New research examines how hearing aids can bring enjoyment through music, improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss.
A new study from Purdue University compares the sound quality of music processed by popular hearing aid brands.
For many years, hearing aids have primarily focused on enhancing communication by separating speech from background noise. Despite significant advancements in speech enhancement technology, hearing aids still have limited capabilities when it comes to music listening.
At the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Emily Sandgren and Joshua Alexander of Purdue University will be presenting “Evaluating the Efficacy of Music Programs in Hearing Aids”.
Their study aims to determine the most effective hearing aids for listening to music by conducting experiments to evaluate sound quality.
On average, Americans spend over two hours each day listening to music, and this art form has been linked to both mental and emotional well-being.
“But research over the past two decades has shown that hearing aid users are dissatisfied with the sound quality of music when using their hearing aids,” points out Sandgren. “People with hearing loss deserve both ease of communication and to maintain quality of life by enjoying sources of entertainment like music.”
Hearing aid manufacturers have developed music programs to address the issue of subpar sound quality in music for hearing aid users.
In order to assess the efficacy of these programs, Purdue University researchers Sandgren and Alexander analyzed over 200 music recordings processed by seven popular hearing aid brands.
Study participants were asked to evaluate the sound quality of the recordings and found that the hearing aids had lower ratings for music compared to control stimuli.
Interestingly, the researchers observed more significant differences in music quality between hearing aid brands rather than between speech and music programs, with two manufacturers emerging as top performers.
However, the team is still investigating the underlying reasons behind these variations.
“One contributing factor is how hearing aids adapt to loud, sudden sounds,” adds Sandgren. “When you’re listening to a conversation, if a door slams behind you, you don’t want that door slam to be amplified very much. But with music, there are loud sudden sounds that we do want to hear, like percussion instruments.”
One of the major issues when it comes to music and hearing aids is distortion. This is because unlike speech, music tends to have strong low-frequency harmonics, which can cause sound distortion and impact the listening experience.
“Our analyses suggest that brands rated highest in music quality processed the intense ultralow frequency peaks with less distortion than those rated lowest in music quality,” adds Alexander.
This research has the potential to enhance future technology and assist audiologists in selecting the most suitable hearing aids for their patients.
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