Digital hearing aids have many advantages over their analog counterparts. The analog aids work on the simple concept of sound amplification and it’s conveying to the receiver. The microphone receives the sound waves which are in turn amplified by the amplifier circuit and this is transmitted to the receiver which conveys the sound to the ear.

The digital hearing aids on the other hand receive the sound waves in analog form which they convert to the digital signals. These digital signals are adjusted according to the need and thus the sound is transmitted to the ear either in amplified form or reduced form.

Advantages of digital hearing aids

  1. The digital aids filter out the noise that is annoying.
  2. There is a reduction in the feedback caused mainly due to the jaw movement. This reduction is due to the feature of notch filtering.
  3. The filtering of noise result in reduced annoyance and this makes the user to effectively recognize the speech in the non fluctuating noise conditions.
  4. The digital speech enhancement improves the speech intensity and thus the speech recognition.
  5. The digital hearing aid with the digital sound processing can generate and process the sound.
  6. The user can program the digital hearing aid according to their choice. They thus give the advantage of sound processing and more precise adjustment of the sound.
  7. The aids can adjust to the volumes of the sound automatically and thus deliver the sound and speech in more precise form.
  8. The digital aids come with the microphones which give clearer directional processing of the sound.

The digital hearing aids come in different forms:

  1. Digital behind the ear hearing aid; these are similar to their analog cousins but with the difference of the microphone system and DSP chip in it.
  2. Digital behind the ear open fit hearing aids.
  3. Digital in the ear aids.
  4. Completely in the canal hearing aids.

The digital hearing aids cannot be separated from their analog cousins. The technology is in fact an improved form of the technology used in the analog hearing aids. In digital devices the sound is converted to the digital stream of numbers. That gives them the difference. They do provide the improved quality of sound and speech recognition by reducing the feedback and noise. It is on the part of the consultants that they should council and educate the patients so that the high level of expectation due to exaggeration of technology can be overcome and they can thus get informed and use the technology for their betterment.