“I do not oppose analog and digital amplification. I just think that both have their place in audiology.”
Michel MATHIEU
FrenchEar CEO & Founder
Hearing aid manufacturers have always claimed that digital features have been the subject of advanced research. They presented us as indispensable the WDRC, the large number of channels, the very complex signal processing etc. The transition from analog to digital was motivated on the one hand by the fad of the arrival of a new technology and on the other hand by the search for increased benefit for the hearing impaired suffering from recruitment and intolerance to very complex sound environments.
But this transition, experienced very difficult by some hearing impaired, made the mistake of forgetting that some of them could continue to prefer the simplicity of the analog amplification without any delay processing, even if sometimes the consequences of a sensorineural hearing loss do not allow the auditory cortex to optimise the auditory treatment in a noisy environment.
The audiology market is starting to talk about analog again. I let you appreciate the relevance of this article published on September 11, 2019:
As a hearing care professional, I was speechless when the hearing impaired explained to me in their own words why they prefer analog sound, whether about Lyric or about their old device necessarily renewed by a digital device. It went against everything I had been taught. This is where the analog amplification, disappeared from audiology field, has imposed itself to me. Not as a miraculous solution but great enough in its simplicity to be revisited.
Citations for this article:
Official study comparing Lyric analog amplification with digital hearing aids :
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e83f/9d8e8010cff5d1124f6d9abe7e43d0f58b9f.pdf