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The biggest risk in hearing aid innovation is not dreaming too small, it’s shipping a promise that doesn’t survive real life. Starkey Sound Bites host, Dave Fabry, PhD, sits down with Dr. Maddie Olson, Starkey’s Manager of Clinical Product Research, to unpack how clinical research, verification, and product validation protect patients and providers when new hearing aid technology moves from the lab to the field. If you’ve ever wondered who makes sure a feature works on Tuesday afternoon in a noisy café, not just in a polished demo, this conversation is for you.

We talk about what “validation” actually means: user requirements, regulatory expectations, safety and effectiveness, and proving meaningful benefit compared with what’s already on the market. Dr. Olson explains how Starkey recruits from a large participant database to find the right listeners for the right tests, and why trust and honest feedback are as critical as any instrument. We also explore how modern hearing aids have become full systems, including Bluetooth connectivity, smartphone app performance, and the growing need to consider the provider workflow, not just the signal processing.

The conversation expands into hearing health and whole health, including balance, falls, and wellness research, plus how questionnaires can help connect hearing loss with outcomes like social isolation and depression. For clinicians, we dig into practical measures you can use now: APHAB, DOSO, Hearing Handicap Inventory, and QuickSIN for speech in noise. Dr. Olson also breaks down ecological momentary assessment and hearing aid data logging as tools to reduce recall bias and fine-tune fittings based on what patients actually experience, moment by moment.

If this helped you think differently about audiology, clinical research, or hearing aid outcomes, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more hearing care pros can find it.

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Auracast for Hearing Aids: What It Means for the Future

Chief Hearing Health Officer Dr. Dave Fabry sits down with Dr. Heike Heuermann, Starkey’s Vice President of Product Integration, to explore the transformational impact of Auracast™ assistant and Google Fast Pair™ on hearing technology.

With more than two decades of experience across hearing science, engineering, systems design, and product management, Dr. Heuermann brings a unique holistic perspective on how cutting‑edge tech can reconnect people to the world around them.

Together, Dave and Heike dive into:

– How Auracast™ assistant works — Learn how this next‑generation broadcast audio technology allows a single sound source, like a TV, classroom, or place of worship, to stream high‑quality audio directly to multiple listeners at once. No accessories, no pairing hassles.

– The end of pairing frustration — Heike explains how Google Fast Pair dramatically simplifies setup for Android users, creating seamless, automatic connectivity across phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, and more.

If you’re curious about where hearing technology is heading, especially around connectivity, accessibility, and audio personalization, this episode is packed with insights.

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Reality TV star Gerry Turner gets real about hearing loss. After he proudly wore hearing aids while looking for love on national television, Turner says no one should be embarrassed to wear them. In this episode, he talks about how hearing aids have positively impacted his life and urges others with hearing loss to stop letting stigma get in the way of being connected to the ones they love.

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At Starkey, our mission is to serve our customers better than anyone else. Our team answers 2,000 calls a day within five seconds. Those calls are answered by a live voice, and our operators know most of our customers by name. In this episode, Starkey’s Chief Customer Officer Chris Van Guilder explains why these statistics are so important for the success of our business, and why it’s important for hearing care providers to make customer service a priority for their patients.

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Rockstar legend Alice Cooper is back on tour and not letting hearing loss get in his way. He talks with Dave about how hearing loss is an unfortunate reality for many professional musicians — particularly rockers from his generation — and shares stories from his long and storied career, including working with Johnny Depp and Paul McCartney. A proud wearer of “clearing aids,” Alice encourages young musicians to put their hearing first and not let the stigma of hearing aids and hearing protection be a barrier to better hearing health.

To learn more about Starkey hearing aids, visit Starkey.com

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As up-and-coming NASCAR driver William Sawalich prepares for his first Xfinity race, he sits down with Dave and his dad, Brandon, to talk about his racing career and why he’s passionate about hearing protection, especially at his young age. It’s a loud sport, and as we observe Protect Your Hearing Month this October, we hope this episode offers motivation to make hearing protection a priority.

To learn more about Starkey’s industry-leading hearing protection product, SoundGear, visit SoundGear.com.

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Starkey’s latest hearing technology has arrived! Chief Technology Officer and EVP of Engineering Achin Bhowmik, Ph.D., sits down with Dave to share what excites him most about Edge AI. The highlights include: 30% more accuracy at identifying speech, 6 dB additional reduction in low-level noise, and 100 times the processing power, all while maintaining Starkey’s industry-leading 51 hours of battery life. Tune in for a deep dive that explains why this technology gives patients and professionals the edge they've been looking for.

To learn more about Edge AI, visit StarkeyPro.com

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Research shows people with mild hearing loss are three times more likely to have a history of falling than peers with normal hearing. In this episode, during National Falls Prevention Awareness Week, Dave chats with Dr. Patricia Gaffney, an audiologist with a specialty in vestibular diagnostics and treatment. They talk about emerging research, as well as the important role hearing professionals can play in helping their patients prevent falls.

As the only hearing aid manufacturer with fall detection and alerts built into our hearing aids, this is a topic we are passionate about. To learn more about these features in Starkey hearing aids, watch this video on the Starkey YouTube page.

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