Opn outperforms traditional and narrow directionality

Opn? outperforms traditional and narrow directionality

Speech understanding in noisy environments is a common frustration for people with hearing loss, especially in multitalker situations. Directional technology, one approach to this challenge, preferentially amplifies speech from in front of

the listener while suppressing all other sounds. Further narrowing the focus of the directional ¡°beam¡± can offer additional

benefit, but only for speech directly in front of the listener. Oticon defied conventional thinking about directionality and

noise reduction to create an innovative approach for handling multiple speakers in a noisy environment ¡ª the open sound

experience. Opn enhances speech of everyone in the conversation and gives the listener access to the 360¡ã soundscape.

Putting Opn to the test

Opn vs. Two Directionality Technologies

Independent researchers tested 25 subjects in a scenario that mimics

a real-life conversation among four friends in a noisy restaurant.1 Each

participant wore Oticon Opn 1 miniRITE with OpenSound Navigator? set

to the strongest noise reduction setting. The results obtained with Opn

were compared against solutions from two other major manufacturers¡¯

(Brand 1 and Brand 2) which use traditional directionality and narrow

directionality/beamforming, respectively.

Traditional

Directionality

Brand 1

Breakthrough technology ¨C breakthrough

research design

Narrow

Directionality

Brand 2

L

SP le

b

dB

75 h bab

c

e

e

Sp

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Noise sources: Fixed intensity 75dB SPL speech babble presented from

both sides (¡À 30?) and speech-shaped background noise from behind the

listener (180?).

Talker 3

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Talker 1

7

Spe 5dB

ech SPL

bab

ble

Talker 2

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Usually, speech understanding is tested with a single speaker positioned

right in front of the listener with noise presented from behind. However, this

artificial test situation doesn¡¯t accurately represent the challenges of a real-life

conversation. Researchers selected a more difficult speech-in-noise task2 to

simulate the noisy, challenging restaurant scenario.

OpenSound

Navigator?

Oticon

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Listener

Random order speech signals: Varying intensity, presented from the front

(0¡ã) and both sides (¡À60¡ã) of the listener

Speech Reception Threshold (SRT)-50: the lowest signal-to-noise

ratio (SNR) at which the listener can correctly identify 50% of

sentence-based key words, representing the limits of successful

participation in the conversation.

Speech-shaped background noise

75dB SPL

Comparing results across technologies

Performance for each subject was compared across all three hearing aid fittings. The lower, more negative the SRT-50, the better

the predicted ability to function in noise. It is generally assumed that a 1dB decrease in SRT-50, corresponds to a 10% improvement

in speech understanding.3

Noise louder

than speech

Speech louder

than noise

dB SNR

dB SNR

-10

-9

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

SRT-50

1

2

3

1dB improvement

~10% predicted increase in speech understanding

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Opn? outperforms traditional and narrow directionality

and provides best access to all participants in a conversation

This study demonstrates that Oticon¡¯s OpenSound Navigator provides overall

improvement in word recognition in noise when compared to directional and

narrow directionality/beamforming systems.

ILLUSTRATION 1:

OVERALL RESULTS

-8

Overall Improvement in Speech Understanding

ILLUSTRATION 2:

CENTER SPEAKER RESULTS

Best-in-class speech understanding from the center

-8

-6

dB SNR

-5

+11%*

word recognition score

+7%*

word recognition score

No significant

difference

-7

-6.3

-6

-5

-5.5

dB SNR

-7

-4

+20%*

word recognition score

-4.9

-5.0

-3.5

-3

-3

-5.2

-4

-2

-1

-2

0

*Predicted

-1

0

*Predicted

Traditional

ILLUSTRATION Directionality

3: Brand 1

Narrow

Directionality

Brand 2

LEFT & RIGHT SPEAKER RESULTS

-8

Traditional

Directionality

Brand 1

Narrow

Directionality

Brand 2

Best-in-class speech understanding from the sides

-7

OpenSound

Navigator

Oticon

+15%*

word recognition score

-6

-5.6

dB SNR

-5

Overall results: Combined results from all signal sources and averaged across

subjects yielded an SRT-50 of -6.3dB for Opn, which is significantly better than

Brand 1 and Brand 2 directional technologies. This correlates to a predicted

improvement in speech understanding of 11% vs. Brand 2 and of 18% vs. Brand 1.

OpenSound

Navigator

Oticon

-6.9

-5.7

-4

-3

-2

-1

Speech understanding from the sides: Opn outperformed both directional

technologies with an SRT 50 of -6.9dB and a predicted improvement in speech

understanding of 15%.

0

*Predicted

Traditional

Directionality

Brand 1

References

Beck DL, LeGoff N. Speech-in-noise test results for Oticon Opn. Hearing Review. 2017; 24(9):26-30.

1

H?rtech. Oldenburg Sentence Test (OLSA). Oldenburg, Germany: H?rtech. Available at:

2

Taylor B, Mueller HG. Fitting and Dispensing Hearing Aids. 2nd ed. San Diego: Plural Publishing; 2017.

3



Narrow

Directionality

Brand 2

OpenSound

Navigator

Oticon

14177 15555-10186/11.17

Speech understanding from the center: Opn and Brand 2 performed

equally well, both outperforming Brand 1. This correlates to an anticipated

20% improvement in word recognition compared to traditional directionality.

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