A hearing compensation system for the hearing impaired comprises a plurality of bandpass filters having an input connected to an input transducer and each bandpass filter having an output connected to the input of one of a plurality of multiplicative AGC circuits whose outputs are summed together and connected to the input of an output transducer. The multiplicative AGC circuits attenuate acoustic signals having a constant background level without the loss of speech intelligibility. The identification of the background noise portion of the acoustic signal is made by the constancy of the envelope of the input signal in each of the several frequency bands. The background noise that will be suppressed includes multi-talker speech babble, fan noise, feedback whistle, fluorescent light hum, and white noise.

Hearing aid device incorporating signal processing techniques

An earpiece auditory device is provided. The earpiece auditory device includes a behind-the-ear component (30). The behind-the-ear component being shaped to fit behind an ear of a user. The behind-the-ear component includes a module (33) that includes processing circuitry. The earpiece auditory device also includes a completely-in-canal component (10), the completely-in-canal component being shaped to fit into the ear canal of the user in such a manner as to touch the bony portion of the ear canal of the user. The completely-in-canal component includes an ear mold (11). The earpiece auditory device includes a connector (20) physically coupling the behind-the-ear component to the completely-in-canal component. The connector (20) includes at least one end detachably coupled to the behind-the-ear component or the completely-in-canal component.

Bte/cic auditory device and modular connector system therefor

Multiple individual wireless earbuds provide audio from a common audio source. A user may thereby enjoy audio in both ears while also benefiting from an entirely wireless configuration. The individual wireless earbuds may each receive the audio signal from the common audio source and then produce audio accordingly. Each earbud may have a channel setting to define whether a given earbud will produce left channel or right channel audio for a multi-channel audio signal. The individual wireless earbuds may alternatively have a master-slave configuration where a master earbud receives a wireless audio signal from the common source, plays audio based on the audio signal, and transmits a wireless signal based on the wireless audio signal to the slave earbud. The slave earbud then plays audio based on the wireless signal from the master earbud.

Systems and Methods Employing Multiple Individual Wireless Earbuds for a Common Audio Source

A differential input hearing aid with a programmable frequency response provides the hard of hearing with the capability to listen to individual conversations in the midst of high ambient background noise, and to have the frequency response of the hearing aid tailored to the individual user by programming the desired response characteristics into the hearing aid by digital signals. The audio inputs of two microphones are applied to a subtractive circuit with the balance of the inputs being controllable. Digitally controlled band pass filters with selectable band and selectable level of amplification are provided.

Differential hearing aid with programmable frequency response

A new subband feedback cancellation scheme is proposed, capable of providing additional stable gain without introducing audible artifacts. The subband feedback cancellation scheme employs a cascade of two narrow-band filters Ai(Z)and Bi(Z)ng with a fixed delay, instead of a single filter Wi(Z)and a delay to represent the feedback path in each subband. The first filter, Ai(Z), is called the training filter, and models the static portion of the feedback path in ith subband, including microphone, receiver, ear canal resonance, and other relatively static parameters. The training filter can be implemented as a FIR filter or as an IIR filter. The second filter, B?I?(Z), is called a tracking filter and is typically implemented as a FIR filter with fewer taps than the training filter. This second filter tracks the variations of the feedback path in the i?th? subband caused by jaw movement or objects close to the ears of the user.

Subband acoustic feedback cancellation in hearing aids

In a control circuit for a hearing aid, a threshold switch is connected to the low-frequency channel which transmits an input signal from a microphone to an earphone. This switch is arranged to block transmission of the signal below a set threshold level of the signal. The low-frequency signal in the channel controls the switch.

Fritz Hueber

Papers

Hearing aid control circuit for suppressing background noise