Office: (408) 248-2545
By: George Christos
Breakthrough in High Frequency Amplification
The majority of people with hearing loss experience more difficulty hearing sounds at high frequencies than at low frequencies. Poor perception of high frequency sounds can cause difficulty in recognizing certain speech sounds such as /f/ , /s/, and /sh/, as well as high-pitched environmental sounds such as birdsongs, alarm, and some musical sounds. When fitting hearing aids, the greater the degree of hearing loss, the more gain is necessary at that frequency. However, for some people there is so much loss in the high frequencies, that is not possible to provide enough gain to hear these sounds. In addition, trying to provide the gain creates problems with acoustic feedback or discomfort due to excessive loudness.
As conventional amplification does not provide enough usable high frequency information, other methods need to be considered. Over the years there have been various attempts to “transpose” high frequencies to lower ranges where there is more usable hearing. Before the advent of digital technology in hearing aids these attempts resulted in poor sound quality and “artifacts” especially in noise which are sometimes audible to the hearing aid user. In addition, these “transposed” frequencies tended to distort the neighboring mid-range sounds.
