Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

4/8/2018 - Initial Thoughts The star count may go up, or down, after more time with these, and comparison to hearing aids. Not sure anyone will want to read this LONG review. Background - My hearing problem is high frequency hearing loss. Symptoms of this are: - Not hearing high pitched tones: appliance alarms, elevator alarms, some phone notifications tones etc. - Often misunderstanding words. For example, last week I was at lunch with some guys, and I asked one "What have you been up to?". What I heard was "Breaking knees". But after listening a bit, I determined he had said "Raking leafs". - Totally unable to follow/hear conversations in noisy environments. I received this unit today after reading reviews that sounded like it may help. I have a hearing test scheduled this coming Friday at Costco, and supposedly can test a hearing aid. I wanted to see how these work before I spend a bunch of money on a hearing aid. After 6 hours of use: One observation of note is that the battery does NOT last 10 hours. It notified me of low battery at 6 hours. The first thing that I noted is that sounds are directional. For example, I have a pool and spa, with a water fall from the spa. Sitting in my entertainment room with door open, I could really hear the spa clearly, and it sounded like it was outside...it did not sound like it was being amplified in my ears. Directional hearing. I was surprised and pleased with that. My son-in-law walked about 35' away talking low, and I could still hear him. He could not hear my replies. I watched a movie, and the jury is out. I could turn the volume up on the Hearphones, and turn the treble higher, and I do believe I was hearing and understanding better. But I don't want to commit my thoughts on that yet. I was pleasantly surprised with the comfort of the ear pieces. I started with the mediums, and they felt comfortable, especially compared to typical earplug type earphones. I almost never find any of those that are comfortable and/or that stay in my ears well. One annoying thing: I ate some crackers while watching the movie: It was loud in my head, and made hearing difficult. So eating crunchy food with them on will not be a great experience. If volume is turned up (like I did for watching the TV), ambient sounds can be surprisingly noticeable. Opening wrappers, dropping ice cubes into a glass, etc., very noticeable. Not really a surprise, given volume turned up. I will need to determine if non-TV watching scenarios result in distracting sounds, and if less volume in those scenarios are fine for those scenarios, resulting in less distraction from the sounds. So, as per above comment, your own voice is amplified somewhat with these on. Plug your ears and speak, and you'll get an idea. It's not as bad as that, but similar in effect. My wife, and daughter, both tell me I speak low when wearing them. I presume it is due to my 'hearing myself' per the above short paragraph. I am anxious to try them in noisy environments; and from the back seat of a car, trying to converse and hear the folks in the front seat. I played music from my receiver and it is not bad, but not as full sounding as listening without them. Need to listen more. I've wondering if music will sound better, particularly with hearing aids, being able to hear higher frequencies. (I do NOT expect these to make me hear higher frequencies, other than maybe if they are amplified enough for me to hear them. But I would expect all else to be too loud in that case. We'll see). I did have a couple phone calls, and I was told I sounded very good with them, and I could hear well, and the sound from the phone through them was good too. I played some pandora through them, and they sounded as good as any BT headphones I've listened to. (I have NOT listened to high dollar BT headsets). That's about all I can think of right now. I will add to this as I move through different environments and experiment with them this week. 4/11/2018 I have used these quite a bit over the past 3 days. A few more things I've noticed: - The rubber ear tips, coming in 3 sizes, are a very pliable rubber, making them more comfortable in my ears than any other earphone I've tried. That being said, I don't think any of the sizes are exacty right for my ears. The mediums will leave my ears sore if using for a long period of time. - After wearing for a while, my ears will start itching some where the rubber tips meet the ear - My expectations for noise cancellation was too high. Having read some reviews that say, for example "Cannot hear the jet at all while flying and listening <to whatever>". That being said, I did ask about expectations of noise cancellation to a Bose tech support rep, and they said "The noise cancellation is more targeted to lower range noise, like jet engine sounds. You will hear higher range sounds, although dignificatnly reduced". I'd say that is correct. - Related to noise cancellation: I went to a gun range today with a friend. I wore the headphones under ear protection muffs. I put the sound on them to "Mute" so that nothing coming in would be amplified. I put Pandora on and did some shooting. It was pleasant, gun firing sound very muffled, enjoyed music while shooting. - Have done one test in restaurant, but not what I need to test. Went with my wife, and wore them in the restaurant. I found this: - The conversations and rattling of dishes etc were all amplified in everywhere mode. Definitely needed to switch to either Focused or Front mode. Decided Front mode was best. - I could hear my wife very clearly. I tried listening to a lady that was in the next boot behind my wife, at the far side of the boot. If I could see here while speaking and listened intently, I could hear her clearly too. - I need to test in restaurant when 2-3 sets of friends go with us to see if I can hear all of them. There is a mode called Group Conversation, and Focused Conversation. I'd like to test those in the restaurant environment. - I was disappointed with the amount of volume I was getting from Pandora through my phone. This was the main reason of my call to the Bose tech support. Turns out there are two sets of volume buttons. The ones on the side of the switch are for controlling the volume of the ambient/voice input. The ones on the inside of the switch are for the volume of streaming music. Works find and happy with that. Sound of the music is good. - TV Listening - taking volume up, and treble up, I can understand tv voice better. It of course will not help if if my lack of understanding is due to accents. - In car use: One thing I've read about in-car use for someone was improvement in hearing sirens of emergency vehicles, especially coming from back. I don't really have that problem. One point of note: if you often use streaming in the car, and you want passengers to hear that as well, you will need to NOT hook these up with bluetooth. I found that I could not get anything else BT to hook to these at same time as the Hearphones. In my case I likely would not use these in a car, unless I have passengers and am hoping to hear all conversation. Or...if I am in back seat as a passenger...which is a scenario I do anticipate using them for. Hoping to test that scenario soon. I am very interested in seeing how these compare to hearing aids. I understand that they can now get you to hear higher frequencies (not sure about this, or whatl high frequencies that will improve). I have a hearing test this Friday with Costco, and supposed to be able to sample some aids. I expect I won't be able to sample it enough to determine a real comparison to these. My thoughts on use of these at this point: I doubt I would wear them that much for television viewing. There are third party ear tips on Amazon that some reviewers say are an improvement over the stock ones. I may order some and try them. But with the discomfort after a longer period of time, listening to TV through them may wane. That would leave me with using them, for the most part, when going with friends where I typically have a hard time hearing. My views on this may change. I expect to add a final part to the review after trying the hearing aids and using them a little longer. 4/27/2018 - Final thoughts I plan to keep these. I raised the star count to 4. A few more thoughts: - I find them to be helpful, and do hear friends talking in noisy restaurants, albeit all noise is amplified. I usually set them to 180°, which quietens (not totally eliminating) sound from behind . If it's particularly noisy, I can set them to focus mode to cut other sounds more. - I really like wearing them when mowing. I can mute all sound from the microphones, and play music, and I just barely hear the mower - The music played through them from my phone sounds very good. Listening to music from my Marantz is not as good sounding. If listening to music in the home from the Marantz, I prefer without these on. - I find that I do use them for television listening more than I thought I would but still do not use them all the time. - If you like your TV louder than everyone else, this is a good solution - I can have Pandora or whatever music playing through them, and if not muted, can still hear if my wife speaks to me. That's about all I have. Hope it helps someone.