Bernafon at Sam's

I found a training video for Bernafon Encanta on Youtube. I am a scientist, not an audiologist, but here is what I learned to understand why Bernafon uses, or does not use, the term channelfree now, The so-called “hybrid “ approach is to first separate speech from noise and process each separately. The speech is processed as “ broadband” by phonemes, and the noise is processed in channels. The term “channelfree” was not used, perhaps because the noise processing now does use channels. But the description of “broadband” processing of speech certainly sounds like how “channelfree” was described in prior generations. This would seem to be the basis for Bernafon support claiming that Encanta uses “channelfree” it just goes by a different name. As has been pointed out this is no guarantee of superiority, but for those, like myself, who have had good experiences with Bernafon in the past, it may be of interest to have these premium aids now available at “club” prices.

That’s my understanding as well. I don’t think Bernafon has ever not processed noise in channels since channelfree was first introduced. This “hybrid” approach has to refer to more than just this unless it’s pure marketing. I suspect it reflects a switch to SNR-based noise estimation as well.