Go Hearing - Go Prime OTC Hearing Aids - Black

I've been wearing hearing aids (and Amaz0n hearing amplifiers) 2 different animals, trust me, since 2010. The expensive ones do what they do but strike fear into your wallet and heart when the cats find the new toy or you get caught in a downpour. Maybe even *cough* drop one in the lake. For this price and quality, you have me! I've paid more for products I've had to return. I've had mine since the week they went over the counter, best purchase I've made in the whole 12 years of "officially hard of hearing" the decade before that I just said HUH? a LOT.. picture is a small sample of the last 12 years and another of relative size. 99% of people just think I have in earbuds for my phone.

On the bright side: It works well for some things. The first time I used them I heard my neighbors working next door - with the windows closed. At that point, I was pleased. The longer I had them, the less I liked the results. 1. Each bud has a button to adjust the volume. The left has a button near the top and the right near the bottom. Confusing. They can be difficult to find and operate. To control the volume, you must cycle through all the levels which can really hurt. Also, since the antenna sticks out more than the volume button, I ended up having to fiddle with it. 2. Unfortunately, the hearing aids did not help at all with people talking. I ended up listening to miscellaneous noise while trying to hear the person in front of me. 3. I did not find them uncomfortable, but they had a tendency to loosen while wearing them. My hearing loss is moderate with the loss at both the top and bottom of the range. For me, I was just as well off using earbuds with the tv as the hearing aids did not really help me with anything else.

I was excited to get these because over time and from my past in the military and playing in various bands when I was in high school has probably affected my hearing quite a bit. I also have a mild case of tinnitus that is fairly manageable. I’ve found that I am asking people to repeat themselves through the day and now that I’m conscious of it I’ve gotten pretty annoyed with myself. It was recommended to me that I should get one of the new sets of over the counter hearing aids so I was stoked to get these GoHearing buds. These seem to be using Siemens tech and have a similar build so I wouldn’t be surprised if they are a third-party branding of that build. These seem to work pretty well. There are three programs. A regular program, a treble boost program, and a bass boost program. I’ve tried them all and found the regular one to work best for me. I really like how these are so small. They are definitely still noticeable, but they are less noticeable. I have a benefit from the culture accepting people wearing earbuds all the time, and these are so much smaller, I’m not sure anyone would really notice them. They are not “flesh” colored so if someone looks at your ears, they are going to be obvious. The sound from these aids is definitely amplified. The best way for me to describe how I felt with them is that I thought everything sounded crisper and easier. I didn’t feel so much strain, and I didn’t need to “pay close attention.” If you’re losing your hearing, you know what I mean. There’s some freedom in this. For the most part, they are comfortable, and you really do need to stick them far into your ears and size them right with the included ear cups or you might get a little feedback. And, that’s my issue with them when I’m putting them in and taking them out. It can get a little noisy and feedbacky, so I would recommend keeping them on the lowest volume when putting in and out so that you don’t have to blast your ears. And that’s my biggest issue with these aids. The volume is controlled with a single button that has three stages of loudness for each of three programs. To increase the volume is easy with a button press. If you fumble you can get too loud then have to press the button over and over again until you get back to the program you wanted and volume you wanted. This can be bad, but fortunately there’s a minor delay before it starts to pipe the sound into your ears. The buds are fairly small so without some kind of touch sensitivity I’m not sure how they would put in a reduce volume button. It's fairly easy to take them out because of a plastic cord that juts out of the side. When I was trying to get the fit right, the cord stuck my ear quite a bit and tickled the inside of my ears. It was uncomfortable but adjusting made it better. There’s another “lite” version of this set that requires a small screwdriver to handle the volume. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. I will say that I’m lucky that I was happy with the first setting on the first program because pressing the button is the worst part of this experience. Before I put in this review, I wore them continuously for a week and they didn’t feel any different from wearing a set of high quality earbuds. At night my ears were sore but after 4 days I didn’t feel that way anymore. The batteries definitely lasted all of my workday and they charged pretty quickly after putting them in the charging case. If you don’t want to go all the way and get a couple thousand dollar prescription hearing aids, maybe try these out.

I got the Go Hearing Go Prime OTC Hearing Aids, because I felt like I’ve noticed some hearing loss in my left ear recently where I've had trouble hearing people who talk to me on my left side. Though I have not been diagnosed with any hearing loss from a doctor, I thought I would give this product a shot. Right out of the box these are ready to go with a charge, setup is fairly straightforward in that you put the buds in your ears and you're ready to go. They are color coordinated with red being right and blue being left so there should be no confusion in putting these in. The ear buds fit very comfortably in my ears but found the volume adjust button to be annoying to change where the button location is flipped flopped on the other earbud, so that was hard at first to figure out. And the instruction says there is a tool to change the volume, but it's a generic manual for all of Go-Hearing hearing devices, so I spent a couple minutes poking the buds with the tip cleaner by accident. (I recommend they have specific manuals for each product.) I can say that these did increase my ability to hear better out of my left ear but I could never get used to wearing these when I would interact with people and then having to hear my voice which would sound robotic and would take me out of the conversation and would have to take them out. I also would have issues with static interference when I would put my phone up to my ear to take a call which made it so that I would have to take every call on speaker phone while using it to avoid the static noise. Overall I think this product does what it says it will do in that you will be able to hear better but with some trade offs with static noise and your voice sounding like a robot.

Go Hearing - Go Prime OTC Hearing Aids. Go Hearing’s OTC aid keeps its focus on delivering sound amplification with a fairly simple set of earbuds. Hearing improvement is as immediate as charging up the case, allowing the case to charge the enclosed earbuds, and then inserting the earbuds into my ear canals. I could hear the highly amplified shuffling of pages in the small USER MANUAL in my hands. I’m pretty sure I would have heard a fly’s wings if one had passed nearby. These work as intended, even before I dove into the settings to achieve some customization. SETUP: Before I dive into getting these Go Hearing setup to use, I’d like to draw attention to the need to be patient with these devices and yourself. These seemed too sensitive at first. Even this somewhat simple set of features (volume settings and programs) can seem a bit overwhelming and hard to control. Don’t ry to change too much, or anything at first. These ear buds, and probably other brands, soon become familiar and comfortable. It really takes only a few hours of fully charging the case with the enclosed earbuds to get ready for all day use (30 hours specified). The “DOMES” already attached to the ear buds appear to be medium size, with two more sets for small or larger ear canals. I didn’t test the other sizes yet, but they appear to pull off and re-attach like most other modern earbuds. Just be sure to fully force them onto their posts during replacement. I discovered that the fit necessary for effective use of the Go Prime earbuds was not terribly fussy. These amplify with few extraneous artifact noises with the already attached medium “domes”. Each ear piece is brightly colored with either a RED or BLUE band clearly marked R for right and L for left. Those colored bands are not visible once the ear buds are inserted. In fact, these earbuds are barely visible because the device is very small and sets deeper into the ear than typical earbuds. No worry however, because there is a nearly invisible pull wire to retrieve them from your ear canals. The Go Hearing has individual VOLUME controls for each ear, There are a number of levels (the user manual indicates 8), accessed by quick, distinct presses on the raised VOLUME/PROGRAM button. The instructions confuse the issue by referencing an adjustment tool, but that is NOT an option and appears to refer to a different model, entirely. This same VOLUME/PROGRAM button allows the end user to cycle through 3 different preset equalization programs. However, the process requires the end user to hold down the button for 3-4 seconds. The programs are offered in succession: The first is NORMAL, accompanied by 1 beep, and addresses amplification across the broadest sound spectrum. The second is HIGH FREQUENCY, accompanied by 2 beeps, and seems to boost the treble region mostly. The 3rd is LOW FREQUENCY, accompanied by 3 beeps, and boost the lower bass region of sounds. Another 3-4 second press brings you back to the normal program. I WISH: The use of beeps for both volume confirmation and program change is only slightly helpful, and leaves me still confused. Is it that difficult to use a digital voice so users don’t lose their bearings while making setting changes? And that odd asymmetrical orientation of the volume control, differing from left to right seems unnecessary and eventually correctable. PERFORMANCE / SUMMARY: Go Hearing - Go Prime receives a round of applause from me. These ear buds are super small and discreet, These ear buds have limited design goals and a corresponding limited set of features. And they all work quite nicely. Using these while viewing/listening to TV provided an immediate increase in volume across the entire sound spectrum. There were few noise artifacts. Feedback noises were strictly limited to those times I let my hands linger too closely to my ears while making adjustments. For those times when the TV was too loud during dramatic excesses, it was just easier to pull the ear buds from my ears. and place them back in afterwards. I would not describe the sound shaping quality as subtle or sublime. These are a blunt amplification tool, but they sure do that work quite well. If I over-do the amplification, I’m competing with bats. These are not difficult to manage. Knowing they have a lengthy operating time between charges and no replacement batteries was reassuring. They operate for long stretches of time and are fully (lithium battery) rechargeable from a very small case. There is no software and no App. There is no hearing test. The ear buds are only about amplifying sound. They provide a variable volume control operated using a push button feature that quickly and easily modifies sound level. There is no advanced, sophisticated analysis of your hearing frequency curves. But, there are 3 presets that offer a way to address a broader range of inadequacies. Use them or not, the amplification itself will address some hearing issues, The 3 program settings provide a simple tool for limited tuning for specific issues. I like these OTC hearing aids. Easy to recommend.