gonna be able to stream music because I don’t like wearing conventional headphones. I don’t like the feeling of them pressing against the side of my head all day long. I also wanted something rechargeable so I wasn’t gonna be constantly changing batteries. The ReSound LiNXes were one of the very few things I found that could check off all the boxes.

When I visited the audiologist that fitted me with the hearing aids, I had some questions about the Bluetooth functionality. He got ReSound on the phone and those people seemed to be very helpful. I also did a couple of email exchanges with them when I found that for not quite being up-to-date reasons, my cellphone would not support the streaming functionality. I was lucky enough to be able to get in on a beta program with Samsung and I was able to stream to the hearing aids. So, I’m a happy camper.

Having gone through the process of getting hearing aids, I think it's important for anyone to know is who they’re dealing with face-to-face. I’ve heard horror stories from some people that it took weeks and weeks to get used to the hearing aids or not wanting to even put them in because there was too much feedback. However, I haven’t experienced any of that. Paul, the person that I saw in Norwood, was absolutely tremendous. He spent a lot of time with me and the hearing tests that he administered were extremely comprehensive. The combination of his time and attention and the ability to tailor the response of the ReSound hearing aids made them imminently usable from the very beginning. I’ve been enormously pleased with them from day one. I’m also very happy with ReSound.

It has a cool feature on the app where I’m able to do speech quality, too. When I tap that, I can pick up every sound of every word someone is saying. With the Phonak before, if I would use the button for a couple of weeks, then they would just start to jam. These hearing aids, on the other hand, don’t that. ReSound had the Bluetooth capability before, but how it is with them now is a lot more mainstream and easier to use. There’s a lot more customize-ability. I purchased the LiNX 3D 9 hearing aids, and the sound quality is amazing. I can hear things more clearly. It's a high-end hearing aids, but there's not much of a difference between it and others. The guy said it comes with four channels and some minor things, but it’s not worth the extra cost.

Nevertheless, they last me over eight years. There is definitely a lifetime investment in those. ReSound is not about making money. They are truly about making high quality products and getting your money’s worth out of it. There are things that they can improve on, though. Today, my hearing battery would beep. These hearing aids connect to my phone, so why cannot they send a push notification when the hearing aid battery is low? I don’t need to hear a beep. Overall, ReSound is the front lead of audiology. They know how to make hearing aids, and I'm very satisfied.

He got them around 2006 and they were about $6,000 a piece. That was one of the things that kept me from going for hearing aids for a while. I didn't have $12,000. But by the time I got there and found out that two of mine were only $5,000, I was thrilled. That’s still a huge amount of money but when it comes to your hearing, or anything about your health, if you're willing to invest, it will pay off in the long run. And these really have. I understand a lot of people can't or won't be able to pay that much but I think they're well worth it.

When I first started with them, my audiologist said the app for adjusting the hearing aids was not available for my Android phone but since then, it became available and I put it on regularly. So I've been blessed to do multiple things, one of which is to adjust when there's a really loud noise. If I go into some place where there's loud music playing, I can make that go away but still hear and talk to somebody. It's so exciting. I love that feature.

It was a challenge when my audiologist apparently left the practice and they switched over. The new people did not do as well. In fact, I've changed audiology companies since then and I was also very grateful to be able to get online and ask who handles ReSound in this area. It would be the same thing if I moved some place. Because of the mess-up and the switch-over, my two-year checkup didn’t get done. But the hearing aids are operating fine and I'm very grateful for the wonderful product. I recommend them regularly.

I've called the company to find out if there are any extended warranties that we can get. The three years are up and to go and have them look at it for $40 a visit is ridiculous. Also, three-quarters of the time, they don't know what they're doing. They have to make sure that whoever's selling their product knows what to do with it. We were with very novice people. They're nice though. As soon as we come home, the hearing aid disconnects from my husband's phone or the buzzing are so loud I can hardly stand it. This has happened multiple times. He has to take the hearing aids and go back there.

Also, when I called the company, I got switched to Charlie and then I had Irving. Nobody wanted to take any responsibility. I have called several times and they always say they'll get back to me but nobody has ever gotten back to me. It's been a runaround with the company as well. I've tried to report and find out if there is another center that works with ReSound that I don't have to go to the Glastonbury place. But I had not gotten any concrete thing. So, if and when my husband needs hearing aids, I would definitely avoid the company that he has.

Then when I kept calling either Southern NT or Northern NT, they said that they don’t have an audiologist for 11 months. I finally went to somebody else at that 11 months’ time. The audiology place said that they could help me. They could send the hearing aids back to ReSound and set it up for me because obviously there was something wrong with it. Three weeks later I got the hearing aids back and it was so screwed up. You have two different ones to say different colors. Blue on the left side, and red on the right. They had it intermixed. I couldn’t hear diddly-squat.

I kept calling the audiology place and they said that they didn’t have an audiologist at that time. Then I called they said that they were in the middle of training. For the longest time, they wouldn’t tell me they didn’t have an audiologist there until I finally went in and asked about it. The people looked at each other dumbfounded and just stared at me and didn’t say anything. I asked them again and they said that she was in training. The only reason that I sent it off was that whoever the owner of the place was, called me. In the end, the place that I went must have contacted that person and told him that they have somebody here that was not taking their blank looks. That was the only thing I could think of. It was definitely interesting and I wasn’t too far from finding an attorney and sue the hell out of them and get it over with. But I don’t wanna do that. That doesn’t fix anything.

I had to hire a different audiologist to even let me see it. They had to redo the hearing test and readjust my hearing. The lady asked if I messed it up and I said that was how I got it back. It was not right and I could tell by looking at it. She said that the aids were really messed up badly. They fixed it and $400 later, I walked out of their office. They were awesome. All of that should’ve been included in the original audiologist that I went to that didn’t have one month after I got my hearing aids. The hearing aids were also compatible with the iPhone. I don’t put the phone up to my ear when I'm talking. I have it on audio speaker and it would keep flipping back and forth from speaker to iPhone.

ReSound Hearing sucked. They did what they thought was right, but it wasn’t right when I sent it off as it came back intermixed. I'm pretty sure it was them who also sent me a survey to fill out online. I did that and they felt as though they could send me some new batteries. I don’t even use a battery. I have a battery charger.

One solution, recommended by Costco is to switch to the replaceable battery version. I have been told by Costco that ReSound said they are working on the problem and had issues with both the charger and the batteries. If that isn't fixed by the end of my trial, I will switch to the replaceable battery. Disappointed in ReSound for the false advertising on the charge period.

However, my primary complaint is that it sound horrible in day-to-day, real life operations. I can't listen to music with it as it sound like a wall of garbage noise. Nothing else sounds right. I went in to the audiologist 6 times to get it adjusted. It just sounds horrible! Either the hearing-aid cannot be adjusted correctly or the audiologist will not adjust it close to what my old analog hearing aids would sound like.

I ended up wearing my old analog hearing-aid for my day-to-day activities. I only wear the ReSound hearing aid when I know I am going to be on the phone, or when I have to wear mouse-ear hearing protection. In summary: Pro - it connects to the iPhone via an app. It has feedback canceling. Con - The app is buggy. It sounds awful compared to an analog hearing aid in normal activities, thus I don't wear it.