Clinical Trial Results with a New 9-Channel DSP Hearing Aid Victor Bray Clinical trial results from field-testing a new 9-channel digital signal processing (DSP) hearing aid will be presented. The aid processes sound based on a non-linear model of the cochlea, which recommends narrow-band compression and uses very-fast-acting time constants with symmetrical attack and release times. The multi-clinic trial (n = 11 clinics) compared performance with new CIC and ITC hearing aids (n = 122 ears) versus the subjects' own "state-of-the-art" multi-channel analog and digital devices. Performance was evaluated objectively (functional gain, probe microphone gain, and Hearing In Noise Test) and subjectively (Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit, and a customized questionnaire). Significant differences in performance between the test and reference hearing aids were found in functional gain measures, HINT results, and all sub-scales of the APHAB. The results will be discussed with respect to benefits of a new fitting algorithm combining multi-channel WDRC with multi-channel Expansion. |