Multimedia sound processing for people with hearing impairment

Even though hearing aids offer advantages in most situations, hearing aid users often complain about a bad sound quality when listening to music via hearing aids. A reason is that the processing of hearing aids might be accurate, but the bandwidth and sound quality is limited due to the size of the devices. HiFi audio equipment on the other hand offers an excellent sound quality, but the sound is often described as muffled by hearing impaired listeners.

azonoAudio is a plugin for computers, which processes sound similar to a hearing aid. It has the aim that the user will hear more details with the existing audio equipment. The advantage of this approach is that with a high-quality audio equipment, a high bandwidth and sound quality can be achieved.

The focus of this project is to enhance music, nevertheless users report an overall less listening effort when watching movies or listening to speech. azonoAudio uses a multiband dynamic range compression which can be adjusted by the user in predefined schemes. The schemes were designed to cover various hearing losses and listening preferences.

In conjunction with the application EqualizerAPO, a system-wide real-time processing is possible. This means that all sounds played back at your computer are enhanced, independent of the application used. Once set up, EqualizerAPO with azonoAudio will run in the background of your computer and no further user inputs are necessary.

Look in the provided installation manual to set up azonoAudio for your system and adjust it for your preferences. Please be aware that azonoAudio will reduce the volume of your system to avoid distortions. Therefore, it is recommended to use azonoAudio with playback equipment that can provide enough amplification, e.g. by using a headphone amplifier or HiFi speakers.

Your feedback is valuable to improve the project! If you have any suggestions or need support, you are welcomed to contact: [email protected]

azonoAudio was tested on Windows 10 (32 bit and 64 bit) machines only.

azonoAudio is free to use and is provided 'as it is'. No warranty is provided, use at own risk!