STOP Using Hearing Aid Domes

Still using rubber domes on your hearing aids, you gotta step up your game. The vast majority of hearing aids that are dispensed to patients today are called receiver in canal devices, and virtually all of them are fit with generic rubber domes. Now, don't get me wrong, in some cases using an open vented or closed dome can make a lot of sense physically and acoustically. However, there are a lot of people, possibly yourself included, that would get significantly more benefit from a custom ear mold or custom in the ear hearing aid. Really, it all depends on several variables, including the ability to achieve your hearing loss, prescription feedback control, comfort retention, and streaming sound quality. The question becomes, are you one of those individuals that would benefit significantly from a custom solution or should you stick with your rubber dome? Well, that is exactly what we're gonna find out in this video.

But before we get started, big shout out to Phonak for sponsoring today's video, but more on them in a little bit. Using rubber domes on your receiver in canal hearing aids or your instant fit in the ear, hearing aids has its place when it comes to achieving high levels of success with hearing treatment. For instance, if you have normal low frequency hearing thresholds that gradually decline to mild or moderate thresholds in the high frequencies, then open domes make a lot of sense to understand why it is important to understand which speech sounds are still audible to individuals with this type of hearing loss and which speech sounds are not. These are all of the speech sounds in the English language and where they're heard at in terms of frequency and intensity. Any of these speech sounds that are above the X's and the O'S and the shaded gray region can no longer be heard due to the hearing loss.

Any of these speech sounds that are below the X's and the O'S in the white region can be heard. This is why open domes make a lot of sense because the low frequency speech sounds that can still be heard can pass naturally through the open perforations on an open dome, and then the hearing aid is responsible for amplifying the higher frequencies so they can once again be heard. And as long as the amplification levels have been verified by real ear measurement to meet your hearing loss prescription for this type of hearing loss, you'll be able to hear your best with an open dome. Now, depending on the size and shape of your ear canals, you can have a mild sloping down to a moderately severe level of hearing loss and get away with using a vented rubber dome and still be able to trap in the appropriate amount of amplification.

However, if we determine that we are not able to gain you access to these missing speech sounds due to your hearing loss, then using a custom ear mold or a custom in the ear hearing aid makes a lot of sense. All right, guys, I hope you're enjoying the video so far. We've got some more stuff to cover, but if you could do me a huge favor, click the like button. I really appreciate it because it gets these videos in front of a bigger audience. And while you're at it, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button with notification bell, go ahead and do that as well because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I release multiple new videos every single week. That being said, I really appreciate it and let's go ahead and get back to the video. Like I mentioned earlier in this video, a custom earpiece can make a lot of

Sense for a variety of reasons, and one of the biggest reasons that you may want to go with a custom earpiece is a better ability to match your hearing loss prescription. In some cases, even the best hearing aid in the entire world will not do a good job if you do not trap the appropriate amount of sound inside of your ears. And this is where a custom ear mold really shines. Not only does a custom earpiece allow your hearing care professional to amplify sound better for you, it also allows them to match your hearing loss prescription more precisely. This is a flat, moderate to moderately severe hearing loss. Initially, this individual was fit with generic rubber domes, but after verifying his amplification levels using Real Ear Measurement, we could see that we were not able to meet his hearing loss prescription, which is indicated by the hash mark line with the amplification he received from his hearing aids using rubber domes, which is indicated by the solid line.

Ideally, we would like the solid line to overlap with the hash line as closely as possible. However, after switching him to a custom ear mold using the exact same hearing aids, we were able to match his prescriptive targets across nearly the entire frequency range, and it took a custom ear mold to do it. Now, in case you were wondering, we were able to achieve this level of perfection using a custom seashell ear mold with an Audeo Lumity hearing aid from Phonak, today's video sponsor, I cannot stress enough how much a custom ear mold can improve the performance of a hearing aid. Now, if you're a current hearing aid wearer using rubber domes on your hearing aids, have you ever noticed that if you take your fingers and you push the tips of your receivers with the domes further into your ear canals, it gives you a better sound quality?

Well, that is something that you can achieve all the time using a custom ear mold. Now, the custom earpiece from phone app or some of my favorite, and it's not just because they allow me to program their Audeo Lumity hearing aids better, but they actually use something called acoustically optimized venting or AOV venting. This venting is specific to you and your hearing loss and the contours in shape of your ear canal, and it allows them to reduce this occlusion effect that a lot of people get from custom ear molds, and it allows us to reduce the amount of whistling or feedback that you get all while perfectly being able to match your hearing loss prescription. This acoustically optimized venting also exists inside of their Virto line of custom in the ear hearing aids, including their invisible in the canal device called the Virto P Titanium and their wireless Bluetooth device called the Virto P Black.

You also get a variety of other benefits that you typically get with a custom molded product, including better comfort inside of your ears, as well as better retention. Since custom earpieces are truly custom for you, they are molded exactly to the shape and contours of your ear for maximum comfort. Whether your impression is done using silicone impression material or a 3D digital scan of your ears, a custom ear mold typically comes out perfect. Not only does this custom contouring lead to a higher level of comfort, but it also aids in retention, meaning when you put your hearing aids inside of your ears, they're gonna stay put, and when a hearing aid stays put inside of your ears, you get a very consistent level

Of amplification all of the time. However, one of the most overlooked benefits of using a custom earpiece is a significant improvement in sound quality when you're streaming audio like music or other media from a smart device. Oftentimes, individuals who use rubber domes on their hearing aids, even if they are a good option for better understanding speech, they do not do a good job of trapping in low frequency sounds when you're streaming audio into your ears. This means that these low frequency based tones just leak right out of your ear canals and you don't even get to experience them. So if you're listening to your favorite song from Lynyrd Skynyrd or Taylor Swift, it's gonna sound really flat and really not that good. But with a custom ear mold, we can trap in those low frequency base tones so you can actually perceive them, which will make your music sound much more rich and full.

Now, if you want the benefits of an open dome for better speech understanding, but a closed vent for better appreciation of music, you can actually get the best of both worlds using Phonak ActiveVent receiver. These receivers are extremely unique in that the venting opens and closes depending on if you're streaming audio or not. If you are not streaming the vents open and it gives you more of an open dome feel when you're having conversations with somebody. But as soon as you start streaming those vents snap shut and it gives you the perception of the low frequency base tones once again. And as long as you have a custom molded active activate receiver slim tip, you're gonna be in good shape. Hearing aid satisfaction rates have skyrocketed over the past several decades, going from 58% satisfaction rates in 1989 to 83% satisfaction rates in 2022, but I would bet that the vast majority of individuals who are still not satisfied with their hearing aids would be satisfied if they decided to use a custom molded product inside of their ears, because as you now know, you could have the best hearing aid on the entire planet, but if you are not using the proper tip on the end of that hearing aid, whether it's a rubber dome or a custom ear mold, you're never gonna experience the full amount of benefit.