Good morning all, not a bad day at all here, no rain and very little wind, just enough to allow the sound of the church bells in town to drift over the fields to me while I was filling the hay racks.
BEF, it must be feeling strange for your dad without any cattle to watch over. Will he be renting the ground out to a neighbour ?
Some specific hearing aid info
For Don and anyone else curious about hearing aids. The model I have is a Starkey Livio i1600. I have 60 days to decide if I want to keep it or try something else. It cost me ｣2,300 and has a 4 year warranty. I was guided entirely by my audiologist on which make and model. I think this lady really knows her stuff, she used to train other audiologists before recently working for herself. She is not tied to a single manufacturer and her prices are not much different to online sellers, so I don't mind placing my trust in her instead of going on the ratings in consumer magazines. As well as the quality of the sound and how it fits in/around the ear, there is a lot going on in "digital" hearing aids and how well each model performs can't be determined by reading a data sheet. Information is constantly being transmitted by wireless between each earpiece and clever algorithms use it to process sounds from different directions to try and eliminate unwanted sound and give good spatial awareness to what is heard. I got a confidence boost the first day I came home with the hearing aids on and even with the wind gusting around the buildings above 30 mph, there were no feedback squeals or whistles.
When not in use they stick magnetically into a small docking pod to recharge. They say up to 30 hours of use from each 3.5 hour charge. The charger also has an inbuilt lithium battery which is able to charge them 3 times without needing an ac supply.
Spec wise this model has 16 channels and a frequency response up to 10 kHz. Regarding memories, I don't know the limit Don. The audiologist has set me up with basic ones to get me going of "normal", "music" and "crowd" and said these can be changed and added to after I get more practice. I can cycle between these by pressing a small button from either hearing aid.
The phone app adjusts volume and allows memories to be selected. Multiple custom memories can also be created. I think this uses the "normal" information as a template and then allows it to be modified in lots of different ways. Out of curiosity I had a quick play to prove it it does change the response, however for the next month or so I intend to leave well alone until I am more used to the basics.
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For gadget fans, there are other phone options, such as to geotag memories. As your phone GPS identifies your have arrived at, say, home or church, it automatically change the memory accordingly. Haven't tried it and doubt I ever will.
What I did try yesterday was listening to music. Wow...
