@jett215 I wanted to respond to you for both your question on telecoils, but also because I live in Eastern PA as well. I live in Berwyn, Chester County. In addition, I am the Eastern PA Chapter Coordinator for HLAA which means I work with the 5 HLAA Chapters around Philly. I would imagine one of them would be close to you that you could join the Chapter and start meeting others with the same or similar issuers as yourself. The Chapters are for socialization as well as education. We are meeting virtually now on Zoom, but it would at least get you in contact with others nearby who you could get together with once everyone is comfortable again. Let me know where you live and I can hook you up with the Chapter leader for the Chapter in your area. The next meeting on October 26th is going to be a combined meeting of the 5 Chapters on Zoom with a speaker discussing all of the different microphones you can use in conjunction with your HA's.

As far as telecoils, I just bought a new pair of HA's a month ago (Phonak Marvel) with telecoils in them. Telecoils are small wires that fit into your HA's and if you were ever in a room which had a hearing loop installed, your telecoils act as a direct sound receiver so that when the speaker speaks into the microphone at the front of the room, you can hear him/her directly in your HA as if they were talking directly to you. You don't hear all of the other ambient sounds in the room or auditorium that might normally affect how well you hear the speaker. It is an awesome feeling when you first use the telecoils. You won't believe what you were missing. The telecoil also lets you use certain assistive listening devices in conjunction with your HA's for meetings in noisy rooms. I highly recommend you ask the audiologist for telecoils in whatever HA's you buy.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Mike Miles

Hello again. It looks as if Mikepa gave you a pretty good description of what telecoils do. I'd like to add to that a little bit. There is a very basic device called a 'neck loop' that can be worn around your neck and plugged into an audio device like a computer, a portable radio, iPod, iPad, tablet, cell phone, etc. Plug it in and turn on the telecoils in your hearing aid and it will bring clear sound directly to the hearing aids. With a tiny radio, I can sit in a sports arena full of noise and listen to the broadcast on the radio when I use the neck loop. It doesn't require batteries or charging. It's a very basic device that costs under $50. To use it with your iphone, you would have to have an adapter that would allow you to plug into the phone because they removed the input jack option a few models before yours. That adapter is called an Apple Lightening 3.5 headphone jack adapter. It sells on Amazon for $7.99. While you will likely get BlueTooth (BT) in your new hearing aids, this simple and basic telecoil system is foolproof and inexpensive. Many hearing aid fitters tell people that BT replaces telecoils. It doesn't. Is it 'old technology'? Yes, but it's value is enormous.

Another feature that is important to most of us who are seasoned hearing aid users is a manual volume control. 'Automatic' always sounds good until you cannot set something the way you want it. So my mantra is "Be sure to get telecoils and manual volume control in whatever new hearing aids you choose." We don't always need air conditioning in our cars, but we don't buy cars without it. Same for telecoils. You'll regret not having them when you can benefit from using them.

Last, but not least, use the trial period for your new hearing aids in every possible situation. If they are not doing what you think they should do, ask questions and get them adjusted during that trial time. You are paying dearly for that service. Good luck!