Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Article (transcript of a continuing-education webinar)

The Telecoil: The Lonely Transducer that Can Be a Big Producer

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/valente-2013/ · record checked 9 October 2026

  • Valente M
  • AudiologyOnline (article 11911)

Independent (Michael Valente, professor and director of adult audiology at Washington University School of Medicine; published by AudiologyOnline, a commercial continuing-education site; the author declares no commercial interest in the manufacturers whose fitting software is shown)

Summary

An audiologist's course on how hearing aid telecoils are set up, with measured examples of default telecoil settings that are much quieter than the microphone setting.

Key findings

  • Reports wide variation between manufacturers in the default telecoil response: for some it matches the microphone response, for others it is much lower.
  • In one hearing aid the author measured, the telecoil was on average 16.4 dB softer than the microphone at 1,000, 1,600 and 2,500 Hz until it was reprogrammed, after which it was 5.2 dB louder, a 21 dB change made in the fitting software.
  • Notes that a telecoil in a radial rather than axial field gives about 6 dB less output (citing Preves 1996), that a vertical telecoil suits room loops and a horizontal one suits telephones, and that many makers mount it diagonally as a compromise.
  • Gives the view that most audiologists leave the telecoil at the manufacturer's default without measuring it, and suggests programming it to match the prescribed microphone response as a reasonable starting point, since the ideal telecoil response is not known.
  • Shows that fitting software differs in how far the telecoil can be shaped, from overall gain only to adjustment in many frequency bands.

Limits

A webinar transcript built on single-device examples and the author's own estimates of clinical practice, not a controlled study. Devices and software date from 2013. The measured study behind it is Putterman and Valente (2012), which covers one manufacturer's aids.

Read the original

www.audiologyonline.com/articles/telecoil-lonely-transducer-that-big-11911

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Cite this source

Valente M. The Telecoil: The Lonely Transducer that Can Be a Big Producer. AudiologyOnline (article 11911). 24 June 2013. https://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/telecoil-lonely-transducer-that-big-11911 (accessed 9 October 2026).

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