Depending on the level of your hearing loss, there are different hearing aid options. Some go in-the-ear and some go in-the-canal. Some people utilize a single-sided hearing aid that allows you to hear from both sides, and some wear a hearing aid in both ears. Some wear hearing aids with digital signal processing. Let’s talk more about digital signal processing and if it’s a good option for you.
Digital signal processing (DSP) is a type of hearing aid that takes sounds that enter through the microphone and converts them into digitized codes. Sound is regularly analyzed with DSP. The sampling rate is the number of times the hearing aids analyze incoming sounds each second. The digitized codes are more accurate the more often they are analyzed each second.
Once sounds are broken down into digitized codes, they are further broken down into what is called bits. If codes weren’t broken down into bits, similar sounds may be categorized as the same sound. For instance, two male voices may be categorized as identical sounds, even if they’re just similar and not the same. The more bits, the more precise the hearing aids can differentiate between different, but similar, sounds. From there, bits are separated even further into frequency channels. Each frequency channel can be fine-tuned to the user’s particular form of hearing loss and their precise hearing needs. Once the process of converting sounds into codes and then breaking them into bits and channels is completed, the codes are combined again and put together as one. This allows the user to hear sounds from the receiver.
Digital signal processing hearing aids are perfect for those who struggle with noise reduction or directionality. Before the digitized codes are recombined, digital signal processing helps with noise reduction, compression, and directionality occurs. If noise reduction is needed for a specific individual, background noise can be filtered out to an extent so that conversations can be amplified. The hearing aid user can also choose to utilize DSP hearing aids to block out sounds arriving from the back of them, and focus instead on the sounds in front of them.
If you wish to learn more about how DSP hearing aids could help you, give Amdahl Hearing a call!