What are “Channels” and why are more better? I always thought these were the number of fine tuneable frequencies, but today realized I am misinformed.
What does a channel do, and would 128 channels be better?
Thanks
A channel is just a small frequency band, so covering a whole number of discrete frequencies.
The reason for having a few rather than many is for reasons of practicality and need.
The practicality is that if you want a very large number of channels then you would have to have a very complex and power-hungry digital processor in the hearing aid. This would be much more power-hungry, expensive and physically larger. It’s just not practical.
And also adjusting so many channels would be difficult and time-consuming, so in practice the audiologist would need to adjust them in groups.
And further most people would never notice the difference. Given a choice, they would go for the cheaper smaller hearing aid with the better battery life.
You can build an audiogram for yourself if a very large number of measurements and then do it again with 20 spot measurements and look at the two different graphs. Remembering that generally people who don’t know what they are listening for won’t notice a change in a channel of less than a couple of dB, you would probably find that the two audiograms are pretty well the same.
Thanks - ok, so 128 channels is the same as 128 frequency bands. I was at a lucid hearing center recently, and she mentioned 128 channels, but I noticed the software could only fine tune, or create a target prescription, for about 10 of those frequencies. I wonder how Lucid “uses” 128 channels? perhaps in some kind of autosense mode?
Sorry I don’t know. It’s not a brand that means anything to me. Also their use of the term channels sounds quite dubious to me. Probably they are best avoided.
Further to what Dave has explained, channels and bands (handles) are not the same thing, you only need 4 channels as a minimum and most people can’t tell the difference over 8 ! The band’s are adjustable within the manufacturer’s software and as mentioned would be a nightmare trying to adjust more then 20, 10 is more then adequate for a hearing aid for speech. I think it’s all marketing hype stating 128! There’s research stating between 9 and 18 is ideal, another thing to consider is the “delay” in processing the sound source,more channels would be more delay in most cases.
I used Lucid aids from America Hears for about 12 years … they worked OK
I started with the 8 channel BTE … then went to 16 channel then 32 and 64 RIC channel each one was a little better … because of the hardware upgrade … but still the same programing software
I have the 96 channel I tried the 128’s at Sam’s club and they were no better than the 96’s, If you get them at Sam’s they can not be programed with the Lucid software.
I switched to Phonak 1 1/2 years ago for the bluetooth, And I have never looked back … I am not sure how many channels they have … And I don’t care 
1 Like