I also went with the Costco Phillips brand hearing aid which were a great deal and included a charger as well as all of the free cleanings and other benefits. I did a lot of research before buying these 18 months ago and I discovered that the top of the line hearing aids from Oticon, Phillips, Widex and other brands amplify sounds between 8,000 and 10,000 Hz while the less expensive models only amplify sound up to 8,000 Hz as they are really designed primarily for hearing human voices. Another thing I discovered is that the top of the line Oticon (Real 3) and the Costco Phillips brand are manufactured by the same manufacturer but sold under different brand names. I requested detailed specifications for both of these brands from my Audiologist and from Costco and the specifications for the top of the line Oticon and the Phillips from Costco were identical. I don't mean similar I mean absolutely identical.
One other thing my wife and I have discovered (she has Widex hearing aids) is that using the music setting on your app for the hearing aids allows one to hear way more birds as this setting picks up sounds from all directions and not just toward the front. A very noticeable difference. Of course they pick up all of the other sounds as well.
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On Aug 11, 2025, at 12:01 PM, via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
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1. Re: Hearing Aids for Birding? (Bob Boekelheide via Tweeters)
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2. Re: Hearing Aids for Birding? (Diann MacRae via Tweeters)
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3. Re: Hearing Aids for Birding? (Tom Benedict via Tweeters)
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4. My favorite Merlin non-ID oddity (Joshua Hayes via Tweeters)
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5. Bike ride bird (Kevin Lucas via Tweeters)
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6. Re: Hearing Aids for Birding? (Zora Monster via Tweeters)
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7. Re: Hearing Aids for Birding? (Jim Betz via Tweeters)
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8. RFI Binocular sources (via Tweeters)
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9. Re: RFI Binocular sources (Zora Monster via Tweeters)
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Message: 1
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Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2025 13:56:05 -0700
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From: Bob Boekelheide via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
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To: jimbetz at jimbetz.com, Tweeters Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
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Subject: Re: [Tweeters] Hearing Aids for Birding?
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Message-ID: <EA0DA0D7-3121-4A8A-AFC7-130D3636FFA7 at olympus.net>
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
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Hi Jim,
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I use Phillips hearing aids I bought at Costco, which work very well for me. At Costco they have ?hearing aid specialists,? not audiologists. Before buying mine, I visited both an official audiologist as well as a Costco hearing aid store, both of which gave me what seemed like virtually identical hearing tests with virtually the same results. The main difference was that the Phillips hearing aids at Costco cost $1500 and the other hearing aids through the commercial store cost $4500 - $6000. Just like the more expensive hearing aids, the Phillips use a cell phone app to choose different ?programs? and sound levels, as well as an equalizer to adjust frequencies within each program. The app works very well, recently updated to increase its speed. I hate to sound like a Costco commercial, but it seemed like a no-brainer to buy the ones at Costco, which include free cleanings without an appointment and regular free appointments for adjustments and updates.
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When I first went in, I jokingly told the ?specialist? that my measure of success is to hear Golden-crowned Kinglets 100 feet up in the Doug-firs. I was losing high-frequency hearing above 3000 Hz, which these hearing aids definitely help. I?ve been very pleased, but?. I can now hear Golden-crowned Kinglets surprisingly well when they are nearby, but, dang it, I still have trouble hearing them 100 feet up in the Doug-firs. When I?m with some young birding friends with excellent hearing, my friends occasionally hear some high-pitched voices way up there that I struggle to hear. Maybe I?m asking too much, but the frequencies seem to top out at about 8000 Hz, even when adjusted with the equalizer. But it's a lot better than it used to be. There are a whole lot of bird sounds between 3000 and 8000 Hz.
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The other problem with hearing aids is they amplify all sounds, not just the birds you want to hear. So rivers, highways, footsteps, people talking, etc, are louder as well, sometimes getting in the way of hearing the birds.
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Hope this helps,
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Bob Boekelheide
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Dungeness
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From: Jim Betz via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu <mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>>
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Subject: [Tweeters] Hearing Aids for Birding?
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Date: August 9, 2025 at 10:22:23?AM PDT
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To: via Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu <mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>>
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Reply-To: jimbetz at jimbetz.com <mailto:jimbetz at jimbetz.com>
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Hi,
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I'm interested in knowing what others experience is with hearing aids
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and the use of them for birding. Please include brand names for the aids
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you have used/are using. Also please share how well/not so well they
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are for the purposes of birding. Thanks!
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- Jim in Skagit
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