Review tally, page-742

@svenne

I've said previously that NUH is nothing more than a marketing operation pretending to be a technology medical devices company. [The similarities to Perth penny dreadful 'tech' HYD are remarkable.]

You usually get what you pay for.

Not in the world of consumer electronics. A high end' SoC is <USD1. The rest of the components (microphones, speakers etc) are equally cheap. A pair of 'top of the range' earbuds cost <USD15 to manufacture. The rest of the premium price is just brand name, marketing BS and fancy packaging.

The 'special relationship' with Realtek is 100% spin. It's nothing more than a transfer pricing arrangement because NUH have no IP of any value to offer, In practice NUH will just pay RT for 'R&D'. RT will sell NUH overpriced hardware. You can bet your life if any product 'is co-developed' it will be a 100% RT product based on a standard reference platform. The only beneficiary of the deal is RT (NUH management will also get to keep their overpaid jobs a bit longer),

OTC HAD is a totally different beast than normal earbuds.

A total myth. The entire hearables industry is rapidly converging on generic hardware and software due to the massive technical and cost advantages provided by economy of scale. Even prescription hearing aid manufacturers are starting to use standard earbud SoC because they are smaller, better, and vastly cheaper than their custom hardware.

Modern SOCs have full HAD capability (Apple and Samsung have offered it for more than five years). The 'special' NUH software is nothing more than a hearing test, audiogram generator and a fancy Bluetooth graphic equalizer to tune to the earbud to customers requirements. Similar apps are readily available on the Apple and Android stores. You can even load a audiologist provided audiogram on the Apple Airpods Pro.

The HAD capability of mainstream earbuds is not advertised because the big companies don't want to deal with class action lawsuits from ambulance chasing lawyers.