Advantage Audiology & Hearing Center describes analog and digital hearing aids. Full service audiologist with the best selection of hearing aids in Gaylord MI. See us for hearing tests, custom ear protection, tinnitus treatment, ear wax removal, hearing aid repair.

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Advantage Audiology & Hearing Center MI | (989) 966-1040 | http://www.advantagehearingonline.com/
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QUICK CONSUMER GUIDE TO ANALOG VERSUS DIGITAL HEARING AIDS
A bit of history and an explanation of how analog devices work versus how digital devices
work is essential to understand the distinctions between digital and analog hearing aids.
Historically, analog technology appeared first, and consequently most hearing aids were
analog until digital signal processing (DSP) was developed, at which point digital hearing
aids appeared. Most (roughly 90%) hearing aids purchased in the US at this point are
digital, although you can still get analog hearing aids because some people have a
preference for them, and they’re often cheaper.
The way that analog hearing aids work is that they take sound waves from the microphone
in the form of electricity and then amplify the waves, sending louder versions of the sound
waves to the speakers in your ears “as
is.” Digital hearing aids take the sound
waves from the microphone and
transform them to digital binary code, the
“bits and bytes” and “zeros and ones” that
all digital devices understand. After the
sound has been digitized, the microchip
inside the hearing aid can process and
manipulate the data in sophisticated ways
before converting it back into analog
sound and passing it on to the ears.
Both analog and digital hearing aids carry
out the same work – they take sounds and boost them to enable you to hear better. Both
varieties of hearing aids can be programmed by the dispensers of the hearing aids to
produce the sound quality that each user desires, and to create configurations appropriate
for different environments. As an example, there might be distinct settings for quiet rooms
like libraries, for noisy restaurants, and for outdoor spaces such as sports stadiums.
But beyond programmability, the digital hearing aids generally offer more controls to the
wearer, and have more features because of their ability to manipulate the sounds in digital
form. They have an array of memories in which to save more location-specific
configurations than analog hearing aids. Other capabilities of digital hearing aids include
the ability to automatically reduce background noise and eliminate feedback or whistling,

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Advantage Audiology & Hearing Center MI | (989) 966-1040 | http://www.advantagehearingonline.com/
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or the ability to prefer the sound of voices over other sounds.
As far as pricing is concerned, analog hearing aids are in most cases less expensive,
although some digital hearing aids are approaching the cost of analog devices by
eliminating the more state-of-the-art features. There is commonly a noticeable difference in
sound quality, but the question of whether analog or digital is “better” is up to the wearer,
and the ways that they are used to hearing sounds.