Quote:
Originally Posted by Welly Wu
I still don't understand why so many Head-Fi members in particular can not get the correct ear impressions made for them. Mine still fit perfectly and I only had one visit with an audiologist -- I have never needed a re-fit whatsoever. Plus, I was the first one on Head-Fi who got the Ue-10 PRO. I'm not trying to sound unsympathetic, but UE said that Head-Fi customers usually request refits. What's going on here?
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I'm happy for you as you seemed to be one of those who were lucky on their first try.
Let's look take a look at UEs customers: There are something like two groups of customers
(A) Professional musicians (or engineers, whatever, just pros)
(B) Non-pro customers
|--(B.1) Head-Fi members
|--(B.2) Non-Head-Fi members
I bet that most people of group (A) just head over to Irvine and get their impressions done at UE. So at least one can be assured that the way they get their impressions done is correct/the way UE wants them. Group (A) most probably aren't the people who need a re-fit - so we may ignore them with regard to the question why so many people need a refit.
Group (B) lives across the world, just like Group (A) and a part of this group might also head over to UE and therefore might be happy with their first fit. Most people of group (B) though will probably visit one or more audiologists in their respective countries. Out of those audiologists I bet most will have never heard of UE and (1) at least their usual technique of taking impressions will differ from UE's technique (and might therefore either ignore the instructions or be at least inexperienced) or (2) the quality of the impressions might be simply plain bad.
Let's assume that the small percentage of those audiologists (who know about UE and) use the same technique + good quality will produce good impressions which need no re-fits. We can ignore this IMHO very small group, too, for our quest to find out why there are so many refits going on.
The before mentioned "inabilities" (1) and (2) will become problematic now.
As far as I know the main difference between the usual audiologist's technique and UE's one is the open mouth, so even if the audiologist at hand isn't familiar with UE's technique it will most probably work well enough IF and only IF (a) he/she/it is able to take some quality impressions (no bubbles, etc) and (b) he/she/it follows UE instructions. [There might be even more substantial differences than just the open mouth, these will just increase the probability of failure]
That's where the problems begin: I have gotten two impressions done so far, the first one was of a somehow bad quality (bubbles, "sharp" edges - maybe okay for hearing aids but not for UEs standards) and the second one wasn't done with a 100% consistence with UEs instructions (see my former posts).
I've have read quite a few posts where people (including me) willingly followed the instructions of the respective audiologists with variation on UEs instructions, because the audiologist told them that it will be ok if he/she just follows his/her instructions. Even going to a Sonus audiologist won't guarantee you everytime that they know about UE as we have seen (cf. solvexyz's post).
So we have a relatively big percentage of UE customers who probably won't get the impressions done the way UE wants them, due bad quality or failing to follow UEs instructions. Most of them will probably need a re-fit.
I don't know how many out of this group will be a Head-Fi member. Even if Head-Fi members are not the majority of those who need a re-fit, Head-Fi might form the biggest intersection (in the mathematical sense) of all those individuals. I somehow doubt that there are other communities who buy more UE custom products than Head-Fi, no matter if there are more individual UE customers than all Head-Fi UE customers summed up. That MIGHT be explaination why UE believes that most of the time Head-Fiers are in need of a re-fit.
Possible solutions are: We become more picky about choosing our audiologist, we won't listen to their differing opinions on how the impressions should be done. Out of my limited experience I know how difficult it is, you're not only limited by the number of available audiologists in your area but you also have to be selfconfident enough to tell an (possibly) experienced audiologist how to do his job and you should be able to tell whether the quality of an impression is good or bad (though with very bad quality UE might tell you to re-do your impressions).
All those assumptions were made with regard to the audiologist, i.e. it's a mistake of how the impressions were done and not a mistake at UEs lab. It might be a completely different theory if for example it's not the audiologists fault but UEs one (which is unlikely) OR if it's neither UEs nor the audiologists fault but simply due to the individuals shapes of the ear canals (not that unlikely).
BTW digihead, thanks! I will definitely look around and find a few other audiologists, next time I'll be picky about following UEs instructions exactly.
Ciao,
Marcus
to see if they are really that comfortable. They are; big time.
