Bellman Audio Maxi Personal Amplifier with Dual Earphones

My dad has had hearing difficulties for many years, and in both ears. He had previously spent thousands of dollars on high-end hearing aids, fitted by professionals and tested for their efficacy... and yet, he was never quite satisfied.The traditional models required a perfect fit into his ear or they rang and whistled with feedback. They required expensive micro-batteries which were difficult to insert, didn't last for any reasonable period of time, and ultimately the tubing became brittle and uncomfortable to wear.We were faced with a challenge: Buy yet another expensive 'behind-the-ear' hearing aid, or look for a better solution. Enter Bellman & Symfon's Audio Maxi personal amplifier with dual earpods.We ordered the device and it arrived without delay a few days later. Impeccably packaged, we had it out, up, and running in less than 5 minutes. The smile on my dad's face told us everything we needed to know - they worked perfectly, easily, and he was able to have conversations with us without anyone needing to yell. The device is super easy to operate, and my 89 year-old dad had no problems with the large size buttons, which are augmented by an easy to read green LED display indicating volume level. The earpods were comfortable, easy to insert, not problematic to deal with, and the device uses simple AA batteries, which means that one 40-pack of batteries will last him for over a year! That is a fraction of the total cost of ownership of the conventional hearing aids.I surmise we may upgrade to a higher quality set of pods down the road, but at this point he is very happy with this device and so are all of us around him!! The more he uses the device we might also move up to the next higher level of the same device, but that also remains to be seen. The main point is that he went from not being able to hear to being able to hear again!IMPORTANT NOTE!: As an experiment, I tried to ascertain whether he would be more comfortable with headsets instead of earpods. The results were dramatic! With the earpods he was able to hear everything without issue. With the headsets, he could literally hear nothing! So, if you are planning to use this device as a substitute for a traditional in-ear hearing aid, be aware that you might really need to look at the pods versus the alternate option of the headsets.

The amplifier works well for my father. His vision is so poor that someone has to turn it on for him, even though the buttons are fairly large. It does have some background hiss, but my Father doesn't hear it and says the amplifier really helps.

I got this for my nearly 89 y. o. mother but the ear pieces wouldn't stay in, even when we switched to the smaller fittings. The volume buttons were bumped whenever she held her little dog and the mike only picked up sounds in front of her. I'd have returned the unit if we hadn't separated the wires to the ears in an effort to lengthen them and find a way to wrap and use clips to keep them in her ears but without succes. These might work for someone but not my mom.

My 94 year old mother rejected it as being too complicated and cumbersome. I thought it was great, but she's the one who needed to use it and I'm a results oriented person. We returned it.

Hope this helps someone going through this process --My mother is 95 and in the past year her hearing has deteriorated to the point that I was basically shouting into her ear to make myself heard at all -- with plenty of repeating on my part and misunderstanding on hers. To top it off, she's a woman who speaks five languages and has two advanced science degrees but has recently decided that she can't be bothered to learn anything "too complicated" or do anything that's "too much bother." I'm guessing if you're reading this you may be facing a similar dilemma.Soooo, after much research, I determined that a box-style audio amplifier would be our best bet. I considered different brands, eventually narrowing the choice down to two -- the Bellmans and the Pocketalkers, and based my final decision on my mom's needs which are 1) her hearing is worse in one ear than the other 2) her eyesight isn't great 3) the aforementioned reluctance to learn anything "difficult."The only Pocketalker that can be adjusted for each ear is the Pocketalker 2.0, so that kicked out the Basic and the Ultra models. Both the Bellman Mino and Maxi can be adjusted for each ear, so they both stayed in. I really liked the Pocketalker 2.0, but found that Bellman had very well-produced and helpful instructional videos on Youtube, so that swung me in their favor. So now it was between the Mino and the Maxi. The Mino has a lot of great features, so if you are buying a hearing amplifier for yourself, or someone more motivated than my mother, the Mino (or the Pocketalker 2.0) might be a great choice. However, I knew that my mother was never going to use anything but the most basic features, and if the buttons were too challenging to navigate she would poop-out and stop using it at all -- so I ordered the Maxi.Well, it arrived this morning. We had it on in five minutes, and it's a life-changer. My "deaf" mother can not only carry on a normal conversation, but also can hear me call her from the next room or downstairs. In addition, she can now hear the television or radio at low/normal volume, and she can listen to audio books again -- something she has not been able to do, and which greatly diminished her quality of life as she can no longer see well enough to read. It's wonderful.I should also mention that I ordered the Maxi with the earbud option (as opposed to earphones) and I chose Liberty Health Supply as the third-party seller, because they have a superior customer service rating.I suppose that's it. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer. If anything develops that warrants updating this review, I'll do so.