Hi Alden,

It was nice to meet you at Men’s Breakfast 12/10/08 and discuss your interest in my hearing aids and how your friend could benefit from hearing aids. The best company I found is located a few blocks west of Perkins where we met. Steve Chargo is the President of Affinity Hearing and he is outstanding at fitting you with the proper hearing aid for your particular needs. He is also competitively priced and his service after the sale is terrific. Enclosed is his brochure with his picture and phone number. He will do a great job for you.
 
Enclosed is the hearing aid presentation I gave to the Mens’s Breakfast Group over 1 year ago after I bought my hearing aids. I did a lot of research before I bought to make sure I had the best product available at the time for the best price. I thought that if I had to spend … my own money, I wanted to be sure of what I was buying. Hearing aids are available in a variety of price ranges. It depends upon what you need to correct your hearing loss and what your budget can afford.

Number one priority…find a very good Audiologist with a quality sound booth testing facility. I found some with homemade foam lined sound testing booths that were crude and would be difficult to have an accurate hearing test in. Make sure they are a true certified Audiologist with a 5 year degree and not just a hearing aid dispenser who is trying to pass themselves off as a certified Audiologist. I called 6, visited 3 and finally chose the most qualified with a professional sound booth, plus he is a nice guy.

They all sell several different manufacturers products so that they will have products that fit your particular hearing problem. If they are good…they will try to fit your with a product that will fit your needs….not what they make the most $$$ on.

I chose [hearing aids that] automatically manage/adjust to noise and noise environments (this eliminates almost all manual adjustments by your and I really like it), and greatly improve speech intelligibility. The ear clear plastic piece is molded to your ear and mine are an open loop design which almost eliminates itching and sweating.

Like all products there is some maintenance required. The small clear plastic tubes that go from the behind the ear piece to the in ear piece have to be changed by the Audiologist about every 3 months. Affinity Hearing does it FREE and provides FREE batteries for 3 years The unit used # 13 batteries and they last about 2 weeks but you have to turn off the units at night, which is very easy to do.

I bought a small dryer jar of pellets and store the hearing aids in there at night during rainy weather. The units are very sensitive to moisture so don’t wear them in the rain or shower.

Stay away from heavily advertised [single line companies] as they charge much more $$$ (30-40%) for similar products to pay for the advertising.

I hope this information is helpful..Call if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Bob B.

Dear Steve:

Thank you again for your excellent service and help on June 16th. I really appreciate the ability to get my ear plug speakers working again on such short notice. Please thank your staff for their assistance, hospitality and pleasant demeanor. The next day I rode the Minnesota 1000 and it was great to be listening out of both speakers throughout Minnesota, North and South Dakota and back to Michigan on Monday.

I am enclosing the information I mentioned on my visit. I have marked the page with the company that advertised in the magazine on a regular basis. It’s noteworthy that the BMW organization funs a mileage contest each year and the greatest concentration of long distance riders is located in Wisconsin and Minnesota, by a wide margin. My point is that you are located geographically for the prime part of this market. You can look over the rate and demographic mumbo jumbo and decide for yourself.

If you want any sort of testimonial or rider reference I would be glad to provide on. At 11:30 PM on Saturday night in South Dakota I chatted with a Minnesota rider, while changing a burned out headlight bulb, and he said that his molded ear plug (from another supplier) were uncomfortable so I gave him one of your business cards. He mentioned something that is a lot more common then most realize in that he said “I love those things for mowing the lawn”.

Thanks again for your help.

Sincerely,
Wayne K.
Grayling, Michigan