ChannelFree™ DSP
Proprietary to Bernafon, ChannelFree™ digital signal processing assesses incoming signals at phonemic speed; even the shortest speech unit (the phoneme) is amplified precisely according to its particular intensity.
Speech consists of phonemes that vary significantly in duration and loudness. Look at the Latin proverb ”in vino veritas“ (as depicted in the flash movie). The phonemes vary dramatically in loudness: the vowel /e/ is much louder (in the movie, indicated by the long vertical lines) than the soft consonant /t/ (indicated by the short vertical lines).
Phonemic speed
It is these soft phonemes that the hearing impaired often miss, resulting in speech misunderstandings. To avoid this, the soft /t/ requires more amplification than the vowel /e/. At a rate of 20,000 times per second, ChannelFree™ signal processing first analyzes each phoneme and then amplifies it as is appropriate. Amplification must be applied at such a rate to preserve the phonemic differences, which are vital for speech intelligibility.
Natural sound quality
ChannelFree™ processing provides clear and natural sound quality. In fact, ChannelFree™ processing has shown to have the highest rated sound quality for speech and music when compared to hearing instruments at a similar price point (Dillon et al 2003 Hearing Journal. 56(4):30 – 40).