Sony’s CRE-C10 in-ear listening to aids are stunners in every dimension apart from one: The tiny in-the-ear devices depend on replaceable listening to support batteries as a substitute of an built-in, rechargeable one. Whereas some folks might recognize replaceable batteries—for much longer run time, no want to attend for a recharge—I’ve heard nothing however complaints about them. For essentially the most half, folks now appear to be gravitating to hearing aids that don’t require fumbling with miniature batteries as soon as per week, after which worrying if the canine will swallow the spent cell.
With its new CRE-C20 listening to aids, Sony corrects this subject, and it does so in type: The brand new hearing aids look practically an identical to the successful C10 aids, however the hatch for a replaceable battery has been changed with a small contact that permits its inner cell to recharge in its new case.
After I say nothing else has modified on the appear and feel of the C20 listening to aids, I imply it. To the untrained eye, they’re virtually unattainable to inform other than their predecessors, they usually nonetheless vanish incredibly well into the ear canal because of their small dimension. The burden of every support stays the identical at exactly 1.34 grams.
{Photograph}: Christopher Null
For higher or worse, little has modified below the hood as nicely. For context, Sony touts one of many greatest upgrades as having six current listening to settings as a substitute of 4 like on the C10s. Word: These aren’t environmental packages however fairly frequency-tuning settings preconfigured to work for the most typical audiograms.
You’ll be able to’t manually choose certainly one of these listening to presets. The settings are chosen solely after you’re taking Sony’s in-app listening to take a look at, and the consumer doesn’t know which one they’re getting. A modestly up to date model of Sony’s Listening to Management app walks you thru an in depth configuration process that sends pings to every ear; the consumer counts what number of pings are heard with every spherical. After about 10 minutes, the app chooses the listening to setting it deems finest in your explicit type of listening to loss.
In case your assigned settings don’t work, you may retake the take a look at or experiment with Sony’s fine-tuning function, which helps you to register a grievance (“My very own voice sounds bizarre,” maybe), after which look forward to a repair to be delivered to the aids. There’s a quantity slider and a “sound stability” choice that lets you choose between “extra sharp” and “much less sharp,” which is especially efficient for frivolously tweaking the best way sure consonants hit your ears.
Skilled help is obtainable freed from cost earlier than or after buy too. It’s all efficient, however largely the identical as earlier than. The underside line is that, in comparison with the C10s, I doubt most customers will discover any distinction in sound high quality. That the C20s nonetheless sound nice isn’t any shock: The underlying processing expertise, created by Signia mum or dad WS Audiology, has not basically modified.
Just like the C10s, there aren’t any Bluetooth options on these hearing aids. They join together with your cellphone by way of inaudible, high-pitched alerts, whether or not you’re strolling by setup or doing one thing so simple as altering the quantity. (There aren’t any on-device controls, both.) The app can’t even inform you the battery life remaining on the listening to aids: Punch a button within the app and also you look forward to pings to be despatched to every ear. The extra pings, the extra juice you could have remaining. Whereas I encountered some complications getting all of this to work once I examined the C10 aids, the C20 aids arrange with out a hitch—though once more, the method is fairly sluggish as a result of ultrasonic backwards and forwards.
The shortage of Bluetooth makes for a blunt strategy to do issues—and it means you may’t stream media or take cellphone calls straight by the headphones—nevertheless it does maintain the {hardware} small and svelte. As with the C10 aids, the C20 aids are snug for long-term put on, each bodily and aurally. As soon as adjusted correctly, they gave me a near-perfect quantity of help for my gentle listening to loss, just about freed from hiss. I hardly ever even wanted to regulate the quantity, besides in louder environments. Once more, there aren’t any environmental settings that compensate for issues like crowds or wind noise, however I discovered the all-around protocol to work nicely in every single place.
