A Non Technical Look At How Open Fit Aids Work

Open fit hearing aids have changed the hearing aid industry. We believe that if you'll give them a chance, they will change your life, too. They're amazingly easy. They're comfortable. They're so small they're nearly invisible.

Although most people would never wear hearing aids by choice, for those of us with hearing loss it is getting to be less of a chore. Two big changes have brought that about: open ear fitting and digital technology.

• Open Ear Fitting Means Comfort - Open ear, also called open fit, hearing aids are more comfortable by such a wide margin mainly due to your ear canal feeling open. Taking a pair of ear plugs out of your ears brings a relief similar to that of taking out in-the-ear hearing aids. Open ear hearing aids leave your ear canal open so you don’t notice you are wearing them.
• Digital Technology - Today’s hearing aid technology is more automatic than ever before. By monitoring your sound environment as it changes during day to day activities hearing aids can turn themselves up and down in volume, regulate the amount of noise reduction, and cancel feedback.

Human speech ranges in frequencies from 250 HZ to 6000 HZ ---roughly. Hearing aids are built so that this group of frequencies, 250 to 6000 HZ, is divided into smaller groups. Each of the smaller groups is controllable individually as is the overall large group. By controlling, or setting each of the smaller groups of frequencies called Channels to the loss shown on your audiogram your hearing loss is programed into the hearing aid for you.

Technology to separate voices from other sounds is continuously being improved on. Each manufacturer has patented processes and trade marked names for noise reduction. What Noise Reduction can really do now is determine if a sound is a non-modulated sound, road noise in a car for example, or a modulated sound like a voice.

When road noise or other non-modulated sound is detected the Channel where the noise is occurring de-powers and reduces amplification of the noise. The more Channels a hearing aid has the more surgically a noise can be removed. It is pretty easy to tell improved Noise Reduction as you move up in the number Channels a hearing has until you reach 12 Channels. From there on up it gets much harder to detect big improvements in performance but fairly easy to detect big advancements in price.

Acoustic Feedback, also known as squealing, buzzing, ‘your aids are talking to you’, etc. Acoustic Feedback is an unwanted sound a hearing aid makes when the hearing aid’s output sound is picked up by the microphone and re-amplified causing the amplifier to go into distortion.

The squealing sound is Acoustic Feedback.

The Feedback Reduction circuit is capable of canceling feedback by sending out a canceling sound or reducing amplification in the Channel where the feedback is occurring.

What Feedback Reduction can do now is greatly improved over what it was capable of even a few years ago. Feedback is the limiting factor to how much of a hearing aid’s total power can be used to correct a hearing loss. Once feedback occurs by overpowering the Feedback Reduction circuit’s ability to cancel it the limit of amplification has been reached. At the point where increasing amplification results in feedback amplification must be decreased to stop the squealing.

Microphones are the electronic component that picks up sound. Microphones are very small and can be made to pick up more sound in one direction than all others, this is called a directional microphone. Most modern microphones can operate in omi-directional or directional modes. Some microphones are smart enough to operate in an adaptive directional mode where by determining the amount and type of noise in the surrounding sound environment the microphone can switch into the mode that best fits the sound environment you are in.

Open ear hearing aids are small units that fit behind the ear. From the hearing aid a small tube, about 1 mm in diameter, goes into the ear canal. These tubes come in various lengths measured in two dimensions. The first is the length from the top of the ear to the bend where it enters the ear canal. The second dimension is from the bend where the tube enters the ear canal to the end of the tube going into the ear canal.

As the size of the tube increases, from a 1 to a 3 for instance, both dimensions get longer.

Along with the tube is a tip that goes over the end of the end of the tube that is inserted into the ear canal.

Tips, also called domes, tulips, baskets, etc slide tightly over the end of the tube and help center the tube in the ear canal. Tips are available in sizes ranging from 4 mm in diameter to 10 mm in diameter. Some tips are also made with a longer center portion that slides over the tube. By making the center portion longer it makes the tube in effect longer going deeper into the ear canal.

Tubes and tips can be changed by the wearer.

Feel Secure.
We only work with hearing aids from manufacturers with strong technology. Having strong technology and using open fit hearing aids are key to fittings with minimal need of adjustments. If needed, we will make adjustments in tuning or physical fit free of charge during the trial period.

Completely Safe.
We offer a 60-day money back period from the date we Express Mail the aids to you with no restocking fee. All hearing aids are brand new and carry full factory warranties. The purchase price, specifications, and warranty for each aid is listed on the web site page for that hearing aid. There are no other charges or tax beyond the price of the item and shipping.