by Mat Dirjish

Independent sound performance lab HearAdvisor is awarding 13 hearing aids with its “HearAdvisor Expert Choice” badge, which aims to give consumers a reliable way to identify high-quality hearing aids. HearAdvisor founders Abram Bailey Doctor of Audiology (AuD), Steve Taddei AuD, and Andrew Sabin PhD, want to help consumers make better-informed decisions while navigating a confusing and sometimes deceptive hearing-aid marketplace.

The introduction of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids in the US offers consumers more options, creating a plethora of hearing aids of varying quality. Winners of the “Expert Choice” badge include the Sony CRE-E10 Self-Fitting OTC Hearing Aids, Sony CRE-C10 Self-Fitting OTC Hearing Aids, Jabra Enhance Select 200, Lexie B2, and Lucid Engage.

HearAdvisor is also launching HearAdvisor SoundScore, an overall sound performance score that summarizes a hearing aid’s overall sound performance in a single number. SoundScore combines various aspects of performance such as speech quality in quiet and noisy environments, streamed audio quality, feedback handling, and voice quality. Reportedly, HearAdvisor has measured almost all of the most popular hearing aids on the US market in 2023.

“Coming up with a single number to quantify the overall sound performance of a hearing aid is super challenging,” said Abram Bailey, Au.D. “We leaned on the latest research in audiology and hearing science to make realistic recordings and compute perceptually-validated metrics from the scientific literature. We even conducted our own research to find which of our metrics were most important to consumers and audiology professionals. This helped us to create a composite score that captures the priorities of both groups.”

For deeper data and details, visit the HearAdvisor website. And for greater details about available hearing aids, peruse the hearing-aid comparison overview.

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