Comparison of two digital hearing aids.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this investigation was to compare real and perceived benefit for two currently marketed digital hearing aids, the Oticon DigiFocus and the Widex Senso. The hearing aids have different philosophies of design and fitting strategies; as a result, it was hypothesized that there would be performance differences.

DESIGN

Twenty subjects with documented sensorineural hearing losses were fit with each of the two digital hearing aids. After 4 wk of use with each hearing aid, a battery of objective and subjective tests was completed to assess hearing aid benefit.

RESULTS

No significant differences were found between the hearing aids as revealed by the objective testing of speech recognition and self-report inventories of hearing aid benefit. The DigiFocus was shown by real ear measurements to provide more high-frequency gain than the Senso. The Widex Senso was preferred by 13 of the 20 subjects (seven of 10 of the new hearing aid users). This may be explained, in part, by the increased high-frequency gain provided by the Oticon DigiFocus, which was perceived as having greater "harshness."

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results of this investigation, neither hearing aid processor was shown to be superior to the other. In addition, the least amount of objective benefit was shown in the presence of background noise.