Frye FONIX 7000 - Manual (Page 70)

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FONIX 7000 Hearing Aid Analyzer
3.3.3 Behind-The-Ear (BTE) Aids
1. Insert the coupler microphone into the HA-2 2-cc coupler.
2. Couple the aid to the HA-2 coupler using the ear-level adapter. There should
be 0.4 inches (10 mm) of tubing between the nub of the ear-level adapter
and the nub of the coupler adapter. See Figure 3.3.1-C.
3. Place the microphone of the hearing aid at the reference point in the cham-
ber, as shown in Figure 3.3.3.
4. Close the lid and test as desired.
Figure 3.3.3 — Behind-the-Ear Aid with Ear-level Adapter
3.3.4 Open-Ear Hearing Aids
“Open-ear” style hearing aids have boomed in popularity over the past couple
of years. Unfortunately, the ANSI standards have not yet caught up with them.
At the moment, there is no standardized method of performing a coupler mea-
surement on an open-ear style hearing aid. Hearing aid manufacturers have
independently developed different mechanisms for attaching an open-ear hear-
ing aid to an HA-1 or HA-2 coupler. One such device, pictured in Figure 3.3.4A,
is attached to the speaker unit of the open-ear hearing aid and to the tubing of
an HA-2 coupler. Other connecting devices consist of a plate that attaches to an
HA-1 coupler.
To perform a coupler measurement to the ANSI S3.22 standard, we recommend
using Fun-Tak to connect the speaker unit of the open-ear hearing aid to an
HA-1 coupler, as pictured in Figure 3.3.4B. We believe that the HA-1 coupler is
better than the HA-2 coupler for open-ear hearing aids because, unlike the BTE
aids for which the HA-2 was designed, open-ear hearing aids are not attached to
an ear mold.