Hearing Aid Testing

Hearing aid designers have to take into consideration a long list of expectations and corresponding challenges, including:

• Improving speech intelligibility in noise
• Reproducing nature’s sounds
• Making soft sounds audible
• Ensuring that loud sounds are never uncomfortably loud
• Ensuring optimum music reproduction
• Improving the user's perception of their own voices
• Optimizing sound reproduction for both in-ear and behind-the-ear hearing aids

Hearing aids systems need to support both traditional, standardized electroacoustic measurements and open and flexible processes that assist in the development of new hearing aid technologies and features.

System suggestion

Typical measurement set-up for hearing aid testing uses an ear simulator (coupler) and an anechoic test box. An anechoic test box provides excellent insulation from external noise, even at low frequencies, and well-defined, uniform test conditions, which are important requirements for obtaining accurate and repeatable measurements for key measurements such as input/output characteristics, internal noise generation and leakage detection. In turn, the coupler allows for easy mounting of and accurate measurements on a wide range of hearing aids. The measurements are managed and data analyzed in our PULSE Electroacoustic Testing Software Type 7907.