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US 2014/0177891 A1Published application
Separate inner and outer hair cell loss compensation
AssigneeStarkey Laboratories, Inc.
InventorThomas A. Scheller
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and device for compensating sensorineural hearing loss in a manner that allows dysfunction of the inner and outer hair cells to be separately compensated is described. The disclosed techniques involve providing separately adjustable compression pathways for the received sound.
Claims20
A device for compressing an audio signal, comprising
- a fast signal level estimator (fast SLE) and a slow signal level estimator (slow SLE) for receiving the audio signal, each SLE having a low-pass filter characterized by a rise time constant and a decay time constant;
- a fast level-to-gain transformer for transforming a signal level estimate to a gain value;
- a slow level-to-gain transformer for transforming a signal level estimate to a gain value;
- an output amplifier having an adjustable gain for amplifying the audio signal;
- circuitry configured such that the output of the slow SLE is subtracted from the output of the fast SLE and then input to the fast level-to-gain transformer;
- circuitry configured such that the output of the slow SLE is input to the slow level-to-gain transformer;
- circuitry configured so that the gain values of the fast level-to-gain transformer and the slow level-to-gain transformer are summed to adjust the gain of the output amplifier;
- and,
- circuitry so that the gain value of the fast level-to-gain transformer is multiplied by a weighting factor before being summed with the gain value of the slow level-to-gain transformer.
6 more elements
A device for compressing an audio signal, comprising
- a fast signal level estimator (fast SLE) and a slow signal level estimator (slow SLE) for receiving the audio signal, each SLE having a low-pass filter characterized by a rise time constant and a decay time constant;
- a fast level-to-gain transformer for transforming a signal level estimate to a gain value;
- a slow level-to-gain transformer for transforming a signal level estimate to a gain value;
- an output amplifier having an adjustable gain for amplifying the audio signal;
- circuitry configured such that the output of the slow SLE is subtracted from the audio signal and then input to the fast SLE before being input to the fast level-to-gain transformer;
- circuitry configured such that the output of the slow SLE is input to the slow level-to-gain transformer;
- and,
- circuitry configured such that the gain values of the fast level-to-gain transformer and the slow level-to-gain transformer are summed to adjust the gain of the output amplifier.
5 more elements
A device for compressing an audio signal, comprising:
- a plurality of fast signal level estimators (fast SLEs) and slow signal level estimators (slow SLEs) for receiving the audio signal, each SLE having a low-pass filter characterized by a rise time constant and a decay time constant;
- a plurality of fast level-to-gain transformers for transforming a signal level estimate to a gain value;
- a plurality of slow level-to-gain transformers for transforming a signal level estimate to a gain value;
- a plurality of output amplifiers each having an adjustable gain for amplifying the audio signal;
- circuitry configured to separate the audio signal into a plurality of frequency components;
- and,
- for each of a plurality of frequency-specific channels corresponding to the frequency components:
- circuitry configured such that a first slow SLE receives a narrowband component of the audio signal, a second slow SLE receives a wideband component of the audio signal, and a the fast SLE receives a wideband component of the audio signal;
- circuitry configured such that the output of the second slow SLE is subtracted from the output of the fast SLE and then input to a the fast level-to-gain transformer;
- circuitry configured such that the output of the first slow SLE is input to a slow level-to-gain transformer;
- and,
- circuitry configured such that the gain values of the fast level-to-gain transformer and the slow level-to-gain transformer are summed to adjust the gain of the output amplifier.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.