That prospect leaves me with mixed feelings. I’ve tried informal comparison of 4 different hearing aids (listening through each pair in quick succession). I was genuinely surprised at the poor sound quality of one of them-voices sounded quite ‘un-human’. My wife is an audiologist and had been doing the same exercise the day before. Apparently the one I rated as poor was consistent with her undisclosed same choice. The rest were very good though-not sure that an ‘audiophile’ brand would add much. Not a controlled test but I found it interesting.i hope they start releasing audiophile hearing aids under the sennheiser brand.
There’s a down side to audio companies getting on audiology. Prescribing and fitting a hearing device is about clinical practice, putting a high performing device in the ear of a human without a thorough, well executed diagnostic test battery with expert interpretation and robust rehabilitative input post fitting is like sticking a high performing speaker driver into any old cabinet with any old crossover. That’s not how the public see it though who mostly think that it’s like buying an iPhone-with some encouragement of course from the significant minority of practitioners in the industry that just want to shift a device and get rid of the patient as quickly as possible. Apple/Sennheiser or whoever won’t bring anything in terms of improved clinical practice to audiology-it will be shifting units and getting rid of the patient, who will doubtless be happy with their well marketed purchase, despite falling short of their potential in terms of their audiological rehabilitation.