Compression Headphone Study

August 11, 2025 updated by: Sonova AG

Using Headphone Presentation to Investigate Compression Strategy Modifications in Hearing Aids for Moderate-to-severe Hearing Loss

The stimuli consist of speech in quiet, speech in noise, reverberant speech, and music recorded with different hearing aid settings, post-processed for headphone presentation and incorporated in an online sound survey. Participants will receive tablets and headphones to conduct a sound quality rating at home. The survey will involve a training session and within-subject repeated measures. Stimuli presentation will be randomized by sound quality rating tool.

Study Overview

Status

Terminated

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

12

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Canada
    • Ontario
      • Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, L5L1J3
        • Sonova Innovation Centre Toronto

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 99 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adults (18-99 years) with ≥3 months hearing aid experience
  • binaural, symmetric, sensorineural N3 to N4 hearing loss
  • able to use Android interface and receive a video call on phone/computer
  • fluent in English

Exclusion Criteria:

  • children/teenagers
  • normal hearing or hearing loss exceeding N4 by 10dB
  • cannot wear over-ear headphones

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
  • Masking: Double

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Hearing aid 1 default amplification strategy
Hearing aid 1 default amplification strategy: A receiver-in-canal (RIC) hearing aid developed by the study sponsor used with the default settings as specified in the study sponsor's fitting software.
Device: Recording with hearing aid
Each participant will listen to sound samples via headphones. Sound samples have been recorded with a hearing aid that was set to each participant's individual hearing loss and different amplification strategies, and an unaided reference. Participants will be asked to rate different aspects of sound quality while listening to the different sound samples.
Experimental: Hearing aid 2
Hearing aid 2: A receiver-in-canal (RIC) hearing aid developed by the another hearing aid manufacturer used with the default settings as specified in the manufacturer's fitting software.
Device: Recording with hearing aid
Each participant will listen to sound samples via headphones. Sound samples have been recorded with a hearing aid that was set to each participant's individual hearing loss and different amplification strategies, and an unaided reference. Participants will be asked to rate different aspects of sound quality while listening to the different sound samples.
Experimental: Hearing aid 1 strategy 1
Hearing aid 1 strategy 1: A receiver-in-canal (RIC) hearing aid developed by the study sponsor used with a modified compression strategy that is expected to improve sound quality.
Device: Recording with hearing aid
Each participant will listen to sound samples via headphones. Sound samples have been recorded with a hearing aid that was set to each participant's individual hearing loss and different amplification strategies, and an unaided reference. Participants will be asked to rate different aspects of sound quality while listening to the different sound samples.
Experimental: Hearing aid 1 strategy 2
Hearing aid 1 strategy 2: A receiver-in-canal (RIC) hearing aid developed by the study sponsor used with a modified compression strategy that is expected to improve sound quality.
Device: Recording with hearing aid
Each participant will listen to sound samples via headphones. Sound samples have been recorded with a hearing aid that was set to each participant's individual hearing loss and different amplification strategies, and an unaided reference. Participants will be asked to rate different aspects of sound quality while listening to the different sound samples.
No Intervention: unaided
Unaided recording to be used for normalization of rating results.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Sound Quality Rating
Time Frame: 1 hour
Participants moved through a self-guided, double-blinded sound survey which presented sound samples of all hearing aid conditions (see Arms/Groups for conditions) and asked participants to rate the sound quality dimensions on a scale. The rating dimensions and scales were based on a sound quality rating guidance document by Delta Labs (Danmark) ranging from 0 to 100 with step sizes of 1 and descriptive markers at 0 (worst), 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 (best) depending on the dimension (Reverberation (only assessed for Speech in Quiet and Reverberant Speech), Sound Source Localization, Sound Source Separation, and Timbral Balance). Overall Preference was implemented as a ranking according to the 5-point Mean Opinion Score (bad (1), poor (2), fair (3), good (4), excellent (5); MOS, International Telecommunication Union, 1996).
1 hour

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sonova AG

Collaborators

Sonova Canada Inc.

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Jinyu Qian, PhD, Sonova Canada Inc.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

May 10, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

September 2, 2021

Study Completion (Actual)

September 2, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 4, 2021

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 11, 2021

First Posted (Actual)

May 12, 2021

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 13, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 11, 2025

Last Verified

April 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 365

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Hearing Loss

Clinical Trials on Recording with hearing aid

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Costa Rica

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe