Hearing Aids and High Fidelity

[oldandintheway]

I have now reached the age and state of decay where I need hearing aids. Before I start shopping I thought I would ask if anyone here has any thoughts on the subject. There appears to be a high end audio level of nonsense associated with hearing aid sales, I have several relatives with $6,000 hearing aids sitting unused because they were not satisfactory. My PCP suggested that I just go to Costco, which is what he did. I am a value shopper, I don't mind paying for quality if it is real, which is why I read this forum. My uninformed guess is that most of these things are optimized for speech and not what we would consider the full audio spectrum. Correct? Basically it is just a little amplifier and equalizer so it would be nice if it didn't distort much...

 

[Jbrunwa]

I have no personal experience with them and they are very expensive (but still less than some spend on speakers). I read about new tech that sits directly on the eardrum providing nearly full range audio

Doctors Call New Hearing Aid a Game Changer

A revolutionary device about the size of a dime and is helping some of the millions of Americans who have trouble hearing.

www.nbcwashington.com

 

[restorer-john]

My uninformed guess is that most of these things are optimized for speech and not what we would consider the full audio spectrum. Correct? Basically it is just a little amplifier and equalizer so it would be nice if it didn't distort much...

They are very advanced these days. Full DSP, Bluetooth and individually tailored for the specifics of each client's hearing requirements. Many of them have digital interfaces to allow updating and adjustment of the correction curves as the client's hearing deteriorates/changes.

 

[warnerwh]

I'm very happy with mine. They're expensive though and I doubt you're going to get much for less than at least 3 or 4k but am not educated on other products. These are real world 5k and the frequency response is adjusted to my ear's frequency response. When adjusting the audiologist actually put a tiny mic in my ear and measured the acoustics in the ear canal. Hearing aid technology has been growing quickly and the capabilities are surprising. They're working on using stem cells which is the next step but that's a ways off. These are the first pair I've had that I wear regularly and they make music sound much better. The others I've had, also expensive, just weren't as good, at least not good enough to make it worth wearing them regularly or using to listen to music.