- In this video, I'm reviewing
the ReSound LiNX Quattro
hearing aid, coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing
Solutions in Anthem, Arizona.
On this channel,
I cover a bunch of hearing
related information
to help make you a
better informed consumer,
so if you're into that,
make sure you hit that Subscribe button
and don't forget to also hit the bell
because that will give you a notification
the next time I release a new video.
The release of the new ReSound
LiNX Quattro hearing aid
is probably one of the
most anticipated launches
that we have seen in
the hearing aid industry
in a number of years
and this is because the Quattro,
with the help of Google,
is supposed to be the first hearing aid
that lets you connect
directly to an Android phone
to stream audio into both
of your hearing aids.
Yeah, that's right.
No longer do you need an iPhone
to stream audio into both of your ears.
And that isn't the only thing
that ReSound has improved upon
in their new hearing aid,
so let's go ahead and take
a look at the features
and the first feature I wanna talk about
is lithium rechargeability.
I'm a huge fan of lithium
rechargeable hearing aids
because they are extremely reliable.
And with the ReSound Quattro devices,
you actually get 30 hours of battery life
if you don't do any streaming,
and you get 24 hours of battery life
if you spend half of that time
streaming that audio
into your hearing aids,
which is absolutely phenomenal
when you look at what the
power requirements are
to be able to do streaming.
The charger case is pretty small.
It stores up to three charges
inside of the actual case,
so you don't actually have to
have it plugged into the wall.
If you're gonna go on a trip somewhere,
you can unplug it, take it
with you, no cord needed.
You get three full charges
inside of your devices,
and those devices charge really quickly.
So, one minute spent in the charger
actually gives you 15
minutes of battery life.
The best thing though
about the charger case
is that the hearing aids
are very easy to remove.
So if you're someone who
has finger dexterity issues
or you don't have a lot
of strength in your hands,
you don't have to pry these hearing aids
outside of the case.
On top of that, when you pull them out,
they actually turn on, so you
don't actually have to worry
about clicking a button
or holding a button down
in order to turn the devices on.
You pull 'em out of the case,
you put 'em on your ear,
and you're ready to go.
The second great thing about
the Quattro hearing aids
is that they have a increased
input dynamic range.
Input dynamic range is extremely important
for hearing better in
background noise situations,
so you want the highest
input dynamic range
that you can get.
If this is too low,
then the hearing aids
are forced to do things
called peak clipping
and input compression.
Both of these things can cause
distortion in the signal,
which can destroy your
ability to hear better
in a background noise situation.
Now, the microphones that these
Quattro hearing devices use
have a maximum capability of 116 decibels
and ReSound has got every last decibel
out of those microphones
that they possibly can,
so they are maxing out at 116
dB of input dynamic range,
which to my knowledge is
the best in the industry.
The third thing is the
increased frequency bandwidth.
Frequency bandwidth is important
because higher frequencies
give you better clarity in speech.
And so, the Quattro hearing devices
actually get you all the
way out to 9.6 kilohertz.
Even though you probably
won't be able to get
all of the benefit out
of that 9.6 kilohertz,
it's really nice to be
able to actually adjust
the hearing aids out to
a higher frequency now
than we could before,
so we have a better shot
of hitting your prescriptive targets.
The fourth thing that the Quattro has
is a new and improved radio
that actually gives you
improved signal strength by five decibels.
This means that the
ear-to-ear communication
between the devices on your
right ear and your left ear
is more efficient, which will help you
with spatial awareness
and localization cues.
The fifth new feature
in the Quattro hearing
aids is a faster chip.
The chip now is a hundred
times faster than the old chip
and this allows them to
process sound much quicker,
which in combination
with the 6th Generation
2.4G Bluetooth antenna
allows them to stream audio
with almost no lag time,
whether it's coming from a smartphone
or whether it's coming from
one of ReSound's accessories.
And the sixth new thing in
the Quattro hearing aids
and the thing that I am most excited about
as a programmer of hearing aids
is the Impact Noise Reduction feature.
Previous models of the
ReSound LiNX devices
have not had Impact Noise Reduction.
And so, if you're a
existing hearing aid user,
you know that those impact
noises can be extremely annoying.
If you are someone who is considering
treating your hearing
loss for the first time,
these sounds of setting a ceramic cup down
on a granite countertop can
send a really loud signal
through the hearing aids
and be very jarring to you.
Well, when we activate this feature,
we can soften those sounds
to where they don't become annoying,
they don't become painfully
loud or anything like that.
So, I am extremely happy
to now see that ReSound has finally done
an impact noise reduction
feature inside of their Quattro.
The LiNX Quattro hearing
aid still have a lot
of the same features that
the LiNX 3D devices have.
The first one is ReSound Assist.
ReSound Assist is the feature
that lets you get your hearing
devices remotely adjusted
by your hearing care professional
when you are in the
comfort of your own home,
and it's a feature that I use a lot of
since I get a lot of patients
from all over the place.
The Quattro still uses the
same ReSound Smart 3D app,
which is my personal favorite
app of all of the apps
that exist in the hearing space right now.
And the ReSound Quattro
still has the capability to
directly connect with an iPhone.
There are however a few things
that I am not crazy about
with the ReSound LiNX
Quattro hearing devices
and the first one is size.
These devices are a little
bit on the bigger side.
Because they have that lithium
battery inside of them,
they have to make them
a little bit thicker
than a traditional sized 312 battery,
which is what the LiNX 3D devices are.
Now, it depends on how much space
that you have behind your ear
that will depend on if
you can actually use
this hearing aid or not.
They actually fit behind
my ear pretty well.
I mean, I can feel it
back there, very slightly,
but if someone had very narrow space
back behind their ear, it might be tough
to actually get this on
and how to be comfortable.
And then you have the concern
if you have glasses to some degree.
Most glasses don't interfere
with hearing aids that go behind the ear
but every once in a while,
if you get someone with very
narrow space behind their ear,
it's a very tough thing to do
to fit those glasses back there
with a really big hearing aid.
The second thing that bothers me
about ReSound LiNX Quattro hearing aids
is that they are not yet available
to stream directly from an Android device.
Now, I understand why ReSound
would wanna release this hearing aid.
It does have a lot of improvements
over the previous generation,
but at the same time,
the biggest component of this hearing aid
and why everyone is so excited about it
is because it's supposed
to be able to stream
directly from an Android device.
Now, I am not a patient guy
when it comes to these types of things
and I've tried contacting ReSound
to get someone who can
give me some kind of idea
when that capability
will actually come about
and it turns into this
situation that they don't know
because they basically have
to wait for Google to do it,
so there's nothing that they can tell me.
So, it's something that I
understand why they released it
but at the same time,
I really want that feature
available for my patients
and I know that individuals
are going to be postponing
treating their hearing loss
because they wanna wait for that feature.
All right, negatives aside,
the ReSound LiNX Quattro hearing aid
is a pretty impressive device.
When I was doing the review,
I was just kind of chuckling
to myself thinking,
just think about hearing
aids five years ago,
where they were to where they are now,
and it is just light years
ahead of where they were,
just that five years ago.
And anytime someone tells me
that, oh, well smartphones
are so much more technologically
advanced than hearing aids,
I'm thinking you have never spent any time
with an audio engineer who
works with hearing aids
because they are advancing
to the point where you think
that they can't go any further
and then ReSound goes ahead
and releases a hearing aid like this.
Just remember, it does not matter
how great your hearing aids are
or how many features that
those hearing aids have
if they haven't been programmed correctly
to your hearing loss prescription
using real-ear measurement.
Now, if you don't know what
real-ear measurement is,
I highly recommend that you watch my video
that I will link in the card up here
and in the description below.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you liked the video, please share it.
If you wanna see other
videos just like this one,
make sure you hit that Subscribe button.
I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
