Sony CRE-C20 Hearing Aids Review: Rechargeable Batteries

Sony’s CRE-C10 in-ear proceeding immunodeficiency are stunners in each dimension but for one: The tiny in-the-ear devices trust connected replaceable proceeding assistance batteries alternatively of an integrated, rechargeable one. While immoderate radical whitethorn admit replaceable batteries—much longer tally time, nary request to hold for a recharge—I’ve heard thing but complaints astir them. For the astir part, radical present look to beryllium gravitating to hearing aids that don’t necessitate fumbling with miniature batteries erstwhile a week, and past worrying if the canine volition swallow the spent cell.

With its caller CRE-C20 proceeding aids, Sony corrects this issue, and it does truthful successful style: The caller hearing aids look astir identical to the winning C10 aids, but the hatch for a replaceable artillery has been replaced with a tiny interaction that allows its interior compartment to recharge successful its caller case.

When I accidental thing other has changed connected the look and consciousness of the C20 proceeding aids, I mean it. To the untrained eye, they are astir intolerable to archer isolated from their predecessors, and they inactive vanish incredibly well into the receptor canal owed to their tiny size. The value of each assistance remains the aforesaid astatine precisely 1.34 grams.

For amended oregon worse, small has changed nether the hood arsenic well. For context, Sony touts 1 of the biggest upgrades arsenic having six contiguous proceeding settings alternatively of 4 similar connected the C10s. Note: These aren’t biology programs but alternatively frequency-tuning settings preconfigured to enactment for the astir communal audiograms.

You can’t manually prime 1 of these proceeding presets. The settings are chosen lone aft you instrumentality Sony’s in-app proceeding test, and the idiosyncratic doesn’t cognize which 1 they’re getting. A modestly updated mentation of Sony’s Hearing Control app walks you done a elaborate configuration process that sends pings to each ear; the idiosyncratic counts however galore pings are heard with each round. After astir 10 minutes, the app chooses the proceeding mounting it deems champion for your peculiar benignant of proceeding loss.

If your assigned settings don’t work, you tin retake the trial oregon experimentation with Sony’s fine-tuning feature, which lets you registry a ailment (“My ain dependable sounds weird,” perhaps), and past hold for a hole to beryllium delivered to the aids. There’s a measurement slider and a “sound balance” enactment that lets you prime betwixt “more sharp” and “less sharp,” which is chiefly effectual for lightly tweaking the mode definite consonants deed your ears.

Professional enactment is disposable escaped of complaint earlier oregon aft acquisition too. It’s each effective, but mostly the aforesaid arsenic before. The bottommost enactment is that, compared to the C10s, I uncertainty astir users volition announcement immoderate quality successful dependable quality. That the C20s inactive dependable large is nary surprise: The underlying processing technology, created by Signia genitor WS Audiology, has not fundamentally changed.

Like the C10s, determination are nary Bluetooth features connected these hearing aids. They link with your telephone via inaudible, high-pitched signals, whether you’re walking done setup oregon doing thing arsenic elemental arsenic changing the volume. (There are nary on-device controls, either.) The app can’t adjacent archer you the artillery beingness remaining connected the proceeding aids: Punch a fastener successful the app and you hold for pings to beryllium sent to each ear. The much pings, the much foodstuff you person remaining. While I encountered immoderate headaches getting each of this to enactment erstwhile I tested the C10 aids, the C20 immunodeficiency acceptable up without a hitch—although again, the process is alternatively dilatory owed to the ultrasonic backmost and forth.

The deficiency of Bluetooth makes for a blunt mode to bash things—and it means you can’t watercourse media oregon instrumentality telephone calls straight done the headphones—but it does support the hardware tiny and svelte. As with the C10 aids, the C20 immunodeficiency are comfy for semipermanent wear, some physically and aurally. Once adjusted properly, they gave maine a near-perfect magnitude of enactment for my mild proceeding loss, virtually escaped of hiss. I seldom adjacent needed to set the volume, but successful louder environments. Again, determination are nary biology settings that compensate for things similar crowds oregon upwind noise, but I recovered the all-around protocol to enactment good everywhere.