- Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and Founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona, and in this video,
I'm talking about the Consumer Reports rankings
for best and worst hearing aids in 2022, coming up!
(upbeat music)
Every year, a variety of different websites
and hearing loss experts
come out with their top picks for best hearing aids
that are currently available on the market.
Of course, I am also one of those individuals,
and this year alone, I posted multiple videos,
talking about what I felt were the best hearing aids of 2022
based on different styles and different features,
and I will link those videos down in the description.
But every few years, Consumer Reports gets around
to publishing their survey data from their members
where they end up ranking what they feel
are the best hearing aid retailers
and best hearing aid brands.
If you are also interested in hearing my thoughts
about Consumer Reports hearing aid retailer rankings,
I do have a video where I'm discussing that,
and I will link that video down in the description as well.
Since I have been a subscriber of Consumer Reports
for the past four years, I do find it interesting
to think what other Consumer Reports subscribers
are thinking about the hearing aids
that are currently available on the market.
And as usual, I always have to have an opinion
about everything hearing aid-related,
so I'm gonna go ahead and give you my thoughts
about the Consumer Reports hearing aid rankings,
but before I do, if you could do me huge favor
and click the like button, it really helps out my channel,
because it gets these videos in front of a broader audience.
And while you're at it,
if you have not yet hit that subscribe button
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go ahead and do that as well,
because that ensures that you never miss
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and I release multiple new videos every single week.
With that out of the way, I really appreciate it.
Now let's go ahead and get into these rankings.
According to Consumer Reports,
this survey data was collected in the winter of 2021,
and it is the response
of over 26,000 Consumer Reports subscribers
that happened to purchase hearing aids
either in or after 2017.
A five point Likert scale was used to rank
each of 20 different categories,
ranging from very poor at one to excellent at five.
An overall satisfaction score of 100 would indicate
that respondents are completely satisfied
with their hearing aids.
A score of 80 would indicate that they're very satisfied,
and a score of 60 would indicate
that they're somewhat satisfied.
Satisfaction score differences of less than six points
are not considered significantly different,
and since this survey data was collected
from Consumer Reports members only,
it is not necessarily representative
of the US population as a whole.
Overall, 16 hearing aid brands made the list
with the highest score of 78 and the lowest score of 69.
Going from last to first, we have Belltone at 69,
Starkey and Miracle Ear at 70,
TruHearing, Signia, Lucid and Audibel at 71,
Unitron, Widex and ReSound at 72,
Bernafon and Rexton at 73,
Phonak, Oticon and Phillips at 75
and Costco/Kirkland at 78.
I really appreciate the scope of the survey
as they included 20 different criteria
from battery life to performance in a windy environment
and everything in between.
As far as surveys go, I have to say that I am very impressed
with Consumer Reports and how they got over 26,000
of their members to respond to this survey.
However, there were a few things about this survey
that really stood out to me, and I wanna go ahead
and share my thoughts on those right now.
First, I'm sure you won't be surprised
to see that the Kirkland signature brand came out on top
as they usually do on a Consumer Report survey.
In fact, I would like to make an official prediction
that no matter who the manufacturer is
of the next Kirkland signature brand of hearing aid
that that hearing aid will also come out on top
of the next Consumer Report survey even if that hearing aid
was ranked dead last on the list this year.
The craziest thing about the Kirkland brand
always coming out on top on the surveys
is that they are always manufactured by a different brand
that is actually lower ranked on this survey data
even though those lower ranked hearing aids
have more styles and feature options
than the Kirkland signature brand.
Even I can't figure that one out,
so I like to just chalk that up to the Costco effect.
Second, since these hearing aid rankings were obtained
over the course of the past five years,
there have been three to four different generations
of hearing aids that are included
inside of that time period.
Even though at the beginning of every single year,
I give you my picks of the best hearing aids
that are currently available on the market,
sometimes even those videos become out of date
before the year is over,
because hearing aid manufacturers release new devices
over the course of the year.
Now imagine how irrelevant that information would be
if I only released the best hearing aid videos
every five years.
This means that it would be very difficult
to take this survey data and actually use it
to make a decision on which hearing aid you want to get
here in 2022 and beyond.
Third, technically speaking,
there are way too many hearing aid brands on this list.
They had 16 included on this survey,
and at most, you could probably have nine of them,
otherwise you're just repeating the same hearing aid
with a different brand name.
For instance, the Kirkland Signature 7.0,
which is probably included in the survey data
was basically the same
as the Rexton 80 6c or the Signia 7Px.
And the Kirkland Signature 10.0,
which is also probably included in this survey data
is just basically the Phonak Audeo Paradise RT,
however, Signia, Rexton and Phonak
are all listed as different hearing aids on this list
and all ranked in different positions.
You also have brands like Starkey, which is also Audibel.
You have Signia, which is also basically TruHear
and Miracle-Ear, and you have ReSound,
which is also basically the same thing as Beltone.
You see how this is confusing, right?
It makes it impossible to make any inferences
based on the results of this survey.
That being said, since score differences
of less than six points
are not considered to be significant,
most of the hearing aids on this list
aren't that much different from each other,
which makes this a pretty good time to bring up the fact
that it does not matter how awesome your hearing aid is,
unless you have a hearing care professional
who can fit and program it properly
to your hearing loss prescription.
And the best way to do that
is to find a hearing care professional
who follows best practices.
Best practices are those things
that your hearing care professional can do
to optimize the performance of your hearing aids.
Now, if you have no idea what best practices are
other than what I just explained,
I highly recommend that you also check out my video
on best practices that I will link in the description.
And my fourth and final key takeaway
from this survey data is that it's very hard
to take satisfaction scores from other individuals
who may have different wants, needs and values
than you have, and make an assumption
on if that hearing aid is right for you.
I mean, we get no qualitative data whatsoever.
All we get is quantitative data,
and we don't even know exactly which makes and models
of hearing aids these respondents are even talking about.
Overall, I really do appreciate the effort
that Consumer Reports put into surveying their members
and trying to give some type of quantitative data
for which hearing aid may be best.
But I would much rather get more information
about specific makes and models of hearing aids,
kind of like they do
with their best washing machines of 2022.
If Consumer Reports would actually set up
their hearing aid rankings the same way that they do
their washing machine rankings,
I think that this information would be much more useful
to Consumer Reports subscribers.
So really, all things considered,
I wouldn't put too much weight
into the results of this survey data,
because it really doesn't tell you a whole lot,
and I would much rather you do significantly
more amount of due diligence
before you decide which hearing aids are best for you.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you like the video, please share it,
and if you wanna see other videos just like this one,
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Also feel free to check out my website, DrCliffAuD.com.
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