Choosing the Right Hearing Aid
Find the Hearing Aid that’s Right for You!
All major hearing aid manufacturers today develop a wide range of digital hearing instruments coupled with a spectrum of technology levels giving current hearing aids the ability to provide the most robust simulated hearing possible. Choosing the right hearing aid involves more than pricing and features. It must be capable of providing you with the power and technology most appropriate for your particular loss.
All of today’s digital hearing aids have an automatic program feature to adjust automatically to the sound environment you are in. Some have manual overrides, called memories or environmental programs, that allow you to specify a custom setting when you are not experiencing optimal hearing.
Depending on your particular loss these are some features that you may want to consider:
- Feedback Reduction – Reduces acoustic feedback, commonly recognized by a whistling sound.
- Noise Reduction – Reduces background noise while amplifying speech.
- Bands (Channels) – Denotes the number of segments speech frequencies are divided into. A higher number means that speech frequencies are segments more, giving more control and better sound processing ability.
- Directional Microphones – Currently the best technology available to enable background noise filtration and close voice to be more recognizable.
- Sound Smoothing – Automatically softens sudden loud noises.
- Wind Noise Limiting – Reduces the roaring sound of wind passing over the microphones.
- Remote Controls – Remote controls give even the smallest hearing aid access to a full range of manual controls, such as program choice and volume control. Some remote controls also offer wireless connectivity to certain phones.
- Bluetooth – Wireless connectivity to phones, iPods, and other audio devices allowing you to hear your phone conversations or music directly from your hearing aids.Compare popular hearing aid feature names from various manufacturers along with a description of what the feature does: Click Here to Compare Hearing Aid Features.