Dan, I'm probably not qualified to answer about the difference in the prices, but I'll try to give you a little bit of the answer as I understand it. I just have to take the doctor and audiologist's word for it. The highest priced hearing aids are programmable, digital technology (supposed to get you the best sound, but no one has been able to explain to me what's different about the sound, just that folks who have them love them). The mid-range aids are still programmable, but analog (I don't quite understand it, but supposedly if your hearing gets worse next year, they can use their computer to re-program the hearing aid). The cheap ones are analog and have no adjustment after they're made except volume control. All of them are custom made supposedly to provide different amplification for different frequencies (I guess most folks have more hearing loss at some frequencies than others. In my case, the greatest hearing loss is at the higher frequencies). And then some hearing aids have other little refinements like automatically preventing sudden loud noises from being too loud. Of course, you will see some "hearing aids" advertised for $300 to $500 each that are not custom made and are nothing more than an amplifier. The tests they do supposedly measure the hearing loss (or lack thereof) at different frequencies in two ways; how much sound the ear picks up and how much of that is transmitted to the brain (nerve damage). In my case, supposedly only 80% of what my big ears pick up gets transmitted to my little brain (don't ask me how they figure that out)./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
And all I really know is that the darned things do work, but they're way too expensive for us poor folks./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif
Bird
