Hearing In Groups

It is common for people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss to carry on a successful conversation with one other person in a quiet environment.

However, in conversations with a group of people, especially in situations with background noise, it might be difficult to understand what each person is saying. Typical situations are restaurants, outside with traffic, wind, and in crowds.

Many prescription hearing aids have a noise reduction feature that attempts to suppress background noise. If this feature is important to you, we recommend selecting OTC hearing aids that have it. And be aware that some hearing aids, both prescription and OTC, may be able to reduce noise better than others.

Another feature that can help is speaker focus. Different hearing aid manufacturers have their own terms for this feature, which attempts to focus on the person you are looking at and suppress sound to the rear. This feature requires two microphones on each hearing aid: one higher up on the hearing aid and somewhat to the front and one lower on the hearing aid and to the back. Prescription hearing aids usually have two microphones on each hearing aid.

We recommend checking for speaker focus on the OTC model you are considering.