Acoustic versus inductive coupling of hearing aids to telephones

This investigation determined the relative merit of four different hearing aid/telephone coupling systems. Speech recognition measures and quality preferences by magnitude estimation were used to evaluate the systems. Neither speech recognition testing nor magnitude estimation results revealed one particular hearing aid/telephone coupling system that was superior for all 10 subjects. A procedure is described in which consideration of both discrimination and quality estimation results can be used to provide specific recommendations for individual patients. However, the communication needs of some people may require the use of more than one type of system.