Desirable Properties in Modern Compression Schemes Challenges to Get the Best Out of Today’s Technology

Agenda 1.WDRC – its Relevance to the Present ……………………………………. 1 2.Phenomena and Comments …… The ChannelFree Processing Scheme ………………………………… List of Sources ………………………... 33

1. WDRC – its Relevance to the Present Insights from Recent Publications

WDRC – a Topic of Current Interest? Most modern hearing aids incorporate some form of compression or automatic gain control (AGC) … However, controversy continues about the “best” way to implement AGC, and particularly whether it should be fast acting or slow acting. 1/34

WDRC – a Topic of Current Interest? It has been more than 40 years since initial applications of multiple compression channels (MCC) were implemented in hearing aids (Caraway & Carhart, 1967); however, the appropriate number of channels remains an unanswered question. 2/34

3/34 … and a Side-Effect of Compression Open canal (OC) fittings deliver sound to the meatus either via a thin tube or via a receiver in the ear canal. …With the advent of digital feedback cancellation, open fittings have become much more widely used, but the effect of time delays for OC fittings has received relatively little attention.

2. Phenomena and Comments Compression Speed, Channels, and Throughput Delay

Phenomena with Compression Speed 4/34

The Expert’s Comment It also improves the ability to detect a weak consonant following a relatively intense vowel. Fast compression can give good results when two voices alternate with markedly different levels. Fast compression can restore the audibility of weak sounds rapidly following intense sounds. This at least provides the potential for listening in the dips. 5/34

Phenomena with Compression Speed 6/34

The Expert’s Comment It [fast compression] can introduce spurious changes in the shape of the temporal envelope of sounds (e.g., overshoot and undershoot effects; …). Delaying the audio signal by a small amount relative to the gain-control signal can reduce such effects (…). 7/34

Phenomena with Compression Speed 8/34

The Expert‘s Comment We evaluated the benefits of fast-acting WDRC, slow- acting AVC, and linear reference fittings for speech intelligibility and reported disability. Slow-acting AVC outperformed the fast-acting WDRC fittings for listening comfort, while for reported and measured speech intelligibility the converse was true. 9/34

Phenomena with Compression Speed 10/34

Most commercially available hearing aids with ‘‘fast- acting compression’’ have release times in the range 50 to 200 ms. For such release times, the compression would not be very effective for modulation rates above 5 to 10 Hz. The Expert’s Comment However, …, compression would still need to be fast acting to ensure that weak sounds are audible when they occur just after strong sounds. Shorter release times than this are generally avoided because they can lead to significant harmonic and intermodulation distortion. 11/34

Phenomena with Channels 12/34

The Expert’s Comment In a multichannel hearing aid with fast-acting compression …, short-term changes in the spectral pattern of sounds may be distorted because the pattern of gains across frequency changes rapidly with time. 13/34

Phenomena with Channels 14/34

The Experts’ Comments Listeners with mild sloping to moderately severe hearing loss demonstrated poorer vowel identification. In a multichannel hearing aid with fast-acting compression in many channels, the spectrum is flattened, reducing spectral contrasts. Overall spectral contrasts of vowels are significantly reduced as the number of compression channels increases. 15/34

Phenomena with Throughput Delay 16/34

Across-frequency delay can itself have disturbing effects. For example, sounds like clicks may appear smeared in time, or may be perceived as rapid frequency glides. The Expert’s Comment A second effect occurs for longer delays; the delayed sound may be perceived as an echo. In principle, the mixing of direct airborne sound and delayed sound produced by an OC hearing aid can have several undesired perceptual effects. First, there is a comb-filtering effect (ripples in the spectrum), which leads to an alteration of the timbre of the sound (coloration). 17/34

Phenomena with Throughput Delay 18/34

A disturbance rating of 3 was reached for a delay of about 5.3 msec. The Expert’s Comment Following presentation of a sample of the processed speech, the participant was asked to rate the effect of the delay, using the same seven-point scale as in our earlier studies (…). For this scale, “1” corresponds to “Not at all disturbing,” “4” corresponds to “disturbing,” and “7” corresponds to “highly disturbing.” As expected, disturbance increased significantly with increasing delay: the main increase occurred between 4 and 12 msec. 19/34

3. The ChannelFree Processing Scheme Block Diagram, Operation, and Evaluation

An implementation of WDRC InputOutput Level Measurement Filter Control Controllable Filter Synchronization ChannelFree™ – an elegant WDRC design 20/34

Level Measurement InputOutput Filter Control Controllable Filter Synchronization Continuously measures the Sound Pressure Level 21/34

Waveform of acoustic signal Traditional SPL measurement ChannelFree™ SPL measurement Level Measurement 22/34

Filter Control InputOutput Level Measurement Filter Control Controllable Filter Synchronization Determines appropriate gain from measured SPL 23/34

Frequency response Filter Control Varying gain in ChannelFree™ processing Almost constant gain in traditional processing 24/34

Applies time-varying gain Controllable Filter InputOutput Level Measurement Filter Control Controllable Filter Synchronization 25/34

Waveform of acoustic signal Controllable Filter Less gain for loud vowels More gain for soft consonants 26/34

Synchronization InputOutput Level Measurement Filter Control Controllable Filter Synchronization Keeps the acoustic signal time-aligned with the gain 27/34

Synchronization Compensation for time delay in level measurement and filter control t = control signal from level to gain t = acoustic signal (with added delay) t = acoustic signal – synchronized and amplified 28/34

Flexibility in Gain Shaping 29/34

ChannelFree … directly implements continuous frequency responses that coincide with the fitting targets to within 1 dB thus providing a continuously variable compression ratio across frequency. The Expert‘s Comment ChannelFree is completely different from the outdated single- channel wideband compression scheme that produces the frequency responses [with] the same shape, irrespective of input level. 30/34

Verification of Benefit 31/34

The Expert’s Comment The aim of our project was to compare the perceived sound quality of several current advanced hearing aids while they are amplifying a range of different signals. For the hearing-impaired listeners, Symbio received the highest average scores for male and female voices and piano music. 32/34

5. List of Sources Literature – Further Reading

Literature Compression Speed Moore, B.C.J. (2008). The Choice of Compression Speed in Hearing Aids: Theoretical and Practical Considerations and the Role of Individual Differences. Trends in Amplification, Vol. 12, No. 2, Gatehouse S, Naylor G, Elberling C. (2006). Linear and nonlinear hearing aid fittings –1. Patterns of benefit. Int J Audiol, 45(3): Moore, B.C.J., Wojtczak, M., Vickers, D.A. (1996). Effect of loudness recruitment on the perception of amplitude modulation. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 100, Spectral Contrast Bor S, Souza P, Wright R. (2008). Multichannel compression: Effects of reduced spectral contrast on vowel identification. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 51, Throughput Delay Stone M.A., Moore B.C.J., Meisenbacher K., & Derleth R.P. (2008). Tolerable Hearing-Aid Delays. V. Estimation of Limits for Open Canal Fittings. Ear Hear. 29: Gain Shaping Schaub A. (2009). Enhancing Temporal Resolution and Sound Quality: A Novel Approach to Compression. Hearing Review (August 2009): 28, 30, Best Scores Dillon H, Keidser G, O’Brien A, Silberstein H. (2003). Sound quality comparisons of advanced hearing aids. Hearing Journal 56(4): /34

Further Reading 34/34