The Hearing Matters Podcast: Hearing Aids, Hearing Technology and Tinnitus

Send us Fan Mail A noisy room can make a person feel like their hearing aids “aren’t working” even when the technology is top-tier. The real culprit is often physics: distance, background noise, reverberation, and a brutal signal-to-noise ratio that no microphone can magically fix from 40 feet away. That’s the problem Auracast Broadcast Audio is built to tackle, and it’s why Bluetooth LE Audio bro...

Send us Fan Mail What should hearing care professionals know about Auracast, Bluetooth LE Audio, and the future of hearing aid connectivity? In this episode of the Hearing Matters Podcast, Blaise Delfino, M.S.-HIS puts his former private practice owner hat back on and explores how he would approach Auracast if he were still seeing patients every day. From the early days of Bluetooth hearing aids i...

Send us Fan Mail Some problems in a relationship don’t show up as big fights. They show up as tiny misses: a mumbled comment from the next room, a joke that lands late, a “good morning” that never happens because the hearing aids aren’t on yet.  We’re sitting down with writer, advocate, and bimodal hearing device user Gael Hannan to talk about the part of hearing loss that rarely gets discussed ou...

Send us Fan Mail What is Auracast, and why does it matter for hearing aids, earbuds, cochlear implants, and public venues? In this Friday Audiogram, Blaise Delfino, M.S. - HIS speaks with Mikey Shaffer, Vice President of North American Sales at Listen Technologies , about how Auracast broadcast audio is changing the future of assistive listening. Mikey explains how Auracast works through Bluetooth...

Send us Fan Mail Auracast may be one of the biggest shifts in hearing accessibility, Bluetooth audio, and assistive listening technology in decades. In this episode of the Hearing Matters Podcast, Blaise Delfino, M.S. - HIS speaks with Mikey Shaffer, Vice President of North American Sales at Listen Technologies , about how Auracast broadcast audio is changing the way people with hearing loss, hear...

Send us Fan Mail Hearing loss does not just affect volume — it affects relationships, confidence, communication, and quality of life. In this episode of the Hearing Matters Podcast , Blaise Delfino, M.S.-HIS and Dr. Gregory Delfino sit down with longtime hearing aid user, veteran, professor, entrepreneur, and family man Gerald Ephault to discuss what life was really like before properly fit hearin...

Send us Fan Mail A single sentence can change a family’s future: “You’ve got one good ear, that’s enough.” We sit down with Melissa Tumblin, founder of EarCommunity.org, to unpack why that belief harms kids and adults with microtia, aural atresia, and unilateral hearing loss, and what happens when families are left without clear answers, referrals, or coverage for the technology that can actually...

Send us Fan Mail Tinnitus is everywhere, yet real answers still feel rare. We sit down with Jeffery Reagan, a heart transplant survivor, tinnitus patient, and the founder of the Tinnitus Learning Health Network , to talk about why so many people with ringing in the ears get stuck bouncing between providers, hearing “nothing can be done,” or trying random fixes without a clear path forward. Jeffery...

Send us Fan Mail After a hearing test, patients should not have to imagine what better hearing could sound like. In this episode of the Hearing Matters Podcast, Blaise Delfino, M.S. - HIS explains why the in-office hearing aid demo is such an important part of the patient journey, and how hearing technology can help patients better understand their hearing loss, their options, and the real-life va...

Send us Fan Mail Restaurants are the perfect stress test for your ears and your brain. The second you add distance, multiple talkers, and reverberation, conversation stops being “just listening” and becomes constant filtering. We talk through why so many modern spaces feel brutal, how poor acoustics and background noise drive auditory fatigue, and why you can leave a holiday party feeling wiped ou...

Send us Fan Mail You know that feeling when you can hear someone talking, but the words won’t land, especially once you sit down in a loud restaurant? I’m Blaise Delfino, and I’m breaking down why that frustration is real and why it’s usually not about “turning it up.” Hearing sound is one thing. Understanding speech is a fast, demanding brain process that depends on timing, consonants, context, a...

Send us Fan Mail Are OTC hearing aids really the same as prescription hearing aids? If you’ve ever wondered whether buying hearing aids online is basically the same as getting fit in a clinic, this episode draws a clear line between the two. The biggest issue is perceived hearing loss . Feeling like your hearing is “probably mild” is not the same as knowing your exact hearing loss type, severity,...

Send us Fan Mail AirPods are getting better, OTC hearing aids are easier to buy than ever, and AI is showing up in every corner of consumer audio. That leads to one of the most important questions in hearing health right now: are we watching hearing aids get replaced, or are we finally widening the front door to better hearing? I take you behind the marketing and into what actually changes outcome...

Send us Fan Mail The biggest hearing aid problems rarely show up in a quiet clinic room. They show up when the phone rings, when the TV gets turned up too loud for everyone else, and when background noise swallows the words you actually need to hear. We dig into the real-world gap between “amplification” and true communication access and why so many people with hearing loss end up avoiding calls,...

Send us Fan Mail Bluetooth shows up in our lives so often that it’s easy to miss how radical it has been for hearing aids. I walk you through why Bluetooth hearing aids aren’t just about convenience, but about access: clearer phone calls, easier TV listening, and fewer moments where background noise wins. When audio streams directly into both ears, it stops feeling like “using a device” and starts...

Send us Fan Mail If your child has hearing loss, good grades do not always mean they have full access at school. In this episode, Dana Ann Hawkins, MS, CCC-SLP, shares her family’s real-life journey navigating a Section 504 plan for her daughter after getting hearing aids. We break down what a 504 plan for hearing loss actually is, how it differs from an IEP, and why schools sometimes wrongly deny...

Send us Fan Mail Your child can “pass” a school hearing screening and still miss huge parts of daily life. That gap is where frustration, fatigue, and quiet slipping-behind can start, even when grades look fine on paper. Your Child Has Hearing Loss. Now What? Download Dana's FREE guide for parents . Hearing aids open the door to sound. But navigating school, talking to teachers, and supportin...

Send us Fan Mail Guessing is easy. Verifying is better, and in hearing aid fittings it can be the difference between “good enough” and genuinely clear speech. We sit down with Madison Levine, BC-HIS and Dr. Dave Fabry to unpack what real ear measurement actually looks like in a busy clinic, starting with a simple question: when should you run REM, at the first fitting or later?  We share a first-f...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever wondered why two “good” hearing aid fittings can feel wildly different to a patient, the answer usually isn’t the device, it’s the process. I’m joined by Madison Levine, BC-HIS and owner of Levine Hearing in Charlotte, and Dr. Dave Fabry, Chief Hearing Health Officer at Starkey, for a practical conversation about best practices in hearing health care that actually i...

Send us Fan Mail Healthcare creates a paradox: we collect endless clinical data, publish important research, and still watch patients wait years for proven ideas to become routine care. We sit down with Donna Murray, PhD, to explain how Learning Health Networks (LHNs) are designed to fix that by connecting patients, families, clinicians, and researchers into a shared system that learns quickly and...

Send us Fan Mail Hearing aid returns aren’t just a number on a dashboard, they’re a clue about what your patients experienced from the first hello to the first follow-up. We talk through the real reasons people bring devices back and why “return for credit” (RFC) should push us toward better systems, not more self-blame. We break down six practical ways to reduce hearing aid returns in a hearing c...

Send us Fan Mail The fastest way to improve healthcare is to stop treating clinics like isolated islands. I’m joined by Donna Murray, PhD, speech-language pathologist and quality improvement leader, to unpack learning health networks and why they’re becoming a serious force in hearing healthcare, tinnitus care, and patient-centered outcomes. We get practical about what a learning health network ac...

Send us Fan Mail A sleepless night turned into a blueprint for change. After catching a segment on Tiny House Nation, we asked a simple question with a complicated answer: could a true audiology clinic fit inside a tiny house and travel safely, complete with a legitimate sound booth and patient-ready workflow? What followed was a pursuit of access, a debt-free crowdfunding effort built on trust, a...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet decision to start a resource for local patients turned into a milestone worth pausing for: 250 episodes dedicated to the craft and heart of hearing healthcare. We look back at where it began—growing up in a family clinic, falling in love with music and audio engineering, and studying communication sciences—and how those threads wove into a platform that champions people, n...

Send us Fan Mail A child who misses a quarter of classroom words isn’t daydreaming—they’re falling through a gap we can close. We dive into World Hearing Day with a focus on kids, where hearing care intersects with brain development, language growth, and classroom success. From missed fricatives to fragile confidence, we trace how small losses cascade into academic and social struggles, and why br...