OT: Say what?

Very interesting.

I don't know if I have a problem or not. I understand most people, most tv shows, and American movies just fine, but sometimes people are so quiet I can't heare them or they seem to be mumbling. The BBC has a lot of that, because of their British or South Asian accents. And movies this past year in Europe had a lot of it.

It's going to be hard to tell if one of thsee makes a difference, and I wonder how much, how many, they'll let you try thhem on and get your earwax all over them. Maybe you can wash your ears first!

I am sure audiologists will tell you a generic hearing aid is never going to as good as one that is custom fitted to your ear and tuned to address your particular disorder but I agree for a some if not most, something like this is OK. I know I have a particular notch in my hearing so a linear amplifier or even one with a bell curve would either blow me out on the good frequencies or not help much on the bad one. Fortunately the thing I don't hear well is screeching women.

This has been covered quite a bit quite a while ago in uk.d-i-y with one of the posters who used to work for the BBC and ITV doing the audio. Basically those doing it currently are incompetent. Its not a universal problem, Foyle's War for example is fine but The Minimalist is quite bad with that sort of muddy audio which makes it hard to be sure what the cast are saying at times. Horizon is generally fine.

I'm getting that way too. A friend got here at Costco for a lot less than what the hearing places get you for. IIRC, a pair was $1600 compared to 2X or 3X elsewhere.

My husband is the same. If I really want to get through to him, I pitch my voice low. It doesn't need to be very loud for him to get the message.

Cindy Hamilton

We all love that Lauren Bacall voice ;-)

My hearing loss is directly related to a few particular machines I worked on and for the most part it is not a problem to me. There has been talk off and on of a class action suit against IBM but it is hard proving that your hearing loss was their fault. Only one guy I know actually had the proof, two tests that IBM did themselves when he moved around through divisions and it was settled with an NDA that still scares him today (40 year later).

Its not politically correct to growl at people anymore.

There IS a diiffernce though. I know people who have gone through 3 or 4 different hearing aids from different manufacturere and were constantly frustrated. These were circa $2000 units. When they finally broke down and bought high quality "intelligent" hearing aids the frustration was GONE.

A few years before I got my hearing aids my audiologist said I was at the point where a good hearing aid would make a big difference for me, but that with my particular hearing loss pattern anything on the market at that time would be likely to cause me frustration. She then called me about a year later and said "we've got a new hearing aid system I think you will like. It's pricey, but I guarantee you won't be frustrated with it"

On their advice I skipped the hunt and went straight to the Oticon OPN system. For both ears it cost me more than the 2 vehicles I had on the driveway at the time - but it's been worth it. NO ISSUES - and I hear like I did years ago before my hearing loss. No fiddling. No changing settings. No overpowering. No problem with backround noise.