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Phonak Compression Technology

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Does Phonak Compression work by shifting frequencies (higher frequency sounds rebroadcast in a lower frequency range) or by selective amplification of the different frequencies?
Big John

4 people in this conversation3 min readJump to latest

Don’t know why it makes any difference but its compression.

SoundRecover, introduced by Phonak provides an excellent and unique non-linear frequency compression. With SoundRecover, a selected range of high frequencies are progressively compressed into a narrower range

In reply to @tenkan

@tenkan said:

Don’t know why it makes any difference but its compression

Logically, if you are listening to music and the compression took a particular tone and rebroadcast it at a lower frequency the music wouldn’t sound like it should. But if the compression just increased the volume of certain tones, then it should make the music sound better. Am I missing something?
From your answer, I would not want SoundRecover when I am listening to music. Right?
Big John

Well soundrecover is for people that “cannot” hear in that higher frequencie, so you wouldn’t in most case’s tell the difference?
But regardless your correct that it’s not very good for music reproduction, you can set up a separate music program with most features turned off including soundrecover.
Cheers

In reply to @Big_John

As far as i know, hearing aids can do any or all of:

  1. raise volume across the board
  2. equalize, adjust the volume of different frequency bands
  3. compress, make sudden loud sound quieter
  4. reduce steady background noise

How does each of these 4 affect how you hear music, speech … ?
There’s lots of advertising BS, objective measurement is tough –
Dynamic_range_compression#Objective_influence_on_the_signal below
is for music, speech is way harder.
Links –

Loudness2

In acoustics, loudness is the subjective perception of sound pressure. More formally, it is defined as the "attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud". The relation of physical attributes of sound to perceived loudness consists of physical, physiological and psychological components. The study of apparent loudness is included in the topic of psychoacoustics and employs methods of psychophysics. In different industries, loudnes...

Equalization (audio)

Equalization, or simply EQ, in sound recording and reproduction is the process of adjusting the volume of different frequency bands within an audio signal. The circuit or equipment used to achieve this is called an equalizer. Most hi-fi equipment uses relatively simple filters to make bass and treble adjustments. Graphic and parametric equalizers have much more flexibility in tailoring the frequency content of an audio signal. Broadcast and recording studios use sophisticated equalizers capa...

Dynamic range compression2

Dynamic range compression (DRC) or simply compression is an audio signal processing operation that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds, thus reducing or compressing an audio signal's dynamic range. Compression is commonly used in sound recording and reproduction, broadcasting, live sound reinforcement and some instrument amplifiers. A dedicated electronic hardware unit or audio software that applies compression is called a compressor. In the 2000s, compressors became a...

Noise reduction

Noise reduction is the process of removing noise from a signal. Noise reduction techniques exist for audio and images. Noise reduction algorithms may distort the signal to some degree. Noise rejection is the ability of a circuit to isolate an undesired signal component from the desired signal component, as with common-mode rejection ratio. All signal processing devices, both analog and digital, have traits that make them susceptible to noise. Noise can be random with an even frequency distribu...

Yep lots of marketing hype/blurb from the manufacturers, most people would agree with this, however using a sound engineers approach to program ones ’S is not…well best practice, there’s a reason why we have Audiologists and Sound Engineers, who do things like make a god awful song sound like something from Adele for “Normal” hearing persons.
But there’s very similar circumstances, like have a read through these links for setting up ones HA’S for music.

https://grandpianopassion.com/category/hearing-music/

https://musicandhearingaids.org/1

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