Results for linear and wide-dynamic range compression were compared with a new 64-channel digital amplification strategy in three separate studies. The new strategy addresses the requirements of the hearing aid user with efficient computations on an open-platform digital signal processor (DSP). The new amplification strategy is not modeled on prior analog strategies like compression and linear amplification, but uses statistical analysis of the signal to optimize the output dynamic range in each frequency band independently. Using the open-platform DSP processor also provided the opportunity for blind trial comparisons of the different processing schemes in BTE and ITE devices of a high commercial standard. The speech perception scores and questionnaire results show that it is possible to provide improved audibility for sound in many narrow frequency bands while simultaneously improving comfort, speech intelligibility in noise, and sound quality.
This article is part of the series DSP in Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants.
Research Article
An Intrinsically Digital Amplification Scheme for Hearing Aids
Dynamic Hearing Pty Ltd, 2 Chapel Street, Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing 2005, 2005:731371 doi:10.1155/ASP.2005.3026
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://asp.eurasipjournals.com/content/2005/18/731371
| Received: | 30 April 2004 |
| Revisions received: | 23 November 2004 |
| Published: | 10 November 2005 |
© 2005 Blamey et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
