Evaluation of a multi-channel algorithm for reducing transient sounds

Abstract

Objective: The objective was to evaluate and select appropriate parameters for a multi-channel transient reduction (MCTR) algorithm for detecting and attenuating transient sounds in speech.

Design: In each trial, the same sentence was played twice. A transient sound was presented in both sentences, but its level varied across the two depending on whether or not it had been processed by the MCTR and on the “strength” of the processing. The participant indicated their preference for which one was better and by how much in terms of the balance between the annoyance produced by the transient and the audibility of the transient (they were told that the transient should still be audible).

Study sample: Twenty English-speaking participants were tested, 10 with normal hearing and 10 with mild-to-moderate hearing-impairment. Frequency-dependent linear amplification was provided for the latter.

Results: The results for both participant groups indicated that sounds processed using the MCTR were preferred over the unprocessed sounds. For the hearing-impaired participants, the medium and strong settings of the MCTR were preferred over the weak setting.

Conclusions: The medium and strong settings of the MCTR reduced the annoyance produced by the transients while maintaining their audibility.

Keywords:

• Hearing aid
• transient noise reduction
• multi-channel analysis
• acoustic annoyance
• preference judgement

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

We thank Aleksander Sęk for helping with the computer software for performing paired comparisons. We thank three reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK) [grant number RG78536].