How the cross-sectional discontinuity between ear canal and probe affects the ear canal length estimation.

Many ear canal probes both deliver and measure sound via narrow tubes. This study investigates the effect of the cross-sectional discontinuity at the interface between ear canal models and the connecting tubes of a commercially available otoacoustic emission probe on the "acoustically" estimated cavity lengths. Rigid cavities having the same length but different diameters were produced, and modeled by the finite element method. Cavities with a diameter larger than 8 mm had acoustic lengths that considerably overestimated the real geometry. A length correction was derived, which, in most applications, compensates for the measurement errors emerging from the discontinuity effects.