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A lot of people ask us why they should spend extra for top-quality hearing aids such as Widex.

This question might best be answered by the sad story of a banjo player in a bluegrass band, who talked about the low-cost hearing aids he had purchased.

“It’s been a complete disaster,” he said. “When we play, the music is fuzzy and distorted. Just awful. But then I go home, and I can’t hear my grandson when he’s talking to me in the kitchen. Nothing my provider does seems to help.”

Unfortunately his problem is common, and the issue isn’t his provider. It’s the fact that low-quality hearing aids – the kind you find at bargain-basement dealers – have limitations that make good hearing impossible. They can even make your hearing worse.

These limitations are called “noise floor” and “clipping.”

Noise floor overwhelms quiet sounds

Every sound amplification device, whether it’s a hearing aid or stereo hi-fi system, produces a hissing sound. If you’ve ever listened to an old tape player, you’ve heard it. In digital devices, including hearing aids, this hiss comes from the electronic circuitry.

The amount of hiss produced is called the “noise floor.” The higher this level is, the harder it is for you to hear other sounds. If the sound you’re listening to is quieter than the noise floor, you won’t hear it at all.

Because of poorly designed and constructed electronic circuits, cheap hearing aids have a noise floor as high as 40 dB. Here are the levels of some everyday sounds.

  • Conversational speech – 60 dB.
  • The average home with no TV on – 50 dB.
  • A quiet library – 40 dB.
  • Your bedroom at night – 30 dB.
  • Rustling leaves in the distance – 10 dB.

Think about that for a minute. In a quiet library, all you’ll hear is hiss. When people talk to you in their normal voice, you’ll barely be able to hear them.

Widex lowers the floor – and raises your ability to hear

Widex hearing aids, on the other hand, have an extremely low noise floor of only 5 dB. This low noise – virtually inaudible to humans – comes as a result of superior design and workmanship in Widex’s electronic circuitry.

With Widex, you’ll hear sounds that you don’t even realize you’ve been missing … bacon frying in the pan … footsteps coming toward your front door … birds chirping on a sunny summer morning … water gurgling in a nearby stream. And you won’t have to constantly ask loved ones to speak up.

Here in central Iowa, Woodard Hearing specializes in Widex hearing products, the very best the industry has to offer. Come in and let’s talk about how we can help you hear what you’ve been missing.

Next post: Why loud sounds in cheap hearing aids (clipping) can be just as bad as noise.