Digital Hearing Aids vs. Analogue Hearing Aids

Digital technology is all around us -

It is in our living rooms when we watch television, when we use computers and cameras, and whenever we speak to family and friends on the telephone.
Digital technology has changed the way hearing aids work. Just as CDs provide crisp, clear digital sound compared to vinyl records, so digital hearing aids are able to provide superior sound processing quality.

Digital Hearing Aids vs. Analogue Hearing Aids - what’s the difference?

The latest digital hearing aids can process thousands of pieces of information a second, and this information can be manipulated with great finesse without deterioration in sound quality, unlike the older analogue hearing aids. Digital hearing aids have a miniature microphone that sends the auditory information to a digital 'microchip' that converts the sound information to a series of 'zeros' and 'ones', much like a desktop computer. This is then processed through a series of complicated algorithms (think of a very powerful calculator working to a detailed formula). Once the calculation has been performed the microchip converts this information back to audio (sound) and sends this to the receiver (loudspeaker) and the sound is output into your ear canal. This process is performed thousands of times a second. Mind boggling stuff!

If we look back to the old analogue hearing aids, instead of a microchip in between the microphone and receiver, they had a string of resistors and capacitors to amplify sound. Typically as hearing aid audiologists we would have a screw set tone control to make the hearing aids more or less tinny, quite unsatisfactory by todays hi-tech standards!

Digital hearing aids have been available for ten years or so. The first digital hearing aids launched by Widex and Oticon seemed revolutionary in their time compared to the older analogue technology. By todays standards the early digital hearing aids seem very rudimentary now!