Concha Labs has been making over-the-counter listening to aids since 2017, advertising and marketing only one product—the Concha Sol.
The listening to aids have a well-recognized design, a basic behind-the-ear configuration with a easy rocker management on the again of every. Concha notably touts its customizability: The Sol are available your selection of 4 colours, and might be configured with lead wires in 4 totally different sizes, although it ought to be famous that many competing listening to aids have lead wires that may be adjusted on the fly and changed with bigger or smaller ones.
On the time of your order, Concha works to transform the listening to aids to the scale of your ears, pores and skin tone, and the colour of your hair (in case you’re fortunate sufficient to have any left), maximizing the probability that they’ll mix in and match correctly. I acquired the gray mannequin with the longest obtainable leads and measured the load of those gadgets at 2.03 grams, which could be very light-weight for behind-the-ear listening to aids.
Replaceable Batteries
The first purpose behind such a lightweight weight is the Sol’s greatest draw back: replaceable batteries. That’s a little bit of a nonstarter in in the present day’s listening to help world, and it’s shocking that Concha Labs continues to be clinging to a fading energy mannequin that requires the consumer to fumble with sliding in a brand new pair of tiny batteries each 5 to 7 days. Whereas replaceable batteries provide a far longer lifespan than even the perfect rechargeable cells (in addition to the aforementioned lighter weight), they’re nonetheless a trouble that few get pleasure from. (The final analysis I’ve seen, from 2021, confirmed that 70 % of listening to help customers choose rechargeable listening to methods.)
Assuming you’re OK with a replaceable battery system, the Concha Sol have quite a bit going for them. It begins with tuning. Concha doesn’t use preset sound profiles like most OTC aids. Preset profiles are pretuned frequency waveforms based mostly on hundreds of historic listening to assessments individuals have taken through the years. These audiograms are averaged, and a handful of consultant audiograms are loaded onto the {hardware}. If you take an in-app listening to take a look at, the app figures out which of those audiograms is closest to yours and hundreds the suitable corrections into the listening to help {hardware}. It’s not excellent, however for many customers it’s ok.
Concha has a built-in listening to take a look at in its app, nevertheless it’s wholly not like the everyday listening to take a look at, the place you hear for pings at totally different frequencies and volumes till a full image of your listening to loss develops. After some preliminary level-setting, Concha’s system, known as Soundscope, asks you to hear (with every ear) to paired, repeated snippets of speech, then establish whether or not pattern A or pattern B sounds greatest. It’s like a watch examination, solely in your ears.
