Many hearing aid brands come from the manufacturer ‘locked’, meaning they can only be serviced and adjusted by proprietary dealer locations. Brands like Miracle-Ear, Audibel, and Beltone can only be adjusted in stores that bear that brand’s name over the front door. Often, these brands are also ‘vanity brands’, which means that they are made and/or designed by a company that specializes in manufacturing generic hearing aids for various unaffiliated brands. For hearing aid users who may travel or otherwise find themselves out of range of their device manufacturer’s audiology locations, owning a locked hearing aid can be more trouble than it’s worth.