APD 3.0 and its Impact on Listener Preference
With the recent launch of our new line of hearing aids, Phonak Infinio and Infinio Sphere, Phonak launches the newAdaptive Phonak Digital 3.0(APD 3.0) fitting formula. This formula ensures that hearing aids are fit appropriately for each hearing aid user around the world, and a study was conducted at ourSonova Innovation Centre Toronto in Kitchenertoinvestigate the effect of APD 3.0 compared to its previous generation, APD2.0.
We hadasked participants to listen to various sound sceneswith hearing aids programmed with APD 2.0 (our old fitting formula) and APD 3.0. Participants were seated in the middle of 12 speakers and were asked to indicate which program they liked better, APD 2.0 or APD 3.0, across several sound quality dimensions. Participants were exposed to a total of 12 scenes which included:
- a pub scene,
- a cocktail party,
- cooking in the kitchen scene,
- a mall scene,
- and many more.
Participants found APD 3.0 to be less noise intrusive, to provide increased listening comfort, and preferred APD 3.0 overall when compared to APD 2.0 across sound scenes. They also found that APD 2.0 and APD 3.0 both provides the same speech clarity.
Reason for suggested changes:APD is for Phonak hearing aids (Adaptive PHONAK digital). Unitron and Hansaton do not have that implemented.
The photo above shows an acoustic testing mannequin seated in the middle of a 12-speaker array. The mannequin along with the microphone above it helps us calibrate each speaker and ensure that each sound scene is replicated accurately. Participants were seated in a similar way to how KEMAR is positioned when listening to the different sound scenes while ranking APD 2.0 and APD 3.0.
Our new product launch would not be possible if it wasn’t for the continued support from our participants who are willing test out our hearing aid features and provide feedback. If you or someone know in interested in participants in hearing aid studies, please have them fill out the form below!