Can individualised acoustical transforms in hearing aids improve perceived sound quality?
Abstract
This paper presents an experiment which aimed to clarify whether benefits in terms of perceived sound quality can be obtained from fitting hearing aids according to individualised acoustical transforms instead of average transforms. Eighteen normal-hearing test subjects participated, and hearing-aid sound processing with various degrees of individualisation was simulated and applied to five different sound samples. Stimuli were presented over insert phones and evaluated in an A/B test paradigm. Data were analysed with the Bradley-Terry-Luce model. The key result is that hearing aids individualised according to a real-ear insertion gain (REIG) target were preferred over hearing aids individualised according to a real-ear aided response (REAR) target.
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