Maybe you’re old enough – or enough of a folk music enthusiast – to remember a song from the early 1960s called Beans In My Ears. A version of it by The Serendipity Singers made it into the Top 40 in 1964, and it was actually banned on some stations because kids might actually put beans in their ears! A couple of years later Pete Seeger sang it with a few changes that made it into an anti-Vietnam War song.
Emymotic Research has its own beans for your ears, The Bean, a personal sound amplification product or PSAP that makes sounds louder for people with some hearing loss. It is not a medical device and not a substitute for a real hearing aid, which is fitted and tuned for each ear by a medical professional.
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The Bean needs a small battery (your first few are supplied) and, as the song says, you put it in your ear. The result is louder sound, and there’s a switch to make the amplification higher or lower. The Bean comes with an assortment of easily changed ear tips to fit larger or smaller ear canals, there’s a cleaning brush to remove ear debris from the device and filters to keep earwax out of the device.
You must place The Bean deep inside your ear canal to provide the best amplification and to prevent feedback – high-pitched whistling noise – that happens if the “microphone” part of device picks up its own sound from the “speaker” part and essentially loops around. Each battery is said to last between 9 days and 2 weeks, depending on whether you turn the devices off when not in use, and also depending on temperature and humidity where the device is.
Now, I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this part: does it work? Well, yes, and no.
I tried The Bean with different ear tips and could never get it correctly seated in my ear canal to prevent some feedback. Even when I thought I had it deep enough, sometimes just moving my head was enough to create a feedback loop.
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I have very mild age-related hearing loss and a little tinnitus, and am not a serious candidate for a real hearing aid. I found the sound as amplified by The Bean to be, frankly, tinny, as it seems to mostly boost higher frequencies – where age-related hearing loss, presbycusis, usually first occurs – and even on the lower amplification setting the thin sound bothered me.
What was also annoying is that The Bean has no on/off switch – just the high/low amplification switch. So once the battery is inserted, and it must be before placing The Bean in your ear, it is “on,” and as you place it in your ear, you get the feedback whistle until you get the device set deep enough to stop it. And the same issue removing The Bean.
You can read reviews of The Bean elsewhere on-line and there are both positive and negative experiences. But for me, The Bean wouldn’t be worth it.
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The Bean is sold singly or in pairs, in several colors, and comes with ear tips, batteries, the cleaning tool, extra filters, and a pouch to hold the devices when not in use. There’s also a T-coil model, which picks up signals from a hearing loop system that is available in some public places such as movie theaters or places of worship. From $200 to $440 either direct or through Amazon, depending on model and whether single or pair.
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