Hearing Aid Technology

Hearing Aid Technology 2


Introduction ........................................................................ 3
Background Noise, Reverberation And Distance
..................... 3
Methods For Enhancing S/N
................................................. 6
Clinical Evaluation ............................................................... 7
Monaural Vs. Binaural Fit ..................................................... 8
Directional Microphone Technology ...................................... 9
Fixed vs. Adaptive Microphone Arrays ............................................................10
Impact of Directional Microphones on S/N ..................................................11
Directional Microphones and Bilateral Fit
.......................................................12
Directional Microphones and Compression ................................................................13

Effect Of Compression On S/N .......................................... 13
Compression vs. linear amplification ...........................................................................15
Multichannel vs. single-channel compression ..............................................................15

Adaptive Noise Reduction Technology ................................. 16
Assistive Listening Devices ..................................................17
Conclusion
.......................................................................... 18
References .......................................................................... 19

SID: 1240591



2

Introduction
Undoubtably, noisy situations pose a problem for the hearing impaired population.
The signal, in most cases speech, is often distorted by long reverberation times and
masked by background noise. Individuals with variable degrees of sensorineural
hearing loss are known for having difficulty in interpreting speech in these difficult
situations.
The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio is the ratio between the signal level and...