An old man who has been wearing hearing aids for 9 years came to the store yesterday. He brought his old hearing aid to the store and wanted to replace it. After trying out several hearing aids, I always felt that the hearing was not as good as his old machine. I couldn't help but have some doubts:
"Why are thousands of hearing aids not as effective as hundreds of hearing aids?"
In fact, it is normal for this to happen. Yes, because he used to wear an analog machine. After getting used to the sound that was over-amplified by the analog machine and making it appear extra loud and full, when he suddenly switched to a digital machine, he felt that the sound was not loud enough, resulting in the digital machine not being as good as the analog machine. illusion. It's like a person who is used to drinking white wine will feel unsatisfied if he switches to red wine.
What is an emulator? The
simulator is not so much a hearing aid as it is an amplifier . The volume can only be adjusted manually and cannot be programmed in the computer. The
simulator uses a linear amplification method, that is, the amplification of all sounds is constant. For every 1 decibel increase in input sound intensity, the output sound intensity also increases by 1 dB until the simulator reaches saturation.
For example: the collected sound intensity is 40 decibels, and the simulator is set to amplify 40 decibels, then the amplified sound is 80 decibels. It does not change the amplification level based on the volume of external sounds. Even if it collects 60 decibels of sound, it will still amplify the sound to 100 decibels.
But in real life, many hearing-impaired friends cannot accept excessively loud sounds, which will cause serious discomfort and even damage their residual hearing.
With the development of science and technology, taking into account the hearing needs of most friends with hearing loss, especially those with sensorineural hearing loss, they have the problem of hearing loss, that is, they cannot hear soft sounds and feel noisy when loud sounds are heard. If all the sounds are It is unreasonable to amplify at the same time, so fully digital hearing aids that can be programmed by computer, or digital machines for short, came into being.
What is a digital machine? The
digital machine uses a non-linear amplification method.
For example: external input sounds include 40 decibels (quiet) and 80 decibels (loud). After non-linear amplification, the original 40 decibels can be amplified by 30 decibels, while the 80 decibels can only be amplified by 10 decibels. This allows Amplify small sounds more and amplify loud sounds less.
In addition, the digital machine has multiple channels that can be individually adjusted for sounds of different thicknesses; multi-program settings can set different performance parameters for different environments; there are also functions such as noise reduction, directionality, acoustic feedback suppression, and Bluetooth, thus It ensures the user's listening clarity and wearing comfort, and also protects residual hearing. The
emulator is being gradually phased out. The
emulator is slowly withdrawing from the market due to its large appearance, noisy sound, poor performance, and secondary damage to hearing. It is being replaced by models with diverse appearances, comfortable wearing, and smart chips. , digital hearing aids are increasingly accepted and loved by hearing-impaired friends.
For hearing-impaired friends who are accustomed to analog machines, like the elderly people mentioned at the beginning, the replacement of digital hearing aids will definitely require an adaptation process.
When these friends choose digital hearing aids, they can tell the hearing aid their past wearing history, so that the experienced hearing aid can quickly adjust the digital hearing aid to a loudness closer to your past listening habits! After a period of adaptation and debugging, you can get a clearer and more comfortable listening effect. The most important thing is that it will not hurt your ears. !
I am audiologist Zhang Yanyan, in the field of hearing rehabilitation guidance and hearing aid fitting. I have more than 20 years of experience in the industry. If you want to know more about hearing aids and where to find reliable hearing institutions and hearing aids, please feel free to ask me in the message area or private message.
