• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Contact | 360-778-1266

Hearing Loss Help Store View Cart | Check Out

Center for Hearing Loss Help

Help for your hearing loss, tinnitus and other ear conditions

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Reference
    • Glossary of Ear Terms
    • Drug Pronunciation Guide
    • Looping Information
    • “Learn About Hearing”
    • Useful Links
  • Museum
  • Blog
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Visor Cards

Sources of Good Hearing Aid Information

by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.

A man asked:

Could you provide sources or websites that rate hearing aids? I’m getting conflicting input from audiologists, ads, and hearing impaired folks. Where can I find an impartial source that rates hearing aids that address my profound needs?

I’m not aware of any source that actually rates hearing aids—giving their pros and cons including their reliability, how well their t-coils and other features work under real-world conditions, etc. such as you would find in Consumer Reports articles. It’s a great idea, but nobody is doing it.

There are a few sites that make lists of some hearing aids and may list some of their main features, but these lists do not contain any indication of how well these features work, or whether they are basically a bunch of hype. There are a couple of sites that from their names, sound as if they do exactly this, but when you go to them, they don’t. It’s just a “come on” to get you to their site.

The best (and most complete) lists I have found are on the Hearing Review website. They list a number of selected features for each hearing aid so you can compare their features, etc. The listings also include a colored picture of each hearing aid listed.

Every month or two, for the past several months they have listed another class of hearing aids. So far they have only listed behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids. They have broken them down into three classes—Conventional BTE aids, Thin/Slim Tube BTE aids and Receiver-in-the-Ear BTE aids.

These reports are well worth perusing if you are in the market for new aids. You’ll have a good understanding of what is out there and their relative features. Note: not all makes/models of hearing aids are included, but it gives you a good start.

Here are the details to each report.

Hearing Review. March/April, 2009. ITEs [Inside the Ear] Hearing Aids. 12 pages. http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/pdf/ITEMatrix.pdf

Hearing Review. February, 2009. Power BTE Aids. 10 pages. http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/pdf/BTEPowerMatrix.pdf

Hearing Review. January, 2009. Conventional BTE Aids. 21 pages. http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/pdf/CBTESurvey09.pdf

Hearing Review. November/December, 2008. Thin/Slim-tube BTE Aids. 11 pages. http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/pdf/TechGuideMatrix.pdf

Hearing Review. October, 2008. Receiver in the Canal (RIC) BTE Aids. 11 pages. http://www.hearingreview.com/issues/pdf/2008_tech_guide.pdf

Now comes the question, “Which is the best hearing aid for me?” The best hearing aid for you depends on many factors. Some of them are subjective, so only you can make the decision, while others are objective, and your audiologist can choose those for you. For example, your audiologist can tell you which aids have enough power for your hearing loss, but only you can determine if the sound produced by these aids seems “good” to you. Furthermore, only you know which features are important to you.

Once you’ve narrowed your choices down to a short list of hearing aids that have the features you want, and the power and type that your audiologist knows you need, how do you make your final choice?

The surprising answer is that when it comes right down to it, your satisfaction with any of these hearing aids will depend, not so much on a specific hearing aid, or its features, but on the skill of the person programming it to your specific needs.

Therefore, ultimately you want to purchase a hearing aid that your audiologist has had lots of experience successfully programming, and knows how to program it for your specific hearing needs. That was the conclusion of Dr. Mark Ross, a man I highly respect because of his common-sense understanding of hearing loss, both as a highly-regarded professional in the field, and also as a hard of hearing person. (Mark has had a hearing loss for as long as I’ve been alive—which means we’ve both lived with our hearing losses for 60+ years now.)

He recently wrote an article called “Revisiting the Perennial Question: What is the “Best” Hearing Aid” in the January/February 2009 issue of Hearing Loss magazine. It is well worth the read.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hearing Loss Research & Resources

Free Visor Cards

Download your free Visor Cards for hard of hearing or deaf people here.

Loop Systems

Loop your home or meeting room. Discover how you can hear wonderfully clear sound again when listening to the TV/radio, etc, or when listening to a speaker at a meeting.

Loop systems are one of the best-kept secrets in town. To learn more about Loop Systems and what they can do for you, click here.

Take Control of Your Tinnitus—Here’s How

If your ears ring, buzz, chirp, hiss, click or roar, you know just how annoying tinnitus can be. You do not have to put up with this racket for the rest of your life. This book teaches you many things you can do to help bring your tinnitus under your control so it no longer bothers you.

Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Sounds Now Too Loud for You?

Hypersensitive to Sound front coverIf some (or all) normal sounds seem so loud they “blow the top of your head off”, or make you wince or jump, or cause you headaches or ear pain, or affect your balance, or result in fear or annoyance of sounds so you feel you have to avoid these sounds, this book is for you!

Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Hearing Phantom Sounds?

When hard of hearing people begin hearing phantom voices or music, they immediately worry they are going crazy. It never crosses their minds that they are sane and are just experiencing Musical Ear syndrome.

To learn more about the strange phantom sounds of Musical Ear syndrome and what you can do about them, click here to read a comprehensive article about Musical Ear Syndrome.

Or get the book—Learn More | Add to Cart—Printed | Add to Cart—eBook

Glossary Navigation

  • Full List of Glossary Terms
  • A to Z Index

Footer

Center for Hearing Loss Help

Neil G. Bauman, Ph.D.

1013 Ridgeway Drive, Lynden,
WA 98264-1057 USA

Email: neil@hearinglosshelp.com

Phone: 360-778-1266 (M-F 9:00 AM-5:00 PM PST)

© 2025 Center for Hearing Loss Help – Help for your hearing loss, tinnitus and other ear conditions

"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life [which also includes perfect hearing] through Jesus Christ our Lord." [Romans 6:23]

"But know this, in the last days perilous times will come" [2 Timothy 3:1]. "For there will be famines, pestilences, and [severe] earthquakes in various places" [Matthew 24:7], "distress of nations, the sea and the waves roaring"—tsunamis, hurricanes—Luke 21:25, but this is good news if you have put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, for "when these things begin to happen, lift up your heads [and rejoice] because your redemption draws near" [Luke 21:28].