Hearing-aid compression: Effects of channel bandwidth on perceived sound quality

Authors

  • Ole Hau Widex A/S Nymøllevej 6 DK-3540 Lynge, Denmark
  • Anne ´Mette Kragh Jeppesen Widex A/S Nymøllevej 6 DK-3540 Lynge, Denmark

Abstract

Several researchers have investigated the effect of hearing-aid compression (the compression speed and the compression ratio) on speech perception and the sound quality of hearing aids. Some of these experiments have revealed positive effects of fast compression. However, the majority of the experiments have been conducted on simple hearing-aid platforms with only one to four compression channels. Today, high-end hearing aids have significantly more frequency channels. The question is therefore whether the results found with wide channel bandwidths can be extended to narrower channel bandwidths. To investigate this, 10 normal-hearing subjects were asked to rate perceived sound quality of 111 pre-processed sound recordings differing on the four parameters of compression ratio, compression speed, signal to noise ratio and channel bandwidth. The results of the study showed that increased channel bandwidth is a very important parameter in relation to improving sound quality when compression ratio and compression speed are increased. Therefore, extending positive results of fast compression with wide frequency-channel bandwidths to hearing aids with narrower frequency- channel bandwidths should be done with caution.

References

Hansen, M. (2002). “Effects of Multi-Channel Compression Time: Constants on Subjectively Perceived Sound Quality and Speech Intelligibility” Ear Hear., 23(4), 369-380.

Neuman, A. C., Bakke, M. H., Mackersie, C., Hellman, S., Levitt, H. (1998). ”The effect of compression ratio and release time on the categorical rating of sound quality” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 103 (5), 2273-2281

Gatehouse, S., Naylor, G., & Elberling, C. (2006). “Linear and nonlinear hearing aids 1. patterns of benefit” Int. J. Audiol., 45, 130-152.

Schmidt, E. (2006). “Hearing aid processing of loud speech and noise signals: Consequences for loudness perception and listening comfort” PhD thesis, DTU.

Additional Files

Published

2011-12-15

How to Cite

Hau, O., & Jeppesen, A. ´Mette K. (2011). Hearing-aid compression: Effects of channel bandwidth on perceived sound quality. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 3, 449–455. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2011-52

Issue

Vol. 3 (2011): Speech Perception and Auditory Disorders

Section

2011/4. Recent concepts in hearing-instrument processing and fitting

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