You’ve without doubt heard that today’s hearing aids are “not your grandfather’s hearing aids,” or that hearing aid technology is light-years ahead of where it used to be, even as recently as 5 to 10 years ago. But what makes modern technology so much better? And what exactly can modern hearing aids accomplish that couldn’t be achieved in the past?

The brief answer is, as with virtually all electronics, hearing aids have benefited greatly from the digital revolution. Hearing aids have become miniaturized computers, with all of the programming versatility you would expect to see from a modern computer.

But before hearing aids became digital, they were analog. Let’s see if we can understand why the shift from analog to digital was such an upgrade.

Digital vs analog hearing aids

At the most basic level, all hearing aids function the same way. Each hearing aid is equipped with a microphone, amplifier, speaker, and battery. The microphone detects sound in the environment, the amplifier strengthens the signal, and the speaker delivers the louder sound to your ear.

Fundamentally, it’s not very complicated. Where is does get complicated, however, is in the details of how the hearing aids process sound, which digital hearing aids accomplish far differently than their analog counterparts.

Analog hearing aids process sound in a fairly uncomplicated way. In three basic steps, sound is recognized by the microphone, amplified, and presented to the ear through the speaker. That is… ALL sound is made to be louder, including background noise and the sound frequencies you can already hear properly. Put another way, analog hearing aids amplify even the sounds you don’t want to hear — think of the scratching sound you hear from an analog recording on a vinyl record.

Digital hearing aids, on the other hand, add a fourth step to the processing of sound: conversion of sound waves to digital information. Sound by itself is an analog signal, but instead of merely making this analog signal louder, digital hearing aids first convert the sound into digital format (stored as 0s and 1s) that can then be altered. Digital hearing aids, therefore, can CHANGE the sound before amplification by changing the information stored as a series of 0s and 1s.

If this seems like we’re talking about a computer, we are. Digital hearing aids are in essence miniature computers that run one specific program that manipulates and improves the quality of sound.

Advantages of digital hearing aids

The majority of modern hearing aids are digital, and for good reason. Given that analog hearing aids can only amplify inbound sound, and cannot change it, analog hearing aids very often amplify disruptive background noise, making it difficult to hear in noisy environments and nearly impossible to talk on the phone.

Digital hearing aids, in contrast, have the flexibility to amplify select sound frequencies. When sound is converted into a digital signal, the computer chip can recognize, mark, and store specific frequencies. For instance, the higher frequency speech sounds can be marked and stored separately from the lower frequency background noise. A hearing specialist can then program the computer chip to amplify only the high frequency speech sounds while suppressing the background noise — making it effortless to follow conversations even in noisy circumstances.

Here are some of the other advantages of digital hearing aids:

• Miniaturized computer technology means smaller, more discreet hearing aids, with some models that fit totally in the ear canal, making them practically undetectable.
• Digital hearing aids tend to have more attractive designs and colors.
• Digital hearing aids can be programmed by a hearing specialist to process sound in various ways based on the location. By changing settings, users can attain ideal hearing for a variety of scenarios, from a tranquil room to a noisy restaurant to talking on the phone.
• Digital hearing aids can be fine-tuned for each patient. Each person hears different sound frequencies at different decibel levels. Digital hearing aids allow the hearing specialist to vary amplification for each sound frequency based on the attributes of each person’s distinctive hearing loss.

Try digital hearing aids out for yourself

Reading about digital hearing aids is one thing, trying them out is another. But bear in mind that, to get the most out of any set of hearing aids, you need both the technology and the programming mastery from an experienced, licensed hearing specialist.

And that’s where we come in. We’ve programmed and fine-tuned countless hearing aids for people with all types of hearing loss, and are more than happy to do the same for you. Give us a call and experience the digital advantage for yourself!