Jabra Enhance Select

They work. I like them. I look good in them and can hear. My first hearing aids, so not yet a connoisseur. Music sounds horrible in them, like a bad radio toy when I was a kid. I split the time with Jabra and Apple AirPods with hearing aid feature which do just as well (for $200, not $2,000), and AirPods make music sound great. But AirPods are a big visual and my ears get tired of them. Jabra’s take me two hands to put in, the battery life case is gigantic compared to my AirPods case (Apple = pocket carry, Jabra = backpack carry). The microphones sit on the ear comfortably but they interfere with the bows of my glasses. The bows rest on top the microphone which works surprisingly well but can rub or wack them making a sound. Or, they slide side by side (microphone and bows) and push my ears outward. If the wire was longer they could sit back more behind the ear but the wire is pretty short. The aid comes with lots of accessory tools that don’t fit in the gigantic cases which seems a miss. App is okay, easy to use but not Apple elegant. Bottom line: they work and I look good and can hear.

I had high hopes for the Jabra Enhance Select 500 hearing aids I purchased but found that I literally heard better without them than with them. I have a moderate high frequency hearing loss typical for the 72-year-old that I am. I worked extensively with Jabra support to get them customized for my audiogram and other tuning was done. I wore them extensively for about six weeks to see if I would adjust to them and see a change. I found streaming of music and phone calls to be just awful. The noisy restaurant noise canceling setting did nothing or almost nothing. The processing of sound through the hearing aids degraded it rather than enhancing it. I thought that perhaps technological advances and the nonprescription hearing aid movement would mean I could get helpful hearing aids for a reasonable price. Nope. I was able to return them within the 100-day trial period for full credit. In contrast I recently bought Zoro NC9 wireless earbuds and they have amazing sound quality and dramatically effective nose cancelation for about $30. Sure, these are earbuds and not hearing aids, but they offer a glimpse of what high quality sound processing looks like and how inexpensively it can be done.

I had tried three years ago ( after my entire family telling me I needed hearing aids) I bought Phonak Made so many trips back to the audiologist I lost count. The one thing they couldn’t get rid of was the sharp sounds. A few weeks ago my sister bought the Jabra Enhance Select 300. She called me and asked me what I thought, after researching I knew she would never have the bad experience I was having. She ordered them and one day later I bit the bullet and also ordered. The minute I put these in my ears I knew how good they were. I had my appointment to fine tune them yesterday Friday March 15th 2024. I absolutely cannot believe how perfectly I can now hear. My audiologist was amazing…. I’m happy ( absolutely no sharp, tinny sounds)… more like a normal hearing person that doesn’t wear hearing aids. I want to also add before the expense Phonak aids, I had MD’s and Eargo…. Nothing compares to these ….. absolutely nothing