I have had a fair amount of experience with this, unfortunately. I have had Oticon and now Widex. Make sure you check with you health insurance provider to see if you have a hearing aid benefit. I usually spend for the middle of the road models as that is what my insurance pays most of. I had a friend pass and his wife gave me his Widex and they were in excess of $6K. I took them in to my local audiologist and they loaded my hearing program into his hearing aids. The expensive models are really nice with phone app that can control your settings. The place I go has a PHD audiologist on staff and she put a fair amount of effort in helping me program the aids. They even offer to come to my house and do a program for my listening room (extra cost). I do think the commercial places will push you toward the models they make a mark up on. They called me up the other day and told me one of my pairs was running out of warranty and said bring them in for a last checkup. They ended up sending them off to Widex for a complete refurb. One big drawback is if you have the phone blue toothed to your aids and you call it to find it......:)
Hearing aid suggestions
Well, I'm 66, and I've surely got some high-frequency hearing loss, a little tinnitus and who-knows-what-else hearing problems. So, I'll be scheduling a consult with an audiologist soon. I suppose hearing aids will be recommended. Any body have some helpful experience? Of course, I'm most concerned about being able to hear music accurately, but there are endless other considerations, batteries or rechargeable, in-ear or brick behind the ear, bluetooth and apps...on and on. Any tips and details would be appreciated.