when America Food and Drug Administration Opened the door to listen to the instruments being sold over the counter. In 2022, I was all in. Prescription hearing aids are criminally expensive, and several OTC models have proven that you don't need to go to a hearing aid shop in a mall to find a product that works. I have tested 38 hearing aids To date, another 29 are available over the counter. All my favorite hearing aid products OTC models areSo far.
starkey is one major name In the hearing aid business, and it's not some white-label company that slaps a logo on someone else's product (an epidemic in this industry). Stark has been around since 1967, and while it no longer designs or manufactures its own digital signal processing chips, it is intimately involved with hearing aid development — and famously bragged that it asked Ronald Reagan to Everyone from Mother Teresa has been outfitted with her hearing aids.
Now, with its new Edge AI Rec RT hearing aids, Starkey takes a position at the top of the heap in product quality and performance thanks in large part to a new audio processor, which includes an integrated neural processing unit – just like us laptop And phonesStarkey says this is the only NPU-powered hearing aid line on the market.
receiver in the canal
There's nothing particularly inventive about the Edge AI Rec RT (which stands for “Receiver in Canal, Rechargeable with Telecoil”), built on the classic, teardrop-shaped rear-facing design, though. It is available in your choice of seven colors. Each aid weighs 2.62 grams, which is competitive for a behind-the-ear hearing aid. Jabra Enhance Select 500 Weighs 2.56 grams.) A single button on the back of each aid controls volume: up on the left aid, down on the right aid.
Photograph: Christopher Null
Since these are prescription aids, you will need an audiologist to fit and tune them. Rather than send me to a local doctor, Stark took the unusual step of flying his chief hearing health officer, Dave Fabbri, to his home to complete the task. Fabbri brought a suitcase full of equipment, so that the doctor's office experience would be the same as usual, only at my dining table. Later, he gave me a training session on AIDS and walked me through my starkey appLike a standard audiologist.
Fabri also outfitted me with custom eartips, molded to fit the exact shape of my ear canals. (This type of service will be at the discretion of your audiologist.) It's a simple procedure that involves jamming putty into your ears and waiting for it to harden. This putty can then be used to create a bespoke eartip that fits perfectly – although the usual collection of open and closed eartips in various sizes are also included in the box.
Photograph: Christopher Null