Oticon Ria 2 Pro £895

All the styles above of the Oticon Ria 2 Pro contain the same technological features but are just wrapped up in different packages to suit your lifestyle, hearing loss and personal preference. The Ria 2 Pro is Oticon's essential entry level hearing aid providing great value hearing from the Inium Sense platform. The Inium Sense delivers 30% more processing power increasing understanding of soft speech by as much as 20%.

The Ria 2 Pro and the Ria 2 are 16 frequency channel hearing aids with a bandwidth of up to 8kHz. This is reduced from 10kHz in the Alta 2 and Alta 2 Pro but remarkably the same as the Nera 2 and Nera 2 Pro. More channels means better sound quality reproduction and more scope for manipulation. Higher bandwidth creates a more natural sound with more high frequency amplification so it's fantastic for listening to music or birdsong. However, 16 channels and 8kHz bandwidth is tremendous value for an entry level product.

The Ria 2 Pro does not have any binaural processing and subsequently no Spatial Sound or Spatial Noise Management. Binaural Processing is when the hearing aids are wirelessly connected to each other and are able to share information about the sound environment. They can then effectively alter things like noise reduction (Noise Management) intensity and direction (Spatial Sound) independently in both ears to give the best all round result. Only the Alta 2 Pro and the Nera 2 Pro have the Spatial Sound feature. However, the Ria 2 Pro does retain its Binaural Sychronisation whilst the Ria 2 does not. This allows synchronised automatic directionality and noise management to improve listening comfort in noisy environments without the need for manual changes. 

Tinnitus SoundSupport is built in to all the Pro models and it is the first hearing aid to offer ocean sounds in addition to a large number of other options. Customisation is simple, as are the controls and your audiologist will help set everything up via our thorough tinnitus assessment.

Naturally, with an entry level product, many of the special automatic features are missing and this range of hearing aids will probably need more manual adjusting than the better models. However, we must add that 4 programs, 16 channels and 8kHz of bandwidth is great value. It will depend on the type of hearing loss though, as there are only 6 fitting bands for your audiologist to fine tune things with. However, it is probably one of the best budget hearing aids on the market.