All hearing aids, whether analog or digital, are designed to increase the loudness of sounds reaching the eardrum so that the hearing-impaired person can understand speech better. To accomplish this, hearing aids require three basic components:
- A microphone to gather sound waves in the air and convert them from acoustic energy into electrical energy.
- An amplifier to increase the strength of the electrical energy.
- A receiver, which is like a miniature speaker, that converts the electrical energy back into acoustic energy (sound waves).
What differentiates hearing aids are two main factors:
- Should you choose Digital or analog?
- Should you choose Conventional or Programmable?
Analog hearing aids amplify the continuous sound wave by simply making it larger. There are two subcategories of analog hearing aids: conventional and programmable.
Digital hearing aids take the continuous sound wave and break it up into very small, discrete bits of information. The signals are digitised and all digital hearing aids do this. The more sophisticated digital hearing aids are able to amplify the softest sounds of speech while at the same time subtracting out certain types of unwanted noises.
Conventional and programmable hearing aids differ in the amount and degree of adjustments the hearing specialist can perform on the hearing aids. A programmable hearing aid allows the specialist to adjust the amplifier more precisely to match your hearing loss. Programmable hearing aids, when compared to their conventional equivalent, provide greater fitting flexibility. This means that the specialist can more readily change the way a programmable hearing aid operates through the use of an office computer. Sometimes the added flexibility of a programmable hearing aid is an important feature.
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