a more silent world

I have to admit, I am fairly shocked to find that this is an actual news story in my area. Charles Martin, Chairman of the Bucks County Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners was apparently taken aback by the huge amount of money spent on interpreters for people who don't speak English or cannot hear in the county courtrooms. He suggested that maybe our state representative could introduce legislation that allowing the county court to test peoples' ability to speak English or hear. At a recent meeting, he asked this of the board: "If they say they're deaf, we don't drop a book next to them and see if they jump?" Seriously, ignorance at a level so extreme is sickening. Having people like this in government in simply inexcusable when 10% of our citizens are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing.

So it has been about 18 months since I got my Rexton Cobalt 16 hearing aids, and I figured I would write a followup review in hopes that it may help people weigh the options. Overall opinion: I have very little to complain about with these. They perform admirably in almost every situation, and fail where I imagine every hearing aid will fail. My experience with Rexton customer service has been very good, and they seem very generous with parts--more on this later. The good: these hearing aids are small and basically invisible. If you're like me and don't necessarily want them to blend in, Rexton offers interchangeable colored shells. I bought silver and blue and mixed so the top of the aid is blue and the bottom is silver. I think they look cool! My batteries last about 7 days, but I need pretty high amplification, so others may get better life. I haven't tried the rechargeables that came with them yet because I know I would forget to charge them anyways. These aid...