- No. 24, North Road, CIT Nagar West, Nandanam, Chennai
- 10 : 00 AM - 07 : 00 PM
At EKG Hearing Care, Nandanam, we start with a proper hearing test, because the device only works if it’s matched to your ears, not just your budget. Our team has been doing this in Chennai for over 25 years, and we’ve seen what happens when people skip that step.
We carry Phonak, Signia, Widex, Oticon, ReSound, and other leading brands. But honestly, the brand matters less than getting the fitting and programming right, and that’s where most of our patients say we make the difference.
People often come to us after spending money somewhere else first. They bought a hearing aid device, sometimes an expensive one and it just sat in a drawer because it never felt right. That's not a device problem. That's what happens when the process gets skipped.
Here’s something most people don’t know: two people can have the “same” hearing loss on paper and need completely different devices. Hearing loss isn’t one thing, it varies by frequency, by environment, by how long it’s been going on. A proper audiometry evaluation maps all of that. Without it, you’re guessing and you’re guessing with something that goes in your ear all day.
Walk into any store and they’ll show you a brochure. The brand names sound reassuring. But a premium device fitted wrong – wrong gain settings, wrong ear mould, wrong programming for your specific loss, will frustrate you within a week. We’ve seen it. An audiologist who actually spends time calibrating the device to your ear is worth more than any brand premium.
Hearing doesn’t stay static. Seasonal changes, infections, age your profile shifts. The device needs to shift with it. Reprogramming, cleaning, minor adjustments: these aren’t extras. They’re what keeps the device useful three years from now instead of sitting in that drawer.
We’re not going to pretend cost doesn’t matter. It does. But the cheapest option in Chennai often becomes the most expensive one after you factor in replacements, poor service, and devices that don’t actually solve the problem. We’ll tell you what you need and what you don’t. That’s the only way this works long-term.
Not every style works for every person, ear shape, degree of loss, age, and lifestyle all factor in. Here's an honest breakdown of what each style actually involves.
The processor sits behind your ear. Sound travels through a thin tube into a dome or custom earmold sitting in your canal. It sounds straightforward and it is, which is part of why BTE has been around so long. These are the most robust hearing aids we carry. They handle more power, last longer on a charge, and are significantly easier to manage if your hands aren’t as steady as they used to be.
If someone tells you BTE looks “old fashioned,” they haven’t seen the slim modern versions. And honestly, it fits so many people so well that it’s still the first thing we consider for severe and profound loss.
→ Ask our audiologist which BTE model suits you
The speaker moves from behind the ear into the canal itself connected by a thin wire, not a tube. That small change makes a real difference to how sound feels. Because your canal stays partially open, you hear your own voice more naturally, and the device sits closer to where the work actually happens.
RIC is probably our most popular fitting right now. It’s discreet, the sound quality suits most people well, and the rechargeable Bluetooth models in this category have genuinely gotten very good over the last few years. First-time users tend to settle into them quickly.
→ Find out if RIC is right for your lifestyle
Custom-moulded to your specific ear canal so the fit tends to be snug and comfortable from the start. The device sits partly inside the canal, partly visible at the opening. You can still reach the controls, which matters more than people expect once they’re actually using it day to day.
ITC works well for people who want something less visible than a BTE without giving up the ability to adjust volume or switch programmes without fishing the device out entirely. The trade-off is that it won’t suit very severe loss, and the moulding takes a little more time upfront.
→ Check ITC suitability with a hearing test
Sits almost entirely inside the ear canal. In normal conversation, most people won’t notice it at all. That’s genuinely the main reason people choose this style. Your ear’s natural shape does a surprising amount of work here too, helping with directional hearing in a way that larger styles can’t replicate.
But CIC isn’t for everyone and we’re upfront about that. Your canal needs to be the right size and shape to fit one properly, and you need to be comfortable handling something small. If either of those is a concern, we’ll tell you before the moulding, not after. A device you can’t manage confidently isn’t a good fit, no matter how invisible it is.
→ Ask if CIC is a practical option for you
Hearing Aid Type Comparison:
Type | Visibility | Suitable For | Main Benefit | Professional Fitting |
BTE | Visible behind ear | Mild to Profound | Power & durability | fitting & programming |
RIC | Slim, discreet | Mild to Severe | Natural sound quality | Receiver placement |
ITC | Partially visible | Mild to Mod. Severe | Custom comfort | ear impression needed |
CIC | Nearly invisible | Mild to Moderate | Discreet wear | canal check required |
We get asked this question constantly - "what's the best hearing aid?" And the honest answer is: it depends, and anyone who tells you otherwise before running a hearing test is guessing.
Your audiogram tells us the degree and shape of your loss. But that's just the starting point. Where do you spend most of your time? A busy office in T. Nagar sounds nothing like a quiet home in the suburbs. Do you watch a lot of TV alone, or are you constantly in group conversations at family gatherings? Do you manage fine with small objects or would fiddling with a tiny battery twice a week become genuinely frustrating? All of that changes the recommendation.
What's available today is genuinely impressive
We'll be direct - hearing aid technology has moved fast. The gap between an entry-level and a premium device used to be mostly about discretion. Now it's about intelligence. A few things worth knowing:
- Rechargeable models have largely solved the battery hassle most give a full day on a single charge, some more
- Bluetooth streaming from phones and TVs is now standard across most mid-range and above devices, not just premium
- AI-based models genuinely do shift their settings as you move between environments it's not just a marketing claim, though how well it works varies by brand and fitting
- If discretion matters most to you, near-invisible options exist but they come with trade-offs on power and battery that we'll walk you through
How we approach it at EKG
We don’t recommend it before we test. That sounds obvious but plenty of places do it the other way around. Our audiologists sit with you after the evaluation and go through the options that actually match your results: what each one does, what it costs, which brands we trust for which situations, and what the realistic experience of wearing it day-to-day looks like. No pressure, no upselling toward whatever has the best margin.You’ll leave knowing what you’re buying and why. That’s the part most people say they didn’t get the first time around.
Most price guides list numbers and leave you more confused than before. So let's do this differently.
Underrated, honestly. Basic digital processing has improved a lot in the last five or six years. If your loss is mild and your listening environments are fairly predictable at home, one-on-one conversations, the occasional temple or family gathering, a device in this range, fitted and programmed properly, will serve you well. The mistake people make is assuming cheap means bad. Sometimes it just means you didn't need more.
This is where the majority of our patients end up, and for good reason. You get proper noise management not just amplification, but the ability to pull speech out of background noise, which is what most people are actually struggling with. Multiple programmes. Rechargeable batteries in most models now. It covers a working week in Chennai without drama, auto traffic, office noise, family dinners, all of it handled reasonably well.
The big addition here is Bluetooth direct streaming from your phone, your TV, your laptop. For some people that's a nice-to-have. For others teachers, people in back-to-back meetings, anyone who spends hours on calls it changes daily life in a real way. Automatic environment switching also kicks in properly at this tier. You walk from a quiet room into a busy street and the device adjusts without you touching it. Whether that justifies the price jump is something we'll talk through with you honestly.
AI-driven processing, 360° directional sound, near-invisible styles, the works. These devices are genuinely extraordinary in the right situation. The problem is they're sometimes sold to people who don't need them whose hearing loss and lifestyle would be just as well served by something half the price. We'll tell you if you're in that category. We'd rather you trust us on a ₹35,000 fitting than regret a ₹1,20,000 one.
What else shifts the final number
Within any tier, brand choice moves things around. Phonak and Widex tend to sit at the higher end of each category. Signia and Resound offer solid technology at slightly more accessible prices. Rechargeable adds a small premium over disposable battery models but three months in, almost everyone says it was worth it.
Custom moulding needed for ITC and CIC styles costs extra and takes an additional appointment. Warranty packages vary too, and the difference between one year and three years of service support is something worth asking about before you sign anything.
⚠️ Important: These are indicative ranges not quotes. Your final price depends on what your hearing test shows, which device actually suits your loss, and what’s bundled into the service package. We don’t give recommendations before the test. That’s not a policy it’s just the only way to do this properly.
Phonak is probably the most requested brand we get asked about. Not always by name, sometimes it’s “the Swiss one” or “the one my cousin got in Singapore.” But once we show them the range, they recognise it. There’s a reason the name travels.
We’ll say this plainly: Phonak makes good hearing aids. The noise processing is among the best in the industry, the AutoSense OS technology which reads your listening environment and adjusts automatically works better in practice than most competing systems at the same price point. The rechargeable Audéo lineup in particular has gotten very reliable. These are not paid opinions. We see patients wearing these devices every week.But here’s the thing about brand loyalty.Phonak doesn’t fit itself. And that’s where things go wrong more often than people realise.Last month alone we had three patients come in frustrated with devices they’d bought elsewhere, two of them Phonak, one Signia. In every case the device was fine. The problem was the fitting. One had never had a proper REM verification done. One was wearing a model that didn’t match the shape of their hearing loss at all, good for flat loss, wrong for sloping high-frequency loss, which is what they actually had. The third just needed reprogramming that nobody had offered.
So when people ask us “is Phonak the best?” The honest answer is: best fitting beats best brand, every single time.
We stock Signia, Widex, Oticon, and ReSound alongside Phonak. Each one has a patient profile where it genuinely outperforms the rest.
Widex has a warmer, more natural sound that musicians and people with tinnitus often prefer something about how it handles the upper frequencies. Signia has the best own-voice processing we’ve seen; patients who say “my voice sounds like I’m in a bucket” when they first try hearing aids often do better with Signia. Oticon’s approach of keeping more of the soundscape open rather than narrowing focus works well for people with moderate loss who want to feel less isolated from their environment.
Phonak tends to win on noise. Busy restaurants, street noise, large family gatherings if that’s where someone struggles most, Phonak’s processing usually handles it better. The app is also more stable than most, which sounds like a small thing until you’re adjusting settings on a Thursday evening and the app crashes.
If you’ve already made up your mind
That’s fine. Come in, do the hearing test, and if Phonak is still the right call after we’ve seen your audiogram Audéo, Naída, Bolero, whichever series fits we’ll fit it properly and follow up to make sure it’s actually working. If your results point elsewhere, we’ll show you the data and you decide. No pressure either way.
We don’t earn more on one brand than another. The only repeat business we care about is patients who can actually hear well coming back for servicing, not patients who bought something expensive that didn’t work out.
EKG Hearing Care stocks Phonak models across the Audéo, Naída, and Bolero ranges. Current stock and model availability varies, call ahead or visit after your hearing test and we’ll match you to what’s right.
