  CCONTACT
DETAILS |
 |
03 9530 6120
|
|
|
info@ablehearing.com.au
|
|
|
BRIGHTON
Suite 2, 197 Bay St.
NOBLE PARK
20 Douglas St.
BALACLAVA
366 Carlisle St.
ST.KILDA
37 Mitford St. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
HEARING
AID TECHNOLOGY
|
Not
all hearing aids
are created equal... So, which features are important to
you? |
| |
Automatic vs
Manual Volume Control |
|
| |
Hearing aids may
either be manually controlled or automatically adjusted.
Manual hearing aids typically have a rotary volume
control, which allows the user to turn the sound down in
loud environment or to turn the sound up in the quiet
environment. This manipulation is necessary to achieve
hearing comfort. Alternatively, an automatic hearing aid
is able to adjust the sound independently. No fiddling
required. |
|
| |
Whistle Block
(Feedback Control) |
|
|
In
the past it was common to hear
the aids whistle from time to time because of imperfect
fit in
the ear canal. Now it is possible to
get a hug without experiencing the embarrassment of your
loved ones hearing the whistle. A number of digital
instruments exist with capacity to remove unwanted
whistling caused by feedback. Sometimes whistling can
be contained by
turning down the volume of the hearing aid. This would, however, also
remove sounds that are desired.
By introducing a sophisticatedadaptive feedback
suppression even
with large
hearing lossesunwanted feedback can
be avoided with no compromise to the quality of sound. |
|
With
conventional hearing aids sounds may become trapped and
continually bounce off the ear canal. As a result sounds
such as your own voice or chewing may be perceived as
unnatural and excessively loud. As if you are speaking from
inside the barrel. With Open Ear Acoustics less sound is
trapped inside the ear canal and as a result sound are
perceived as more natural. |
| |
Receiver in
the Ear Technology (RITE) |
|
|
RITE a.k.a.
CRT (canal receiver technology) is the latest offering in
the miniature open fit range of products. This replaces the
previously used conduction tubes (or open tubes) with an
electrical wire that drives a miniature loudspeaker, located
at its end, in the ear canal. RITE products are
characteristically stable, highly flexible, very reliable
and allow for a miniature design. |
| |
 |
|
|
It is well documented that hearing aids with directional
microphones improve the wearers’ speech understanding in
noise. Even better results are obtained when directional
microphones adaptively scan for a speech signal (adaptive)
and/or maintain directionality for both low and high pitched
sounds. |
| |
Directional Microphones |
|
|
Directional
microphones are a set of microphones designed to pick up a
range of sounds in a focused field. Directional microphone
technology is used when isolation of sound sources, such as
speech and noise is important.
|
| |
 |
|
|
Omni-directional (non-directional) microphone picks up sound
from all directions equally. It receives sound naturally,
capturing all the acoustic reverberations and nuances.
However, this is not adequate for hearing speech in noisy
situations. |
| |
 |
|
| |
Adaptive Directional Microphones |
|
| |
 |
|
|
Traditional directional microphone systems (Fixed
Directional) are of great benefit when speech is directed at
you. In real life this is difficult to control, especially
so when you are in a conversation with multiple speech
sources. Adaptive directional microphones will focus on
speech wherever it is in the environment. |
|
|
Digital Background Noise Reduction |
|
| |
 |
 |
|
|
Digital Background Noise Reduction will clean up a noisy
signal. Once the background noises are detected and
suppressed, you are left with better speech
understanding and less unwanted noise. |
| |
Multi-band Background Noise Reduction |
|
| |
 |
|
|
Multi-band
Background noise suppressing systems are
able to optimize and exclude multiple non-speech noise
sources even from the most challenging noisy situations. |
| |
|
Environmental Classification |
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
I n
order to maximise comfort and intelligibility advanced
hearing devices attempt to classify the listening
environment of the wearer and apply specific settings to the
instrument. By examining time delays, loudness and frequency
differences arriving at twin microphone ports on board the
hearing instrument the acoustic environment can be
classified. Usually sound is classified into speech in
noise, speech in quiet, wind noise or music. The application
of specific electronic strategies based upon environmental
classification enhances the benefit of the hearing
instrument and facilitates data logging and data learning
strategies to be applied.
|
| |
Binaural Processing
|
|
| |
 |
|
|
This technology has been a significant breakthrough in
the field of hearing rehabilitation. The new generation
of instruments, able to communicate with
each other is emerging. These instruments work
together as a single system that continuously sense the
listening environment and automatically synchronize
selected core digital signal processing in both
instruments. This ensures both devices are operating
optimally to provide the maximum benefit to the wearer. |
|
The Data Learning technology supports the notion that
learning is a lifelong process. New generation hearing
instruments literally "learns" volume and tone preferences
for each program. This means that the instruments will
continue improving and fine-tuning themselves to
user-defined specifications. |
| |
Frequency Compression or Transposition |
|
| |
 |
|
|
Most hearing aids are designed to amplify specific sounds
in reference to degree of damage to the cochlea (organ of
hearing). So if the loss is high pitched, the hearing aid
would amplify high pitched sounds. If the degree of loss is
particularly significant sometimes certain areas of the
cochlea get severely damaged or completely destroyed. As a
consequence the sound can no longer be clearly amplified by
the hearing aid in that particular region. Either frequency
compression or frequency transposition techniques allow some
of the hearing aids to transfer speech information from
severely damaged areas to the areas with lesser damage to
provide a fuller spectrum of sound to the hearing instrument
user. |
| |
Rechargeable Hearing Aids |
|
|
New generation
hearing aids may utilize a rechargeable battery
technology, where aids are left on the charger nightly
and would be fully charged every morning. |
|
When its essential that you retain control of your hearing
aid at ALL times you may have a remote control unit fitted
to override hearing aid settings to improve clarity of
speech in the complex noisy surroundings. Such units may be
integrated with wrist watches and key rings or may have
Bluetooth capability.
|
|
The Streamer is a body-worn
device and a gateway to connecting your hearing instruments
to the expanding world of electronic media. The Streamer
enables signals from modern communication devices, such as
mobile phones and televisions, to be streamed wirelessly
into your hearing instruments. If you have two hearing
instruments, the sound will be directed to both ears. This
solution gives you the world’s smallest hands-free headset
and personal headphones for many listening and communication
purposes. |
|
To
discuss the latest advances in hearing aid technology feel
free to have a chat to our audiologists. Some recently
developed features may be a significant improvement in
comfort or speech clarity on your current hearing aids.
|
|
|
|
|
|
ABOUT HEARING |
TECHNOLOGY |
STYLES |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Not all hearing aids
are created equal...
So, which
features are
important to you?
|
|
Hearing
aids may either be
manually
controlled or
automatically
adjusted.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Hearing instruments
take
in the surrounding
sounds and amplify
appropriate regions
of
speech to improve
clarity and ease of
communication.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FREE Hearing Aids to eligible pensioners