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Select the ear to serve as the reference ear, typically the ear with the
better hearing sensitivity. This ear will receive the tone at a fixed hearing
level.
•
Select ABLB from the More Test Menu.
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Set the level of the tone for each channel to 20 dB above the threshold of
each corresponding ear.
•
The tone will automatically alternate from Channel 1 when the interrupt
function in channel 1 is in the on position or manually, by pressing and
holding the presentation bar in channel 1.
•
The tone alternates at the rate of 400 msec on, 400 msec off followed by
Channel 2 at 400 msec on, 400 msec off.
•
Keeping the level fixed in the reference ear, vary the hearing level of the
tone presented to the test ear. Record the level at which the patient judges
both of the signals to be of equal loudness.
•
Repeat the above procedure increasing the hearing level of the reference
ear by 20 dB each time until a level of 80 or 90 dB is reached. Identify
the dB HL of the tone necessary to “balance” in loudness the tone in the
reference ear at each level. This procedure is followed for the each
frequency to be balance tested.
•
To increase the test reliability, the patient should be given several trials
to judge whether a variable tone is “softer,” “equal to,” or “louder” than
the tone in the reference ear.