Recent developments in hearing aid technology have significantly improved the performance of hearing aids: hearing aids are becoming smaller, lighter, and smarter and now contain digital electronics. These digital hearing aids translate sound into digital code (zeros and ones), manipulate it, enhance it, suppress noises, and then push the results through a speaker (or "receiver" as it's known in the industry"). The end result is a high-quality amplified sound. With the passage of time, the popularity of these aids has grown by leaps and bounds. Some of the benefits of digital hearing aids are:

•    Multiple programs or channels that can switch between different environmental settings depending where the hearing aid wearer happens to be.

•    Newer digital hearing aids can recognize the differences between background noise and speech and can filter out those noises that are not part of the conversation or listening experience.

•    Newer digital hearing aids have soft sound pickup features that allows the hearing aid to pick out the conversational sounds out of a room full of noises

•     Digital hearing aids also feature directional microphones that can focus on sounds wherever the head is facing and suppress sounds coming from the rear, improving the quality of conversations.

Digital hearing aids come in two basic configurations: those that automatically adjust the settings to the environment, and those that allow the wearer to have some control over the settings.

Digital hearing aids are expensive, usually costing between $1,500 USD and $4,000 USD each if purchased from an audiologist. However, good to excellent quality hearing aids are available online from a variety of Internet hearing aid resellers. A few of the better distributors also manufacture their own hearing aids and most of their prices are less than $1,000 USD for each hearing aid. Spending less than hour on the Internet will allow you to find the top vendors if hearing aids if you enter any of the following search terms: "hearing aids", "digital hearing aids", or "affordable hearing aids".