We can’t go on endlessly in this game of “passage”, there will be an end one day. Is more channel really better? Not really. The more channels, the finer the hearing aid debugging, and the better the noise reduction effect. However, more channels also increase the complexity of signal processing, so the signal processing time will be extended. This is one of the reasons why the sound delay of digital hearing aids is longer than that of analog hearing aids. With the improvement of the processing power of the hearing aid chip, this delay is basically not perceived by humans, but it is also one of the disadvantages. For example, one brand in the industry uses “zero delay” technology as its main selling point.
So how many channels are enough from an audibility compensation point of view? Starkey, an American hearing aid manufacturer, conducted a study on “how many separate signal processing channels are needed to maximize speech audibility.” The underlying assumption of the study is that “the goal of well-designed hearing aids is to maximize sound quality and speech understanding,” and the study is therefore measured by an improvement in the articulation Index (AI Index). The study involved 1,156 audiogram samples. The study found that after more than 4 channels, the increase of channel number did not significantly improve speech audibility, that is, there was no statistical significance. The sharpness index improved most from 1 channel to 2 channel.
In practice, although some machines can adjust the number of channels to 20 channels, I basically use 8 or 10 channels debugging is enough. In addition, I have found that if I encounter an unprofessional fitter, having too many channels can be counterproductive, and they may mess up the frequency response curve of the hearing aid.
The more expensive the hearing aid on the market, the more hearing aid channels are , in fact, this is not the value of adjustable multi-channel, but the top features of these top hearing aids. Such as artificial intelligence technology, binaural wireless processing function, advanced directional technology, advanced noise suppression algorithm (such as echo processing, wind noise processing, instantaneous noise processing), wireless Bluetooth direct connection. These top technologies can bring you better listening comfort and speech clarity, is the real value!
For us, when choosing a hearing aid, “channel number” is just one of the criteria, and it also needs to be referenced together with other functions and fitting experience.
Post time: Jun-07-2024
