New high-end instrument from Oticon

February 2010 – Oticon’s leadership in premium hearing care enforced by the launch of Oticon Agil, a next generation wireless high-end hearing solution Oticon introduces the most advanced signal processing concept ever with the launch of Oticon Agil, a new second-generation wireless Premium hearing instrument family. The new product family defines a new approach to hearing care by taking speech understanding in noise to a new level using significantly reduced cognitive efforts.

The global launch of Agil in early March 2010 will be the most comprehensive introduction from Oticon to date, addressing the widest range of hearing losses and style preferences in one product brand and offering an extensive range of premium features and end-user benefits.

With Oticon Agil, Oticon makes another significant leap in its pursuit to create audiology that complies with the natural processing of the human auditory system (brain and ears). The acknowledged concept of Oticon’s wireless products to preserve naturally occurring spatial cues, which conventional hearing aids risk neglecting, has now been enhanced with an equally groundbreaking concept called Speech Guard. The compelling fact about Speech Guard is that it preserves speech cues better than any other known technology in any situation. Signal fidelity (sound quality) is of the essence, and conventional compression systems and the use of frequency-lowering strategies are examples of manipulation that distorts and corrupts signal fidelity. Speech Guard is based on a whole new wireless platform with twice the calculation power of Oticon EPOQ and a new processing kernel that is unique to Oticon Agil. With this scale of processing power, a whole new type of signal processing becomes available where signal fidelity (sound quality) is preserved to an extent never seen before. Researchers have long been aware that preserving as much of the original signal as possible is key to reducing the listening effort and thus revolutionizing speech intelligibility. Apart from speech understanding, researchers identify listening effort as the next important area of improvement for the hearing impaired. Listening effort relates directly to the cognitive competence, and hence the ability to be socially active. In essence, this is what Oticon Agil brings within reach. It takes speech understanding to a new level and at the same time takes the hard work out of listening and understanding. In Oticon Agil, significant enhancements of the Spatial Sound concept are also found with the introduction of Spatial Sound 2.0. With the addition of a spatial noise management system, Oticon has increased product performance in the spatial domain, confirming its leadership by utilizing wireless technology to create true end-user value. This is also confirmed when it comes to streaming of audio with two new audio features specifically directed at creating a natural listening experience. Oticon Agil is 100% Connect-Line compatible. Oticon Agil covers hearing losses of up to 110 dB. From the time of launch, the family will be available in BTE/BTE Power, RITE/RITE Power, CIC/CIC Power and a choice of other custom styles as well as fitting options.

The “jewel in the crown” is the new mini RITE style, which is 30% smaller than Epoq, fully wireless and invisible behind the ear. It comes in three output levels from mild to Power and naturally encompasses all the new audiological advances. About the name Agil comes from the Latin word agilis or agile in English. Defined as flexible, energetic, smart, capable and active, agile also refers to many other positive personal skills.  The key outcome of the advanced audiology in Oticon Agil is more mental energy to enable the user to take an active part and be more agile in conversations.

The family will be released in two price points, Oticon Agil Pro and Oticon Agil, covering a wide range of needs in the market for premium hearing care.

“With Oticon Agil, we have virtually improved all the advanced features already available in Oticon Epoq. Our almost three years of everyday experience with wireless audiology and connectivity has given us valuable insights enabling us to bring forward a significantly better hearing solution.”

Tags: Hearing Aid, Hearing Aids, Oticon, Oticon Agil