Oravox


History

	Abstract By Georges Quellet Hearing impairment affects approximately 10% of the world population, at various degrees. It can range from the smallest 1% loss up to 100% total loss of hearing. Each year more and more people are suffering from this handicap.
	History I have a lifelong love of electronics and acoustics, and have previously devoted my life to my own Company, STELLAVOX. The Company manufactured and distributed professional tape recorders for Radio/TV/Disc/Film and Instrumentation. Following my retirement and already suffering from severe hearing problems, I found myself more and more dissatisfied with conventional hearing aids. I had tried many such devices but decided that I should design my own according to professional standards and following only the strictest scientific principles.
	Motivations Many reasons favour what became a new concept. The availability of current hearing aids is handicapped by the high technology and expensive price, which limits seriously the number of the sufferers who could benefit from high quality hearing correction aids. This limitation is all the more regrettable as hearing impairment often means loss of social contact and many other daily pleasures like enjoying music, sounds in the nature, etc...
	Explanations My new design addresses three main sections: Ease of use Professional audio electronics Highest acoustical quality, all competitively priced.
	Main comment Ease of use is essential, specially for children and old people. Equally important, the specifications of the amplifier, compressor and limiter must approach the standards of the recording industry. The same holds true for the acoustical qualities.
	Ergonomy Why should you be asked to pay more for a commercial hearing aid than for a top of the range portable computer! The answer is, you should not! Apart from high profit and distribution cost, current aids insist on extreme miniaturisation. This alone impairs seriously the quality of sound correction. In full production, the RONDO hearing aid which are already manufactured and tested as pre-serials could be available to millions of sufferers at a fraction of the cost of current devices. This huge saving would also apply to distribution, maintenance and battery costs.
	Electronic specifications These must be very strictly controlled in order to finely compensate both for the hearing deficiency, and any unwanted loudness or acoustic feedback. With my long experience in electronics and acoustics, I have been able to design a nearly perfect circuit. It has also been much simplified by using only very few (~60) discrete components.
	Acoustical specifications As already briefly stated, the acoustics can be correct only if the physical laws are respected, This is not the case with the highly miniaturised hearing aids currently available. My basic principle is to measure the hearing loss by an audiogram using the same earphone that is used in the manufacture of the RONDO hearing aid. This avoids the interpretation necessary with available hearing aids and the need for adjustments to be made by the conventional audiologists. Such adjustments are, in any case, never perfect and require extensive consultations and expensive specialised consulting rooms.
	The hearing aid RONDO The all new RONDO requires no fastidious adjustment once calibration is made using the inexpensive OTOSCOPE, or the professional Audiometer OTOGRAPH, created by ORAVOX. The audiogram data are e-mailed or faxed to the manufacturer who will make a pair of RONDOs, tuned according to the specific personal data, which are then shipped to the end user. He or she can then IMMEDIATELY enjoy correct hearing.
	Conclusions The new concept achieves a not expensive high fidelity hearing aid. This is based on a simple design, on accurate audiograms and on HI-FI speakers together with true directional microphones. It affords many advantages, which are summarized on this site. More detailed informations are available from my laboratory. With a much lower price than that of the conventional hearing aids, the RONDO by ORAVOX will help many more people around the world to enjoy better human communication, more natural sounds and experience again the pleasure of music.