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Best Hearing Aid Manufacturer?

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I’m not sure if this has already been discussed or not?

I’m wondering about the best hearing aid manufacturer? I require a pair of Behind the Ear () hearing aids with optimal/ high power. Can you recommend which hearing aid manufacturer is better for this type of hearing aid. Also I’m looking for a manufacturer that will allow me to use my custom ear molds - that fit to my ears. I’m aware of the following manufacturers:

•Starkey
•Widex
•Oticon/Bernafon
•Phonak/Unitron
•Resound
•Siemens

I’m sure that there are many others. I’m in Canada. My hearing aids from Resound recently went dead after being 2.5 years old and they were turned up to the highest level of volume/ power without any feedback. I’m just wondering which hearing aid manufacturer makes the better product?

For example:
What’s the differences between StarKey’s BTE S Series IQ vs. Widex’s CLEAR440 C4-9?

8 people in this conversation4 min readJump to latest

I think that this would have been the best place for this discussion on which is the Best Hearing Aid Manufacturer. The other thread’s topic is Hearing Aids and this is Hearing Aid Discussion. Just a matter of putting the discussion in the right place.

Dont know about others, but i rate phonak much higher than Oticon, and i tryed almost all oticon highend product’s. Phonaks is much more flexible in all fields.
Also, i doubt siemens are best. Largest maybe.

Edited

Based on what specifications? ? Maximum gain? Clarity? Speech in noise? Fitting range? S Test results?

With respect, that answer is like saying the best car is a Hyundai Sonata. I mean that may be true, but you kind of need to qualify that answer by explaining why.

OP said he needed high power aids, and I think these are the best based on experience and features.

Both take me to near normal understanding over the phone in my left ear where I still have some hearing at 2KHz+. No other brand, digital or analog has been able to do this and I’ve been wearing ’s for nearly 30 years. I’ve been able to have near normal phone conversations only during the last 10 years when I started to use Phonak.

I’m about to test-drive the Phonak frequency shifting (SoundRecover) in my right ear where my hearing is too damaged at higher frequencies, and I believe this is a unique feature in Phonaks not available in other brands. Oticon Chili has Speechguard which is good but I cannot yet compare with the Soundrecover which might be better.

No other brands have this kind of technology and that’s why I believe only Phonak and Oticon are able to help me.

About feedback, it depends on the HA, earmold fitting, and the programming. The Phonaks are more difficult to find the best combo, so some people might experience too much feedback, but it’s fixable.

No HA brand has been at least 90% satisfactory to me for speech in noise or large rooms, and I will be trying systems soon.

This discussion brings to mind that there is no independent testing/evaluation available in this field. Wish we had honest independent testers like Consumer Reports.

Reading the mfg’s literature is an exercise in futility. Actual trial and results are the only thing meaningful. Ed

Edited

The problem lies in the fact that the success of a hearing aid is highly dependent on the individual wearing it and the provider of the device. You could have a pair of identical twins with the same loss/lifestyle and one might love one company whereas the other might hate it. It’s impossible to predict what the brain will do with what you send it through the hearing aid.

A consumer report on the feature set of each would be nice for end-users though.

Ed,
You could not get an accurate study unless you had someone with hearing loss test every on the market and give their opinions as to which aid was best. These would also have to be worn until the user was used to it’s sound and had it adjusted to their liking and then move on to the next HA and so on and with all the manufacturers it would take to long and you would miss the deadline each year for the magazines HA issue because your testers would still be trying new HA. I think DocAudio stated it the best with “success of a hearing aid is highly dependant on the individual wearing it and the provider of the device.”

In reply to #11

@DocAudio said:

A consumer report on the feature set of each would be nice for end-users though.

Come to think of it…I think one of the publications I receive puts out a chart on occasion that actually does have a comparison chart of different hearing aids…but I believe the manufacturers have to submit the information so if they don’t submit it, the doesn’t go on the list.

Couldn’t find the one I remember…but I did come across the consumer reports page and apparently, they do evaluate hearing aids. Couldn’t access the specific information because it requires a subscription…

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