Widex A/s

Topholm & Westermann Aps

Lars Baekgaard

The invention relates to a hearing aid, preferably a programmable hearing aid, having at least one microphone ( ), at least one signal processor with at least one channel, an output amplifier ( ) and an output transducer ( ), at least one of the channels containing a signal processing circuit ( ) with at least one percentile estimator ( ) for the continuous determination or calculation of at least one percentile value of the input signal from a continuous analysis and evaluation of the frequency and/or amplitude distribution of the input signal, whereby the percentile value(s) serve either directly or indirectly as control signals for controlling the gain and/or the frequency response of the electronic processing circuit, the percentile estimator ( ) consisting essentially of a comparator stage ( ) with two inputs and two outputs, the first input being directly or indirectly connected to the input of the hearing aid, its two outputs controlling a first control stage ( ) the output signals of which control a first integrator ( ), the output of which, directly or indirectly, conveys a control signal to the signal processing circuit ( ) and the second input of the comparator stage. The invention comprises at least a second control stage ( ) connected to the first control stage ( ), and at least one additional integrator ( ) controlled by the second control stage ( ), the output of which is connected to a further input of the second control stage ( ) and to a multiplier stage ( ) interconnected between the first control stage ( ) and the first integrator ( ).

Hearing aid with improved percentile estimator

Hearing aid with a controllable directional characteristic having at least two spaced apart microphones (Mic,Mic,) in at least two microphone channels, at least one signal processing unit, at least one output transducer and a directional controlling system, with means for adaptively matching the characteristics of at least two microphones. This novel hearing aid comprises an adaptive phase matching circuit (,), inserted into said at least two microphone channels, the adaptive phase matching circuit, (,) having its outputs connected to an acoustical delay compensation means (,), followed by a parameter control circuit (,), the output of which is applied to a controllable filter means (,) inserted into at least one of said at least two microphone channels inside said adaptive phase matching circuit. Preferably filter means (,) are provided in front of said acoustical delay compensation means (,), which could be used to eliminate DC components.

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Farum, Denmark

Lars Baekgaard