What are Analog and Digital Hearing Aids?

You ought to take care to remember that however impressive a particular hearing aid manufacturer’s apparatus may sound when you are told about it from the salesman, no hearing aids can restore normal hearing; however, they do provide a significant benefit to most men with hearing loss. 

Hearing aids are usually not covered by Medicare or commercial insurance and pricing vary according to the manufacturer, seller, and service agreements, and that means you’ll need to fund the purchase cost yourself.

Before you part with your cash you should also keep in mind that even the best hearing devices will seldom last for over 5 years before they will require replacement. This will therefore be no one-off buy price.

Hearing aids are not a perfect solution either and they do have their own limits. The first hearing aids were all ‘analog devices’ and based upon an immediate amplifier very similar to that in hi-fi. But, it was soon recognized that many people with hearing difficulties can hear a few notes but not other people, and in the event, the hearing aid was able to amplify the specific range of notes that an individual person was unable to listen to, by applying a specific filter, the resulting hearing improvement has been better than just amplifying every notice equally.

The system which does this very nicely is referred to as a digital hearing aid, and it’s predicated upon computer technology which converts the audio to data, before filtering the noises to amplify just those that the owner wants help to hear. The advent of digital technology has allowed this to be achieved in tiny devices which can be programmed to just replace these parts of the sound spectrum that the buyer needs to have amplified.

Now, these digital hearing aids have become common, the buyer of a hearing aid needs to understand that hearing aids are distinguished by their technology or circuitry. You will therefore probably be asked whether you want an analog hearing aid or even a digital edition.

Both digital and analog hearing aids seem much the same and generally consist of a battery-powered transistorized microphone/amplifier unit and an earpiece. Hearing aids vary in price by dimensions and by the type and sophistication of the electronic circuits used to boost your hearing loss. Digital hearing aids models are more expensive than analog aids.

However, the additional cost is worth spending, if you can afford it, as digital hearing aids have been thought to offer the consumer a more accurate reproduction of audio, resulting in superior sound quality. This is because digital hearing aids take the constant sound wave and break it up into quite small, different pieces of information. But, do be mindful that many analog hearing aids are advertised as digital or ‘digital programmable’ only because they are programmed using a computer, but may not be as great as accurate digital aids.

This is a result of the fact that acoustic programming isn’t nearly generally as flexible as programmable and digital hearing aids. There’s ample qualitative and quantitative evidence that digital tools outperform analog hearing aids. In fact, the circuitry and programming applied to the best fully digital hearing aids reflect the state-of-the-art technology available today.

It’s said that more than six million Americans use hearing aids and 20 million more should use them if you’ve got a hearing difficulty, be among the six million, and get the maximum from life.

Where To Get Your Test

In Cornerstone Audiology, we’ve served thousands of people in the West Texas community. We also provide hearing implants. Learn more right here.

We’re dedicated to supporting and educating our communities around the side results and disadvantages of undiagnosed hearing loss.

If you suspect that you or a loved one is experiencing any of the above indications, then please don’t hesitate to program your hearing assessment now or call our offices with any questions that you might have. Visit this website for more information.

Life is worth hearing.

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