These days, it seems that we constantly hear about so many things “going digital,” from phone calls to photography and everything in between. There is no doubt that digital is in and there are a number of advantages to most things that rely on digital technology. Digital technology has also advanced into the realm of hearing aid technology and now digital hearing aids are a very common and popular choice in hearing devices.

Digital hearing aids were first introduced to the marketplace over twenty years ago, in the early 1980s. However, they did not immediately gain in popularity, mainly because of their size and the fact that they were so easily seen while being worn, even more so than the traditional analogue, in the ear hearing aids.

But in the 1990s, rapid developments in technology and improvements in miniaturization led to a new generation of digital hearing aids that were much smaller. With the smaller, more discrete size, the digitized hearing aid technology began to catch on and has become more popular.

Many people think that nowadays all of them are digital. But the fact of the matter is that the traditional analogue and the high-tech digital devices work quite differently. As a result, both types of its products are still on the market and likely will be for some time to come. The analogue units use a microphone to pick up sounds, which are then converted to electrical signals, which are then amplified.

The more advanced analogue hearing aids are programmed to compress the sound through a process of “automatic gain control.” This is done to amplify quieter sounds so they can be heard readily, yet at the same time filter out the louder sounds that do not need to be amplified. This is intended to protect the person wearing them from uncomfortably loud noises. Unfortunately, even the best of the analogue devices do not accomplish this important task as well as digital hearing aids do.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 7:09 pm and is filed under Health & Beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.