Acta Scientific Otolaryngology Volume 3 Issue 5 May 2021 Quality of Music Amplified by Hearing Aids Archisman Shubhadarshan 1 and Sushmit Mishra 2 * 1 Clinical Supervisor, Department of Audiology, International Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences and Research, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India 2 Associate Professor, Department of Audiology, International Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences and Research, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India *Corresponding Author: Sushmit Mishra, Associate Professor, Department of Audiology, International Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences and Research, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Research Article Received: April 08, 2021 Published: April 20, 2021 © All rights are reserved by Archisman Shubhadarshan and Sushmit Mishra. Abstract Hearing aids are known to produce deleterious effect on music perception. This study explored how music perception through hearing aids can be improved. The recorded samples were rated subjectively by three groups of adult listeners. Group 1 consisted of 15 non-musicians, Group 2 included 15 professional singers and Group 3 comprised of 10 instrumentalists. The digital hearing aids were programmed for a flat 50 dB HL hearing loss. In this experiment, four-channelled (HA A) and fifteen- channelled (HA B) hearing aids were used. The knee-points of the hearing aids were set at default setting and at the highest possible setting. The noise reduction system and feedback management system were either turned off or on. A total of seven music samples processed through hearing aids were recorded along with the original sample using the same set up. The subjects rated all these music samples on a five-point perceptual rating scale that was relevant to music. Furthermore, the music samples were evaluated objectively by using the PRAAT software. In every parameter of perceptual analysis, it was observed that the highest rating was given to the original music sample followed by the music sample recorded through HA B with knee-point high, signal processing off and HA A with knee-point high, with signal processing off, respectively. The objective analysis results were similar to subjective analysis. This study demonstrated that a multi-channel hearing aid with knee-point set high and signal processing turned off provided the best representation of original music sample which is in agreement with a previous study. Keywords: Hearing Aid; Music; Spectral Analysis; Hearing Loss; Music Perception Introduction Music is an important and enjoyable aspect of life for people of different age groups. Perception is the process of identifying and interpreting sensory information. When an individual who enjoys listening to music becomes hearing impaired, one may expect a significant deleterious effect on perception of music and the sat- isfaction derived from it. Hearing aid technology, from its incep- tion, is primarily designed to optimise speech perception. The op- timisation of speech perception by hearing aids has been achieved both by the use of appropriate signal processing technology and by the use of prescriptive formula to determine the gain provided by the hearing aid [1]. However, these preferred selection of gain and signal processing strategies for speech may not be appropriate for perception of music [2]. Hearing-impaired listeners perform poorly compared to normally hearing listeners on perceptual tasks related to music perception such as pitch discrimination, melodic intona- Citation: Archisman Shubhadarshan and Sushmit Mishra. “Quality of Music Amplified by Hearing Aids". Acta Scientific Otolaryngology 3.5 (2021): 45-52.