Empowered Patient Podcast

Steve Taddei, Co-Founder and Lab Director of HearAdvisor created to provide unbiased, scientifically-based analysis of over-the-counter hearing aids. With recent legislation allowing hearing aids to be sold directly to consumers and online, there is a need for a clear understanding of the features and benefits of available audio-enhancing technology. Using a life-like mannequin equipped with microphones, HearAdvisor can perform repeatable experiments to test the hearing aids across several categories and rank them for different purposes. Steve explains, "Selecting devices that we found to perform best was quite a process, and I would like to say that HearAdvisor is an independent lab. We are not owned by any hearing aid company. We're kind of three hearing technology nerds or just audiology nerds, people who love sound, acoustics, and hearing. We saw this problem, we came together, and we used as best as possible, the scientific approach to make recordings of all these devices. These recordings emulate, as b