Best Hearing Aid Manufacturer?

@ZCT said:

Lalo, no offense, but I’d rather you didn’t post defamatory comments about me on this forum.

I am a trainer and consultant for a large national company. I don’t get a dime if someone buys Starkey aids. Further, there is nothing in it for me to recommend them on this forum. In fact there is nothing in it for me to even be on this forum.

So I kind of find it offensive that when I share my lengthy professional experience on this board, there are some people who are so jaded and cynical that they assume that Starkey pays me to swing by and talk up their products in exchange for some kind of kick back.

I have fitted just about every major brand of hearing aid there is. I have found Starkey to be innovative, impressive, and have great service if one runs into problems. I have found that by specializing in their products, I can be more effective at helping my patients.

As to your other point, a hearing aid wearer can merely tell you how they did with a specific brand and model of aid. Almost useless information by itself, since no two hearing losses or patients are the same. Hearing aid use is so subjective and involves so many variables you’d need to collect data from thousands of patients to get any kind of statistically meaningful pattern. And even then, no guarantee that YOU will be helped by the same kind of device.

And finally, I’d like to see some evidence of your point that MOST audiologists are completely independent. Because I’d say you just made that up. Many audiologists are exclusive to one product, either by employment, or by choice. There simply isn’t any rule that says that audiologists stock five or ten brands of hearing aid or even two. And the more they do stock, the less likely they are to understand the nuance of how to program each one.

I myself attend numerous training courses so I can be up to speed on Starkey products. If I were to also do this for three other manufacturers, I’d only work about six months out of the year! I’d be in class the whole time.

Keep in mind too that your friendly independent audiologist that you seem so enamored with, is not only less of an expert at each of the brands, but he is also paying a higher wholesale price for them, which he or she is likely to be passing on to the consumer.

“Defamatory” needs to be knowingly false. What I said - “ZCT is a Starkey distributor who, as opposed to wearers or most Audies, has a pecuniary interest in people buying Starkey HAs’” was true. Why do we know this? Well, you stated it in your post. You are a “consultant” with a mysterious company that only does business with Starkey. Umm, that means you financially benefit in Starkey’s sales - even if indirectly.

But that’s okay you didn’t get the false part because you are probably focusing on another required element of defamatory - the part about harming your reputation. Well, if you think me saying that your being tied in business relationship to Starkey hurts your reputation, it sounds like you are not very proud of Starkey.

If you want me to stop informing people that you benefit from sales of Starkey hearing aids, I have a simple solution: just put it in your signature. Something like Starkey “Distributor,” “Consultant” to Starkey, Sharkey “Hawker.” Or whatever.

BTW, saying you are biased for Starkey products because they are good also conflicts with English language definitions. Bias does not come from proven effects but from a preconceived notion. Certainly, if you financially benefit - even indirectly - from sales of a product that is a factor that can produce bias.

Just be transparent and admit your affiliation in your signature and people will be duly informed. What are you afraid of with openness?

Defamatory - Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.

If Starkey’s are as good as ZCT claims then there must be some other factor at work here. Such as, maybe they don’t pay audis as much as the other manufacturers, or their service is poor.

One audi I visited did not recommend Phonaks because she said their reps were not knowledgeable and they returned HAs sent in for repair back without repairing them.

I must say I almost want to try Starkey’s just to see how they reduce noise in a crowded restaurant. I can’t imgine the algorithm to do that. Most fo the noise would be other speech from other customers or possibly background music. How would it detect speech you want to hear from speech by other customers and waiters that you/it considers noise?

@Lalo said:

“Defamatory” needs to be knowingly false. What I said - “ZCT is a Starkey distributor who, as opposed to wearers or most Audies, has a pecuniary interest in people buying Starkey HAs’” was true. Why do we know this? Well, you stated it in your post. You are a “consultant” with a mysterious company that only does business with Starkey. Umm, that means you financially benefit in Starkey’s sales - even if indirectly.

Your ridiculous post implied that unlike ‘most’ hearing professionals I have some kind special interest with Starkey, and by inference my bias made my professional opinion less useful than ‘most’ hearing professionals. And of course, I objected to that and found it offensive.

Let’s also be real for a moment. Of the population of America with a hearing loss who are likely to buy hearing aids maybe 0.0001% of them visit this forum. And of that percentage maybe 0.01% of them listen to my advice and trial Starkey hearing aids. If my goal were to come here and talk up Starkey products for some financial reward, I’m kind of wasting my time aren’t I?

@Lalo said:

But that’s okay you didn’t get the false part because you are probably focusing on another required element of defamatory - the part about harming your reputation. Well, if you think me saying that your being tied in business relationship to Starkey hurts your reputation, it sounds like you are not very proud of Starkey.

Again, my issue is the false accusation that I differ from ‘most’ hearing professionals because I have a preference for Starkey. You are implying that ‘most’ hearing professionals, unlike me, evaluate every brand of hearing aid available and then offer all the pros and cons to the patient. That’s simply not true, and is an attack on my professionalism.

@Lalo said:

If you want me to stop informing people that you benefit from sales of Starkey hearing aids, I have a simple solution: just put it in your signature. Something like Starkey “Distributor,” “Consultant” to Starkey, Sharkey “Hawker.” Or whatever.

You are not informing people of anything. You are drawing conclusions based on my posts and extrapolating ‘facts’ about a stranger on the Internet and then posting them as if they were known verifiable facts.

I could put “I am Bill Austin” in my signature line, but that wouldn’t make it true nor my posts any more credible.

@Lalo said:

BTW, saying you are biased for Starkey products because they are good also conflicts with English language definitions. Bias does not come from proven effects but from a preconceived notion. Certainly, if you financially benefit - even indirectly - from sales of a product that is a factor that can produce bias.

My opinion of Starkey products began in 1994 in England. I worked for the two largest independent companies that sell private hearing aids in the UK. I worked as a hearing aid dispenser. Our price list included Philips, Starkey, Danavox, Resound, Siemens, A&M, Widex, Oticon, Rexton, and Phonak.

My remuneration was a company car, a salary, and a bonus based on sales performance. A very common business model at the time.

At no point was there ever any pressure to recommend any specific aids. The brief was to sell while taking care of the patient in the best way possible. So out of personal interest, I deliberately fitted each and every type of aid (these were pre-digital days so there was not the need to learn complex fitting software back then) and I evaluated my patients performance.

Over the years and hundreds of patients, I began to form an opinion as to which companies were efficient, who was making my patients happy, who had my back if I ran into issues, who made the best molds, who had the best packaging/instructions, which aids performed best on the ANSI testing that was done on all new aids before they left the factory, who had the most reliable reps, etc etc.

The only financial issue that guided this process really was that if the aids sucked and the patient returned them, it would affect my bonus. So it was in my financial interest to track down the brand that made the patient the most happy, because logically these patients were the most likely to keep their aids, so I could keep my bonus.

So that’s how I became a fan of Starkey. They did a great job of making my patients happy, and to this day they still do. There’s no conspiracy theory here, I am not some secret agent, or some sucker that was wined and dined by Starkey so now I sing from the company hymn book. I went out into the field and later into my own clinics helping patients to hear, and I learned what worked.

This is why I find your disparaging nonsense about my ethics offensive. I do a good job and I help people, and people like you and a few others on this forum just like to lash out because this is the Internet and that’s what some people like to do.

@Lalo said:

Just be transparent and admit your affiliation in your signature and people will be duly informed. What are you afraid of with openness?

I’m afraid of the kind of weirdos that troll the Internet for an argument. I could put my full name, job position, license numbers, credentials, and a link to my Curriculum Vitae on the signature line on this forum, right next to my personal cell number. But why should I? I don’t see it on your signature.

I’m just a hearing professional posting his opinion on a forum. I have a right to some anonymity on here. As do we all.

@Lalo said:

Defamatory - Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.

I don’t really need your help understanding the definition of words. However, as I have already mentioned, you made the statement that led people to believe that ‘most’ hearing professionals operate in a different and by implication superior way to me. This has the action of harming reputation, decreasing respect or regard or confidence.

You either did this knowingly, in other words it was intentional, or you are ignorant, in which case your mistake was simply a function of your lack of knowledge but still has a negative impact on my reputation, assuming of course that anyone views you as having credibility.