Speech in Wind

Wind noise is somewhat of a paradox for hearing aid users – an idiosyncrasy of the physics of a microphone. You rarely, if ever, hear people who don’t wear hearing aids complain about wind noise. Microphones are designed to pick up sound and are therefore a key component for every hearing aid. They bring many advantages and the introduction of two microphones into the same hearing aid has been a key innovation. At the same time, when in wind, a microphone is susceptible to mistaking air passing over its diaphragm for real sound. Digital hearing aid technology has allowed significant advances in bringing comfort to hearing aid users, reducing the annoyance of wind noise through processing capabilities. MarkeTrak1 data shows that between 2004 and 2010, consumer satisfaction regarding wind noise annoyance improved 7% points. At the same time it still had the lowest satisfaction rating of all sound quality criteria (Figure 1). Surprisingly it even scored worse than both noisy situations and feedback. Whilst comfort has been the focus in recent times, the topic of intelligibility has been given little attention. With an increasing number of active hearing aid users, intelligibility will be an increasingly important concern during hearing aid selection as many outdoor situations involve communication. Introduction