REVIEW OF THE OTICON ALTA PRO

HEAR IT FROM DR. ITO

Question: “What is your opinion of the Oticon Alta Pro hearing aid?”

Dr. Ito: “This is a very popular model, especially in San Jose. I’ll tell you what I really like about the Oticon Alta Pro hearing aid, and then I’ll tell you what I don’t like about it.”

One caveat: The Oticon Alta Pro is also known as the Oticon Alta2 Pro due to the recent upgraded platform, called the Inium Sense. The new model name is the Oticon Alta2 Pro.

What I like about the Oticon Alta Pro hearing aid:

The premium sound processor. Very natural and pleasant sound quality. Oticon refers to this as Brain Hearing. It’s really a culmination of all of their features such as the Binaural Processing, Synchronization, Coordination, and Noise Management. The new platform features the Soft Speech Booster, Tinnitus SoundSupport, and the feedback shield. The features are designed for the ultimate in understanding conversations. The ability of the wearer to locate sounds that are of interest (like someone calling out your name) in the midst of that background noise. When we have Binaural Synchronization, Coordination, and Noise Management, the user can pinpoint the location of surrounding sounds because the brain can judge incoming sounds accurately.

Solid design, durable parts, solid quality control coming from the factory, and reliable performance. Each part fits together with high precision. This makes a big difference in my lab. I haven’t had any hearing aids coming back to me with pieces broken off.

Design of the wiring between the receiver and the device. I really like the careful design that went into this. Having worked with other manufacturers, I can tell you that this does make a difference. The wire runs flush against the skin and blends beautifully into the curve. With this design, there is much less chance of the wire “bowing” out from the skin, which always makes me want to reach out and push that receiver into the person’s ear further, even in public places!

Design of the receiver. Believe it or not, that micro-bend in the receiver makes a big difference in how it seats inside of the ear. Because the ear canal is naturally “bendy,” the gentle bend of the speaker follows the subtle bend, and directs sound more directly toward the eardrum.

What I don’t like about the Oticon Alta Pro hearing aid:

If the wearer wants to receive a cell phone call via bluetooth, he or she has to wear the Streamer Pro around their neck. Granted, the Streamer Pro is a handy accessory to have. The user can pair the Streamer Pro with their cell phone or iPad, and receive streaming music or a call into the hearing aids by a push of a button. The Streamer Pro essentially transforms the hearing aids into a pair of bluetooth earphones. The buttons and controls on the accessory are easy to use, but most people just don’t want to wear something around the neck. Yes, the reason for the Streamer Pro is that the hearing aids need the space inside of the device to store the binaural processing capability, but it is still a large leap to accept the Streamer Pro for users.

Another let-down is that the App is available ONLY if the user wears the Streamer Pro. This sort of defeats the purpose of using the App, although I understand the intent of the designers to have the user reach for and push buttons on the cell phone rather than the Streamer Pro. I vote for the minimalist lifestyle; have the least number of gadgets as possible to carry all over the place. This is why we have everything on our cell phones, including our calendars, contacts, the internet, lists, etc.

The battery door on the mini RITE and on the smaller Design RITE are hard to open. Instead of swinging outward as one would expect, it swings inward with the curvature of the casing, making it counter-intuitive. For those with less-than clear close vision (anyone over 50 years old), the “lip” of the door is hard to find and the user ends up pulling on the edge of button, which of course doesn’t open. However, it just takes a couple of practice runs to get the hang of opening the door.

The button on the back of the mini RITE is too subtle for some people to feel it.

They recently changed to a cheaper presentation box. This is the box that holds your hearing aids, the User Manual, and the cleaning tools. The box is all cardboard.

None of the Oticon models are rechargeable. Instead, you have to insert a battery. All electronics out there on the market are rechargeable. Our cell phones, iPads, etc are all docked at the charging station each night. But with the Oticons, we are still throwing away batteries. Of course, only the Siemens and Rexton line of hearing aids are rechargeable, but this is a concept that all of the major hearing manufacturers should be embracing.