How do I know if my hearing aids are actually set correctly?

Joseph Aussem

Au.D

North Shore Hearing

Hearing aids come out of the box with a factory setting based on averages, and every ear canal is shaped differently, so those defaults are rarely right for the person wearing them. Two people with nearly identical audiograms can need noticeably different settings simply because of how their ears are built. The way to know for sure is Real Ear Measurement, where a small probe microphone sits in your ear canal and measures what the aid is really delivering at your eardrum. That measurement gets compared against the prescription your hearing test calls for, and the aid is adjusted until the two line up. If your aids have never been verified that way, it is a fair question to ask at your next visit.