A multi-center, double blind clinical trial comparing benefit from three commonly used hearing aid circuits.

Objective: Although numerous studies have demonstrated that hearing aids provide significant benefit, carefully controlled, multi-center clinical trials have not been conducted. A multi-center clinical trial was conducted to compare the efficacy of three commonly used hearing aid circuits: peak clipping, compression limiting, and wide dynamic range compression.

Design: Patients (N = 360) with bilateral, sensorineural hearing loss were studied using a double blind, three-period, three-treatment crossover design.