What are multi-channel (multiband) hearing aids?
Now that audiologists have a better understanding of the significance in providing sufficient gain without exceeding the physical saturation limit of the aid and the individual’s loudness discomfort level at each frequency, the accurate measurement of these features has become imperative to the fitting process. As a result of these enhanced procedures, it has become apparent that significant differences exist not only among individuals with nearly identical audiograms, but also among the loudness growth of specific frequencies for a given individual. In other words, a patient can demonstrate loudness tolerance problems for certain frequencies, but not for others. Therefore, the electroacoustic characteristics programmed into the hearing aid should differ for the various frequencies. Through the use of multiple compression channels (some systems have two, some have three) a completely unique set of signal processing instructions can be employed. Therefore, a certain acoustic environment
