I had never worn hearing aids before and my mild-moderate hearing loss was getting worse. So, because of reviews and cost, I chose Costco hearing aids. I had tried a couple of OTC amplifiers but they did not help me understand speech and loud sounds were too jarring with them. So, I got the Philips 9040 (Oticon) aids from Costco.

I tried them for a few months but overall the sound was awful because:

1. I could not understand people right in front of me when there was a crowd around. So, with many people around, I had to take the aid off to understand my immediate group of people. This happened even on bluetooth phone calls.

2. Loud sounds were jarring. I have loud sound sensitivity and the hearing aids made me nauseous whenever I was around loud people. Oh, and loud distant noises were awful too. Like being able to hear the far off clanking of dishware in restaurants when all I wanted to do was to hear the people next to me. Walking near traffic became overwhelming.

3. All sounds were different. I did not recognize people's voices from people I had known for years. I had to relearn how different people sounded. I also had to relearn the sound of water, fans, etc. Everything sounded flat and it was only when I took off the HAs did the world sound full.

4. Music sounded flat, too. Like listening to sounds recorded with a very low bit rate. My $20 pair of earbuds were so much better sounding. Reading the comments on this subReddit, I guess this is how HAs are meant to be, and I am not the only one.

5. There was no effective noise canceling. If I wanted to hear people in a car that had road noise, I had to remove my HAs. Otherwise, the sounds I heard were mainly road noise with unintelligible speech in the background.

So, I went back a couple of times to the HA specialist at Costco with my complaints and got my HAs tweaked a couple of times. Nothing much improved and in some ways became even worse.

On a whim, I went to a different Costco. The difference was amazing. This HA specialist did an update, and gave my Android app the speech in noise setting. Both settings now make my aids sound 100% better and I can wear them comfortably for longer periods of time. I now actually want to wear them when I go out.

I don't know what to make of my experiences. But, I did want to say that maybe if you are having problems, perhaps another fitter might be helpful.

I have high and mid frequency hearing loss. I tried the Oticon Intent at an audiologist office and they helped some although my word recognition only improved slightly. My main goals and better understanding conversations when I can’t read lips in quieter environments and being able to participate in conversations in places like relatively loud restaurants. It would also be beneficial if I could have blue tooth for iPhone and I’d be nice to have a tinnitus reduction feature but not critical. I’m currently being held back at work and in personal relationships in person and improvement in those areas is the primary goal. The way they look and battery life are of secondary importance to me. I know that there is a high end Oticon intent like model at Costco but I am wondering what other high end models I should try? If I don’t buy at Costco I will probably spend $6k at the audiologist so I don’t have a Costco price cap. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything critical. Thanks!