Hearing Aid Ranking Chart showing features of various current top-of-the-line models?

[user424]

As I wind down the tests of not-Beltone instruments, I wonder about the chart I was shown at my last Beltone adjustment.

There is now a newer model than the Imagine 17s I’m wearing, but it’s not significantly better and thus the rep didn’t suggest I move up. But she DID show me a chart comparing features of other makers’ gear, in descending order of relative (they had or didn’t have the various features of the Beltones) equality/lesser features.

Does anyone have such a chart for discussion? My memory of the entirety is foggy (meaning I can’t rattle off all of the other brands shown), but the Phonak seemed to be the closest match, and the Widex the least. It would be interesting to me to hear from pros on the subject, as I am not yet certain that we’ll succeed in wrestling the Beltones into a functionally-useful-to-me state.

There’s a separate thread discussing my issues here:

Close to despair after months of audiologists (note: PLURAL!) attempting recovery of music and speech

This is an extremely long story that I’ll attempt to shorten: I’m a full-time HA user/wearer for over 10 years. It started with Beltone. I sing and play music. Intonation is key, pardon the expression. As well, my wife is soft spoken and various folk accuse (can’t judge; my hearing sucks) her of being indistinct as well. None of these metrics has been met over the 15 months of fiddling, including a factory rep’s assistance, since I got the new Beltones. My audiogram(s - more on that short…

So I won’t duplicate that discussion, but I’m interested in what I’d find in reality, in the event that chart is more promotional than revealing…

[mindsil]

Sounds like an apples to apples chart.

My opinion about those charts is that they often target specific aspects or brand-named feature that other brands don’t with the same name, but have the same feature using a different name or approach.

Things like feedback management. Or listening environments. Or # of channels.

Every manufacturer wants to eliminate feedback, and has their own approach to listening environments and etc. # of channels can be useful in tuning the device but does not mean a better sound, especially when you get above like… 9 channels or so.

The page on here where you can listen to recordings from all sorts of different hearing aids is probably the best apples to apples approach I’ve seen. If it were me personally, I’d be at the total harmonic distortion (THD) since some brands have a very high THD.

Apples to apples are almost universally created by a specific brand to place then at an advantage.

This is just an opinion though. I do see that they can offer insight into differences.

(And I know its been repeated ad nauseum but the most important part of a hearing aid is the person fitting it. Knowledge and belief in REM being one of the simplest requirements. In your case, I’d say an RECD would be good, too. And if you had a pair of headphones you could hear clearly with, it could be worthwhile to have the response of the headphones checked with either a test box or with probe microphone measurements.)