Review: Sony CRE-E10 Hearing Aids

When Sony entered the over-the-counter hearing aid market two years ago, it did so with a pair of products: the CRE-C10 and the more expensive CRE-E10. I was dazzled by the minuscule C10—it’s still one of the hearing aid options I recommend the most—and assumed the E10 would be even more impressive. Now that I’ve finally landed a pair of E10 aids to test, I can assure you that the E10 isn’t so much an upgrade to the C10 as it is a wholly different class of product with its own pros and cons.

While both the C10 and E10 rely on an in-ear earbud-like design conceit, their general approach is considerably different. While the 1-gram C10 fits nearly entirely inside the ear, invisible enough to require a small retrieval wire to remove it, the 2.94-gram E10 is much more bulbous and visible. It looks more like a standard Bluetooth earbud than any other hearing aid I’ve tested, filling the concha with its rounded body. Since, as the old saying goes, all concha are not created equal, your comfort level while wearing these hearing aids may vary considerably. In my ears, the fit was snug but not tight—comfortable for wearing for a few hours but not all day. Sony provides just four pairs of eartips you can experiment with to help improve the fit.

Photograph: Sony

The other big difference between the C10 and E10 is that while the C10 uses replaceable hearing aid batteries, the E10 features a more common rechargeable battery. The extra size of the device lets the E10 work for up to 26 hours (without streaming). The USB-C connectible and Qi-compatible charger provides enough juice for an additional two to three recharges.

Despite their larger size, the CRE-E10 aids do not feature any external controls, which is understandable because controls would be hard to access based on the way the aids sit in the ear. Instead, all controls are situated in Sony’s Hearing Control app (Android, iOS). This is the same app used for the CRE-C10, so I already had it installed, but I ran into immediate problems because the old aids were still registered to the app.

Photograph: Sony

To set up new aids, you have to remove the old ones from the app. To do that, Hearing Control requires you to enter a code sent to your registered email address. Naturally, I never received the code, so I couldn’t install the new set of aids. Eventually, Sony tech support instructed me to delete the app altogether and set it up again with a different email address—perhaps not the most elegant solution, but it worked to get me up and running.

The Remote Control app hasn’t changed much in the past two years and remains surprisingly basic. It features just one hearing program and a volume slider front and center that changes volume for both ears simultaneously. A treble/bass slider is your only real frequency tuner, but the directional hearing function is very helpful for adjusting where you want to focus your attention. In almost all situations, I found that muting sounds behind me made for a better hearing experience. Once I had things set where I liked them, I rarely needed to make any changes.

While the app is pretty basic, its secret weapon is its quick, built-in hearing test, which pings various frequencies to each ear and asks which ones you heard. This data is used to fine-tune the frequency response of the aids and it works remarkably well. The test can be retaken at any time too. Just make sure you follow the instructions exactly when running the test.

Photograph: Sony

The best news is that the E10s sound very good. The audio experience was best at relatively low volumes, really cleaning up the mid- to high-frequency tones, which are most problematic for me. I did experience a bit of echo, and the aids also introduced a small amount of additional noise—more of a low-grade buzz than a hiss or static—but as long as I didn’t boost the volume too much, I found it manageable. They performed best in relatively quiet situations like conversations or TV watching and were less effective the louder the ambient noise. Finally, because Sony’s eartips are all of the “closed” variety, I did encounter a small amount of boom and echo when hearing my voice, but it wasn’t so much to be a big distraction.

The aids can also be used for streaming media and phone calls via Bluetooth; I found them quite a bit better than most aids at these tasks, featuring clean voice audio and at least a nod in the direction of bass when playing music.

The $1,300 price tag for the E10 is $300 higher than Sony’s C10, and more expensive than many other solid aids on the market too. Still, there’s a lot to be said for looks when it comes to hearing aids. If you gravitate to the wholly contemporary design of the E10s, I do recommend giving them a listen (most sellers offer a 30-day return period), even if the overall audio quality isn’t as good as competitors like the Jabra Enhance Select 300.