Widex A/s

Andreas Brinch Nielsen

Henning Haugaard Andersen

Jorgen Cederberg

Mette Dahl Meincke

Jorge Cederberg

A hearing aid (A) configured to be worn by a hearing-impaired user has a speech detector (A) and a speech enhancer (A) for enhancing speech being present in an input signal of the hearing aid (A). The speech detector (A) has means () for independently detecting the presence of voiced and unvoiced speech in order to allow for the speech enhancer (A) to increase the gain of speech signals suitably fast to incorporate the speech signals themselves. The hearing aid (A) has means (A,A) for communicating information regarding the detected speech signals wirelessly to a similar hearing aid (B) worn contralaterally by the user for the purpose of mutually enhancing speech signals in the two hearing aids (A,B) when speech is detected to be originating from the front of the user, and means (B) for suppressing speech enhancement in the contralateral hearing aid (B) when speech is detected to be originating from the ipse-lateral side of the user. The invention further provides a method of enhancing speech in a hearing aid.

Hearing aid and a method of enhancing speech reproduction

A hearing aid comprising a frequency shifter () has means () for detecting a first frequency and a second frequency in an input signal. The frequency shifter () transposes a first frequency range of the input signal to a second frequency range of the input signal based on the presence of a fixed relationship between the first and the second detected frequency. The means () for detecting the fixed relationship between the first and the second frequency is used for controlling the frequency transposer (). A speech detector () configured for detecting the presence of voiced and unvoiced speech is provided for suppressing the transposition of voiced-speech signals in order to preserve the speech formants. The purpose of transposing frequency bands in this way in a hearing aid is to render inaudible frequencies audible to a user of the hearing aid while maintaining the original envelope, harmonic coherence and speech intelligibility of the signal. The invention further provides a method for shifting a frequency range of an input signal in a hearing aid.

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København N, Denmark

Andreas Brinch Nielsen