Hearing aids have now gone digital. Although their initial appearance in the late 80’s was greeted by skepticism, they are now backing with a vengeance. Most people think that digital hearing aids are here to replace analog models for good, and for good reasons. Digital hearing aids offer a better sound quality than analog models and they are small and compact enough to carry around without any discomfort.

How Digital Hearing Aids Work

An inner ear digital hearing aid works by taking in sound signals by a microphone which are then manipulated by the chip inside the device through a process called Digital Signal Processing. The sound waves are separated into their various frequencies which allow the device to fine-tune the different sounds, the reason why speech is made clearer without the background interference of other unnecessary noise. The manipulation that happens inside the ‘core’ of the hearing aid is the process responsible for giving the user the correct level of sound clarity tailored according to his degree of hearing loss. This is one of the main features that separate digital hearing aids from the analog models. The manipulated signals then pass through a Digital to Analog converter, which turns the signals into analog.

The resulting analog signal goes to the receiver where it is further converted into an acoustic signal, which is heard by the user. The whole process happens very rapidly, with a million calculations being done by the small microchip per second. Because of the small size and the complexity of the computer technology utilized by the digital hearing aid, it is no wonder that they are so expensive. A unit costs about $2000 to $5000, one factor why most hearing aid users prefer to stick to their cheaper analog models. However, this is nothing compared to the much-improved quality of sound that the user gets, especially if he or she is suffering from moderate to severe hearing loss.