Hearing Loss Help  

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Sometimes your hearing aids quit at the most inconvenient times. Often the problem is minor and is easily rectified—if you know what to do.

Figuring out what to do can be frustrating. Here is one man’s story to remind you that humidity is an enemy of your hearing aids.

He explained:

I was in Alaska this summer helping my buddy work on his cabin—working hard in the Alaska heat! The day before I left Prince of Wales Island, my BTE hearing aid went out! Just bang, quit! I changed the battery, but it still wouldn’t work. I tried another battery. No change.

Then, thinking my batteries were bad, I went to my backup hearing aid. I took the ear mold and tubing off and put it on the backup. It worked for a few minutes and then it too quit! I changed the battery for it, since I knew it was a little old. It worked for a little while, and then quit—again.

I was in Craig, Alaska at the time, so I bought more batteries. They’d work for a little while, and then my hearing aid would quit again. (This is all so funny. You would think after wearing hearing aid for 30 years, I would be better at diagnosis!) Anyway, I muddled around with it again, then finally I figured out what the problem was.

Moisture had condensed in the middle of the ear mold and tube, and was blocking sounds from reaching my ear. I pulled the tube off my hearing aid, and blew on it a couple of times to blow the moisture out. My hearing aid began working properly—finally.

I just wasted at least $15 dollars in batteries, but am up and hearing again! You can’t do anything but laugh! I’ve had this problem before, but totally forgot to check it this time! Boy, do I feel silly!

You are far from alone. Lot’s of us can relate to this scenario. We’ve been there—done that.

If your hearing aids are prone to moisture build-up, you would do well to put them in a drier each night to get rid of any accumulated moisture. That way you will have more reliable operation.

The best drier out there, in my opinion, is the Global Dry and Store. Not only does it dry your aids while you sleep, it also disinfects them at the same time. This cuts down on itchy ears as well.

Click here to learn more about this great little Global Dry and Store drier, or order one for yourself here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

I’ve had a number of people ask me concerning a portion of an “outtake” of a 1928 Charlie Chaplin movie—wondering whether what was being shown was a time traveler using a modern cell phone back in 1928, or whether it was, more realistically, a person using an old hearing aid.

For example, a man commented,

Please take a second to look at this video taken from the 1928 premier of a Charlie Chaplin film. I’m of the opinion this may be an old type of hearing aid.

A woman, who knows I own The Hearing Aid Museum, wondered much the same thing. She wrote,

This short video has been going around the internet. Do you think the device in her hand could be one of your antique hearing aids? I’m guessing the young man is just trying to garner publicity for his films, but I am curious!

A newspaper reporter, concerning this same video, wrote,

I would very much appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the Western Electric 34A Carbon Hearing Aid manufactured in 1925, and whether it could be the device held in this video clip.

Another man explained,

I just watched an old clip on Youtube.com from the Charlie Chaplin movie ‘The Circus’ from 1928. The video shows a woman walking on a sidewalk, and remarkably, she appears to be talking on a cell phone! At one point in the video, the film zooms in, and slows down, and she appears to be having a conversation. One person suggested that the device she is holding might be a hearing aid—in fact, even suggested it was a 1924 Siemens hearing aid. I can’t fathom one’s ability to decipher the video that clearly. I am curious to know what you think about this video.

This is an interesting video to be sure. I’m glad no one’s first thoughts were that this must be a time traveler talking on a cell phone. All the above people tried to come up with logical explanations—and the obvious explanation that came to their minds was that this lady was using an old hearing aid.

Is this a possibility or not? Let’s investigate.

There were three basic types of hearing aids in use in 1928: ear trumpets, carbon hearing aids and the new-fangled vacuum-tube hearing aids that had appeared on the market beginning in 1921.

After carefully watching this video numerous times, looking at exactly how this lady positions her hand and fingers and observing how much/little of the object is visible, here is what I think of the various hearing aid possibilities.

A. Ear Trumpets

It is possible that this lady is using a small to medium-sized London Dome ear trumpet—but her hand shape and position doesn’t really fit the shape of a London Dome ear trumpet. However, it seems to better fit the shape of a flattened ear trumpet such as this larger ladies ear trumpet. This is the most viable possibility.

B. Carbon Hearing Aids

The second possibility is that she was using a carbon hearing aid. Two people even suggested specific models of carbon hearing aids as being the hearing aid she was using—a Siemens 1924 model, or a Western Electric Model 34A of 1925.

Siemens hearing aids of that day looked similar to this Siemens Model A-22 double carbon microphone hearing aid. The person wore the big double carbon microphone around their neck on a ribbon or lanyard, attached to a button on their coat/shirt, or used it in its lunch-box-sized carrying case. The earpiece (receiver and stock earmold) had a wire “hook” that held the receiver to the person’s ear. Thus a person did not need to hold anything.

Note this well—a person never held the rectangular-shaped microphone to their ear! The microphone was for talking into, not listening out of. Thus, no one would hold this hearing aid to their ear the way this woman is apparently doing.

The Western Electric Model 34A had a similar earpiece (receiver and earmold) to the Siemens aid, but rather than being worn on a lanyard, or coming in a lunch-box-sized wooden box, the Western Electric microphone and batteries were contained in a large black metal case.

Again, a person would never hold the microphone case up to their ear. They heard via the receiver and earmold. Besides, the metal case was much bigger than whatever it is the woman is actually holding. If she had been holding the Western Electric Model 34A case, it would have stuck out some inches ahead of, and behind, her hand, and her fingers would be too short to grip it like the video shows she is. Thus, neither of these carbon hearing aids fit the bill.

It is also possible that instead of a receiver and ear mold, the hearing aid she is wearing used a big earphone, perhaps similar to the earphone used by the Acousticon Model SRB carbon hearing aid.

In this scenario, she would need to hold this earphone to her ear with her hand rather than wearing it the normal way with a headband holding it in place, or holding it by it’s optional lorgnette-style handle.

Even so, this scenario doesn’t seem likely because the earphone is obviously quite a bit smaller and thinner than whatever this lady is holding as evidenced by the position of her fingers. If she was holding an earphone, her finger arrangement would have been very different.

C. Vacuum Tube Hearing Aids

In 1928, vacuum tube hearing aids were still big lunch-box-sized affairs, similar to this 1921 Vactuphone hearing aid. You didn’t hold these hearing aids up to your ears either—they sat on the table facing the person speaking. Furthermore, these hearing aids weighed several pounds.

Thus, if this woman is really using a hearing aid, I suggest it was a flattened ear trumpet kind of aid. Note, however, that people didn’t normally walk around when they were using an ear trumpet. The “wore” them when they wanted to talk with someone, then put it back in their purse or pocket. Thus, the possibility that this woman is using an old ear trumpet style of hearing aid is rather slim.

Who says this has to be a hearing aid in the first place? It could be something totally unrelated. For example, perhaps she has an earache, or her ear is bleeding, and she is holding a bag of ice to her ear while she hurries to the doctor.

Furthermore, is she really talking to someone else as she walks? Maybe she is talking to herself. Maybe she is chewing gum or sucking on a candy?

Unfortunately, the pictures are too blurry/grainy, distant and taken from the wrong angle to let me clearly see what she really is holding. The possibilities are many, but it is highly unlikely that whatever she is holding is any kind of hearing aid.

Finally, you don’t have to worry that supposed time travelers used cell phones back then. There weren’t any cell towers in 1928 for them to use, so cell phones wouldn’t have worked anyway.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Has this ever happened to you? You are outside, perhaps playing golf, or rough-housing with your kids/grandkids when you realize you are not hearing much anymore. One ear seems deaf. You clap your hands to your ears, and to your horror, you discover one of your expensive new hearing aids is missing.

You search for it in vain, but your nearly-invisible hearing aid refuses to be found. Now, not only can you not hear, but you are out big bucks to replace it.

This actually happened to Dennis. He had to pay a $650.00 insurance deductible to replace his lost hearing aid. This got him to thinking—and inventing. The result was a set of hearing aid connectors with the catchy name of “Loopum or Loseum”.

These little gizmos are not only effective and nearly invisible, but they don’t cost and arm and a leg either. Would you believe you can prevent your hearing aids from falling off your ears and getting lost for only $5.95? This has to be one of the best bargains around.

Who loses hearing aids? Think rambunctious kids. Think active adults. Think people with Alzheimer’s. Think people in nursing homes and hospitals where hearing aids regularly get lost. Also, think BTE hearing aids that are so small and light you forget you are even wearing them—such as open-fit aids and receiver in the ear (RITE) aids.

The Loopum connectors have two requirements. First, you must wear behind the ear (BTE) or over the ear (OTE) hearing aids. Second, you must also wear eyeglasses. (The Loopums also work with sunglasses.)

If this describes you, or one of your loved ones, maybe the Loopum connectors are for you.

The Loopums are small flexible plastic rings—imagine tiny clear elastic bands—that slide up the temple pieces of your eyeglasses. Then you pull the tube from the hearing aid body (BTE and open fit aids), or unplug it (RITE aids) and thread the tube through the Loopum ring, then reconnect it to the hearing aid body.

Now if one of your hearing aids falls out of your ear, it is firmly held to the eyeglass temple piece. It just hangs there by the Loopum until you put your aid back in your ear. You no longer have to search for lost aids.

The Loopums have another advantage—they stay with your glasses. Thus when you take your glasses off at night, your hearing aids come off with them—and are right there when you put your glasses on in the morning. You no longer have to wonder which aid goes in which ear either.

The same is true when you step into the shower. No more forgetting you are wearing your hearing aids and drown them. When you take off your glasses, off come your hearing aids too.

The only downside I see is that if you want to take your glasses off for some reason, say to clean them, or to swap your reading or computer glasses for your distance glasses, your hearing aids pop off at the same time. However, if you normally wear the same pair of glasses and your hearing aids all day long, this likely isn’t a problem.

Incidentally, each Loopum or Loseum package contains 3 sets of Loopums in three different sizes. That way you are assured they will fit all your eyeglass frames from glasses with thin wire frames to thick-framed sunglasses.

Click here to learn more about the Loopum connectors. You can order a set for yourself, by clicking on the orders page and placing your order. Dennis will get your Loopums hurrying on their way to you and hopefully losing your hearing aids will become a thing of the past. You’ve been warned—loopum or loseum!

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D. with Bob McPherson

A lady explained:

A person asked me about the best hearing aid batteries. She was inquiring about “gold” batteries and I’m not familiar with them. Are these “gold” batteries any better than the regular zinc- air batteries?

The expert on hearing aid batteries, and where to get the best deals, is my friend, Robert McPherson. the owner of the Yahoo on-line group, “bhNews” (I hang out there too. Bob posts lots of good information on the latest in hearing loss developments. To subscribe simply send a blank email to bhNEWS)

Here’s Bob’s reply.

The only “gold” batteries I’m aware of are the Eco Gold line, which has been very heavily advertised. A bit of digging revealed that they are actually imported by the Hearing Help Express company in Illinois from Varta Microbattery in Germany.

The Varta batteries, primarily marketed under the PowerOne brand, are top quality.

The catch is that the Eco Golds are advertised for $0.59 in quantities of 42—not such a good deal when the PowerOne’s are $0.45 in quantities of 60 from Microbattery.com.

For value, the Zenipower brand, also from Microbattery, offers comparable specs to the big names for only $0.29 in quantities of 60.

Bottom line: the Eco Gold is nothing special – just more heavily marketed presently than the rest!

There you have it from the “miserly Scott” as Bob often refers to himself. Point your browser to www.microbattery.com and save yourself some shekels on top quality batteries for less.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Some people have been longing for a completely implantable hearing aid. Besides the (dubious) advantage of being completely invisible (people won’t be able to tell if you are hard of hearing so won’t make allowances when you don’t hear them), there are a few real advantages to a totally implantable hearing aid.

For example, if you spend time in the water swimming or splashing around, you’ll still be able to hear. Ditto when you are in the shower. Furthermore, you can leave it on all night as you sleep so if you are a mother with young children, you’ll be able to hear them if they cry during the night (assuming you don’t roll over and sleep on the implant side so the microphone is buried in the pillow). Also, if you live in a humid location, or sweat profusely, or work in a dirty environment, all that extra moisture and dirt won’t “gum up the gearworks”. Furthermore, if wearing hearing aids/ear molds causes problems in your ear canals, with an implanted hearing aid, your ear canals will be totally free of any apparatus.

The good news is that if you are so inclined, you now can get such a hearing aid. Otologics of Boulder, CO has introduced their new fully-implantable hearing aid called the Carina.

Here’s how it works. The microphone, which is implanted under the skin, sends the sound signals to the amplifier which is surgically embedded in the mastoid bone behind your ear (much like the internal parts of a cochlear implant are embedded). The output of the amplifier is sent down a wire to a transducer (vibrator), the point of which touches, and thus pushes on, the incus (anvil), the second of the three bones in your middle ear. This mechanical motion amplifies the normal sound signal that is then sent in the usual fashion to the incus (stirrup) and from there to the inner ear.

Incidentally, the amount of movement the transducer imparts to the incus is very small—only 1 to 2 micrometers. That is only 1 to 2 thousandths of a millimeter, (or about one 25 thousandths of an inch) an imperceptible movement even under a microscope.

Since it is all internal, you need a remote control to adjust the volume and turn the hearing aid on or off. Unlike the remotes in typical hearing aids where you just hold the remote in your hand in front of you and press a button, the Carina remote has to be placed right over the implant behind your ear before you press any buttons.

The implant is programmed according to your specific hearing needs just like any regular digital hearing aid. The Carina is designed for adults with moderate to severe hearing losses.

Since the battery is also internal, the folks at Otologics had to come up with a way to recharge the internal battery. The charger system consists of the base station, a charging coil, and the charger body. To recharge the implant, you remove the charger body from the base station and place the coil on your skin over the implant. The charger body contains a clip so you can attach the charger to your belt during charging. Typically, charging time is about 1 hour. You must recharge the Carina daily. While recharging, you can go about your normal daily activities, turn the implant on and off, and adjust the volume.

One cool thing about the Carina is if the battery dies or the implant quits working for any reason you won’t be left totally deaf—you can still use your residual hearing. You see, the implant does not affect your residual hearing. Thus you could even temporarily wear a backup hearing aid in your implanted ear.

There are some downsides to implantable hearing aids. For one thing, upgrading your “hearing aid” as new technology comes along is going to be a real problem. Second, you will need surgery to replace the battery when it finally dies. This won’t happen often as the battery has a projected 20 year life span. Third, you cannot have any MRIs unless you have the whole implant surgically removed. Fourth, if you like diving or scuba diving, you will have to limit yourself to a depth of 10 feet or less. And fifth, it is pretty expensive—$12,000.00 and $15,000.00 each, and that does not include the surgery and related costs.

However, if having a fully-implantable hearing aid turns your crank, the Carina may be the hearing aid for you.

To learn more about the Carina, point your browser to the Otologics web site.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man asked:

Is it possible for hearing aids to be programmed to deal with “recruitment”, the loud “bursty” elements of sound?

This seems to be quite a common problem for those of us with more severe hearing losses. Few audiologists seem to take the time to properly test for recruitment, and then specifically adjust our aids so they don’t cause recruitment.

The proper way to test for recruitment is to check the uncomfortable loudness levels (UCL) where sounds go from being too loud to hurting for each test frequency.

Typically, audiologists just do a “broadband” check of the UCL, rather than frequency by frequency. In fact, only one time in my life has an audiologist ever done a proper frequency by frequency recruitment check, and that was because I specifically asked her to do it.

After testing for the UCL frequency by frequency, your audiologist then needs to set the compression on your hearing aids for each frequency to limit the maximum sound level for those frequencies such that they always remain below your recruitment level.

This sounds simple in theory—but may be harder to do in practice depending on the number of compression bands your hearing aids have. Because of the placement of my recruitment along the frequency spectrum, and since by hearing aids only have four compression bands, my audiologist has to “detune” half of my channels in order to fix the recruitment problem. The result is that my comprehension goes down significantly. This is not good.

Thus I have two choices: either fix most recruitment problems, but don’t understand as much of what I hear, or understand more of what I hear, but yank my hearing aids out of my ears when sounds start recruiting. Either way, I don’t hear as much as I should. The next time I get hearing aids, I’m going to look for hearing aids where the compression can be set for each frequency—not just by broader bands.

Totally eliminating recruitment isn’t easy. There is a fine line you have to walk when adjusting the hearing aids to get the best of both worlds at the same time. It won’t be perfect, but with patience, your audiologist should be able to get pretty close.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Distance and noise are two enemies of hearing aids. That is why hard of hearing people often need to use assistive devices coupled with their hearing aids in order to hear beautiful, clear sound.

There are many “generic” assistive listening devices that couple with hearing aids via their built-in t-coils. This is the industry “standard”.

However, each hearing aid manufacturer wants people to purchase their hearing aids (understandable—that is why they are in the business) so they come up with proprietary innovative ways to connect to various audio sources such as TVs, iPods, computers, etc.

This means when one of their customers (that’s you and me) buy their hearing aids, we are locked into their line of assistive devices (and they are not cheap). Then, if in the future we want to buy new hearing aids from a different manufacturer, we lose all our investment in the assistive devices we have purchased for our previous hearing aids.

This may be good business for the hearing aid manufacturers, but it is definitely bad for our pocketbooks! We now have to shell out big bucks, not only for new hearing aids, but for new assistive devices as well.

This should not be. Connectivity to assistive devices should be “open source” so all manufacturers can use the same modes of connectivity.

I’m all for innovative designs and advances in technology. I’m just against all the mutually incompatible proprietary devices we have to purchase in order to use the latest technology with our hearing aids.

What brought on the above diatribe is GN ReSounds new Alera hearing aid with yet another proprietary set of assistive devices.

The press releases are long on hype and short on hard facts, but from what I can gather, the Alera has a built-in (presumably FM) receiver operating at 2.4 GHz. Then, the customer purchases various proprietary transmitters that connect to the audio devices he wants to listen to. So you buy one so you can listen to your TV and another to listen to your computer, etc.

It sounds like cool technology. The FM receiver is built into the hearing aid so there is no need for using boots, neckloops or remotes. This makes for a “cleaner” design.

You hook up the appropriate transmitter to the audio device you want to listen to—and voila, you hear beautiful, clear sound. With the Alera, you can be 21 feet away, which is about the same distance as the effective range of the Bluetooth technology that is already out there.

If the “hypewriters” are correct, this new technology will deliver “unique sound quality” by employing ReSound’s “revolutionary” Surround Sound technology which delivers a rich and crisp 360-degree sound.

The Alera and its assistive devices will be available in June, 2010. If any of you try them, I’d love to hear how they work for you. Just be sure that the Alera comes with a standard t-coil, or, when you go to places that use loop technology, you’ll be left “out of the loop” and thus your fancy new hearing aids will be essentially useless.

Learn more about the Alera here.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A lady wrote:

I was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease. I have horrible tinnitus and can tell my hearing has gone horribly downhill. My question is, can a hearing aid help with the tinnitus to shut it out or anything? When I’m in a room with stuff going on I don’t usually hear it AS well as I do in a quiet room, but it’s still enough to really bug me.

Excellent question. Hearing aids in and of themselves do not affect the loudness of your tinnitus as such. Rather, they amplify sounds so you hear more (and louder) sounds. The good news is that this partially masks your tinnitus so you don’t notice it as much.

It is basically the same effect as you have already found when in a noisy room—your tinnitus doesn’t appear to be as loud because your brain has lots of real sounds on which to concentrate. Furthermore, in a noisy situation, the contrast between the background sound level and your tinnitus is much less than if you were in a quiet room.

However, when you are in a quiet location there is nothing to mask your tinnitus sounds. Thus, you perceive them as louder and more intrusive. Wearing a hearing aid in a quiet room will pick up the softer sounds you can no longer hear and thus help mask your tinnitus.

When your tinnitus is bothering you and you are in a quiet place, you need to enrich your environment with real sounds—turn on the TV, listen to a radio, stereo, iPod or MP3 player, and/or wear hearing aids.

This is especially important at night when the room is quiet. Some people find that just having a fan running, or a clock radio playing music really helps take their focus off their tinnitus. Use whatever works to give your brain real sounds to listen to so you don’t focus on your tinnitus.

You see, if you focus on your tinnitus, you will perceive your tinnitus as becoming louder and louder and more and more intrusive as the days go by. Therefore, you want to focus on the loves of your life, and the things you are doing, rather than on your tinnitus. When you do this, you’ll notice, if you stop at that point and think about it, that your tinnitus now appears softer and much less intrusive. This should be your goal.

If you want to learn more about tinnitus and the things you can do to help bring it under control, see the book, “When Your Ears Ring—Cope with Your Tinnitus—Here’s How“.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man explained:

I am deaf on my left side due to four acoustic neuroma surgeries. I now have a TransEar hearing aid but it doesn’t work like I expected. How about a CROS aid? Also, what else is new on the market?

There are a number of solutions for single-sided deafness.

1. If you have normal hearing on your good side, just be deaf on one side and practice good coping strategies to help overcome it such as sitting with your good ear “into the room” when in church, in meetings, etc. When chatting, have the person you are talking to either sit opposite you or sit on your good side—this kind of thing.

2. Get a bone-conduction hearing aid that was designed for single-sided deafness. There are three “kinds” out there of which I’m aware. All use the principle of bone conduction to transfer the sound from your deaf side to the good side.

A. Bone Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA). This involves having a titanium screw (post) drilled into your skull and the sound processor sits on this post. This is an invasive procedure and by far the most expensive.

C. TransEar. Which you already have. This is a BTE hearing aid that has a special transducer (vibrator) that vibrates a special ear mold that fits deep in your ear canal. Note: a new model is coming out shortly that might give you better results.

D. SoundBite. This is the “new kid on the block” and is still in trials. It vibrates your back molars to conduct the sound to your other ear. I wrote about the SoundBite here.

3. Get a CROS hearing aid. Cross aids are basically one hearing aid in two pieces. You wear the part that contains the microphone and transmitter on your bad side, and the part that contains the receiver and amplifier on your good side. It feeds the sounds from your deaf side to your good side. Because you wear a loose-fitting ear mold, you still hear all the sounds from your good side as well.

4. Get certain high-end regular hearing aids that “talk” to each other. You can set them such that any sounds picked up by the bad ear side are automatically transmitted to the good ear (crossover) so you can hear them.

CROS aids don’t seem to be very popular any more. Maybe because regular hearing aids that can do crossover (talk to each other) can do much the same thing.

I think the darling of the industry at the moment is the BAHA. It is worth investigating if you don’t mind the surgery and risks and expense involved.

However, you might also want to investigate the SoundBite. Perhaps it will be a good aid for you. Maybe you could get in the trials. Check out their web site.

Do your homework on all of the above, then talk to your audiologist about these various options and decide on what seems the best course of action for you.

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

Many people have asked me,

Where can I find an affordable hearing aid? They all cost so much, and I’m on a limited income. Can you help me?

Typically hearing aids are expensive, ranging from around $800.00 at the low end, and on up to $3,000 or $4,000 each for high-end models. Such aids are out of the reach of those with severely limited incomes.

I’ve written about sources of help for purchasing hearing aids before, but even some sources of help require the person to put up hundreds of dollars as their “share” of the cost, and even this may be too much for some people to handle.

Fortunately, a new outfit, MDHearingAid, is now producing low-end hearing aids at a price many people can afford, no matter what their income. Marketed under the Acoustitone brand name, these hearing aids were made to the specifications of ENT Dr. Cherukuri, the founder of MDHearingAid.

At present, there are just two models available-the Acoustitone MAX which normally sells for $129.99 (currently on sale on the MDHearingAid web site for $89.99), and the more advanced Acoustitone PRO which normally sells for $259.99 (currently on sale for $149.99). These prices are hard to beat!

The Acoustitone MAX is a very basic unit. Dr. Cherukuri designed it primarily for “home-bound seniors that need help hearing the television and family members.” Its only control is the volume control. Actually, it is somewhat reminiscent of the first behind- the-ear hearing aids that came out in the mid 1950s in that it has a button receiver to which snaps a generic ear tip. (There are 3 ear tips of various sizes.)

The more advanced Acoustitone PRO is a much better value (in my opinion) since it has a directional microphone, and a two-channel tone control which decreases background noise and customizes the output for people with either a predominantly flat “curve” (hearing loss about the same at all frequencies) or the much more typical ski-slope curve (high frequency hearing loss). It also can use a custom-fitted ear mold, although it comes with 3 generic ear tips of various sizes.

Both of these hearing aids amplify the critical speech frequencies between 1,000 Hz and 4,000 Hz.

Note: neither of these hearing aids have t-coils which are so important for coupling hearing aids to the many assistive listening devices that help us hear ever so much better under poor listening conditions when hearing aids by themselves are not that helpful.

The good news is that MDHearingAid will soon be introducing a third hearing aid that will indeed have a t-coil. It might be well worth waiting for this new model whenever it comes out.

To learn more about these very affordable hearing aids, point your browser to the MDHearingaid website.