Oticon A/s

Hong Suong Han

Anders Højsgaard Thomsen

Thomas Kaulberg

Level compression applied to the acoustic signals () received by a binaural hearing aid system () counteracts the preservation of inter-aural level differences (ILD) and thereby reduces the user's ability to locate the sound source and consequently his or her ability to understand speech in noisy environments. It is therefore known to increase the gain () in the hearing aid () receiving the louder signal and/or decreasing the gain () in the hearing aid () receiving the quieter signal, which at least in part allows for preserving the ILDs. However, in some situations this instead reduces the user's ability to understand speech, e.g. when acoustic noise is received at one ear () at a higher level () than simultaneous speech at the other ear (). The present invention overcomes this problem by decreasing the gain () in the hearing aid () receiving the louder signal and/or increasing the gain () in the hearing aid () receiving the quieter signal, when the difference between the noise-floor levels () of the two hearing aids () increases.

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Smørum, Denmark

Hong Suong Han