Wind noise reduction is a topic of ongoing research and development for hearing aids and cochlear implants. The purposes of this study were to examine spectral characteristics of wind noise generated by directional (DIR) and omnidirectional (OMNI) microphones on different styles of hearing aids and to derive wind noise reduction strategies. Three digital hearing aids (BTE, ITE, and ITC) were fitted to Knowles Electronic Manikin for Acoustic Research. They were programmed to have linear amplification and matching frequency responses between the DIR and OMNI modes. Flow noise recordings were made from 0° to 360° azimuths at flow velocities of 4.5, 9.0, and 13.5 m/s in a quiet wind tunnel. Noise levels were analyzed in one-third octave bands from 100 to 8000 Hz. Comparison of wind noise revealed that DIR generally produced higher noise levels than OMNI for all hearing aids, but it could result in lower levels than OMNI at some frequencies and head angles. Wind noise reduction algorithms can be designed to detect noise levels of DIR and OMNI outputs in each frequency channel, remove the constraint to switch to OMNI in low-frequency channel(s) only, and adopt the microphone mode with lower noise levels to take advantage of the microphone differences.
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June 2012
June 14 2012
Comparisons of spectral characteristics of wind noise between omnidirectional and directional microphones
King Chung
King Chung
a)
Department of Communicative Disorders and Allied Health,
Northern Illinois University
, DeKalb, Illinois 60115
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a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: kchung@niu.edu
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131, 4508–4517 (2012)
Article history
Received:
December 30 2011
Accepted:
March 03 2012
Citation
King Chung; Comparisons of spectral characteristics of wind noise between omnidirectional and directional microphones. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 1 June 2012; 131 (6): 4508–4517. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3699216
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