Wayne's World

Current to Alternative Directional Microphone Technologies III Aart van Halteren, M.Sc., Chief Technical Officer, Sonion, The Netherlands. Ann-Marie Sänger, Senior Product DevelopmentEngineer, Sonion, The Netherlands In last week’s post a microphone module was introduced (M20) that combined superior directional equivalent input noise with a design that is very robust for temperature and humidity changes, as well as handling during hearing

Current to Alternative Directional Microphone Technologies II By Aart van Halteren, M.Sc., Chief Technical Officer, Sonion, The Netherlands. and Ann-Marie Sänger, Senior Product DevelopmentEngineer, Sonion, The Netherlands   In a previous post, the authors illustrated how speech intelligibility in noisy situations can be improved for the hearing aid user by providing directional hearing.  The current industry standard is to provide

Is Your Hearing Aid a Beamformer?  Broadfire versus Endfire Microphone Arrays   This post is the first in a series intended to provide cursory information about how multiple microphones (arrays, or beamforming hearing) are used to improve the SNR in hearing aids by focusing on the direction of the targeted sound. This process is called “beamforming.” Serious readers of beamforming

Note:  For those expecting to find the continuation of Directional Microphone Mismatch, as mentioned in last week’s post, please note that some recent information has been presented that will relate to improving the robustness of matching two omnidirectional microphones to create a directional listening experience.  As a result, the second part is being delayed. The Battery as a Power Supply Hearing

Current, to Alternative, Directional Microphone Technologies Aart van Halteren, M.Sc., Chief Technical Officer, Sonion, The Netherlands. Ann-Marie Sänger, Senior Product DevelopmentEngineer, Sonion, The Netherlands   This post is based on a Technology Update presentation given at the American Auditory Society Meeting in Scottsdale, AZ, March, 2015.  It has been modified by the editor, taking it from a PowerPoint presentation to

The phenomenon of binaural summation is considered one of the practical advantages of hearing with two ears. Binaural loudness summation (binaural additivity) has a long history of experimentation. This includes binaural loudness, comparisons between monaural and binaural thresholds, and comparisons of suprathreshold monaural and binaural loudness functions. As early as 1929, von Békésy1 and Causse and Chavasse2, found maximum diotic

Good for the Planet, But Hearing Aid Professionals Will Have to ReBoot (Again) Christopher Schweitzer, Ph.D. H. Christopher Schweitzer, owner of the Family Hearing Centers of Colorado, is also Director of HEAR 4-U International, and Chief Technical Audiologist for IMH Corp. ‘We sailed through it, adjusted the riggings, adapted, and survived, sort of, that first wave of the ‘Digital Disruption.’

Michael J. Metz, Ph.D. Dr. Metz has been a practicing audiologist for over 45 years, having taught in several university settings and, in partnership with Dr. Bob Sandlin, providing continuing education for audiology and dispensing in California for over two decades. Mike owned and operated a private practice in Southern California for over 30 years. He has been professionally active

The last two posts have provided information about the reasons for the disappearing volume control on hearing aids, and on research studies that have investigated consumer desires for such a control. It appears that close to 35% of those who wear hearing aids wish they had some kind of user-adjustable hearing aid volume control. Comments from hearing aid wearers in

Although hearing aids during the past several years have mostly been devoid of a user-adjustable volume control (VC), this feature has been requested by some individuals fitting WDRC (Wide Dynamic Range Compression) hearing aids and by many consumers. As suggested in a previous post, no single volume control setting is ideal for a hearing aid wearer under all conditions, even if