Binaural VoiceStream Technology ® Intelligent binaural algorithms to improve speech understanding

These advances in hearing instrument development have led not only to the increasing miniaturization and bigger complexity of the hearing instruments, but have also ensured that end users are more satisfied with their instruments. This can be chronologically illustrated by the well-known MarkeTrak market analyses (Kochkin 2010). The number of binaural supply systems is also continuously rising (Kochkin 2009), so that the focus in hearing instrument research is moving towards binaural signal processing technologies. New approaches are to be expected. The introduction of the new Quest platform by Phonak extends the range of binaural algorithms. These algorithms support binaural hearing for hearing instrument users. The binaural algorithms offer the potential for the hearing instruments to solve the problems reported by hearing instruments (Kochkin 2010):