I have had an increase in patients who tried Jabra, had limited benefit, and came in to investigate other options. So I finally got a chance to test a Jabra! It’s inexpensive. Why? Frequency response might have something to do with it.

First, on the above audiogram, look at each frequency band and notice how important the high frequencies are for speech intelligibility. The band around 2kHz is the most important at 33%. The band above 3kHz is next in importance at 23%. Below 500 Hz is about 8%.

Now look at the above real ear measurement. This is ideal. Notice how the performance of the hearing aids (green and pink lines) match up with the targets (green and pink markers). (This happens to be an Oticon Intent 1, but any high end hearing aid can match a target all the way out to 8kHz, easily). If you’re not familiar with real ear measurements yet, take a look at the video on the Hearing Aids page.

Now for the Jabra. The left side graph shows that the hearing aid amplification fades above 3kHz. According to the audiogram in the first image, this is a problem because you’re missing 23% of the clarity you could have. (The right side graph shows that the Jabra aid on that side was dead. This can happen to higher end hearing aids too. All it takes is some debris in the microphone. In my experience though, some manufacturers are more reliable than others.)