Solutions / Audiometers / How to perform the acceptable noise level (ANL) test with Equinox Evo
How to perform the acceptable noise level (ANL) test with Equinox Evo

How to perform the acceptable noise level (ANL) test with Equinox Evo

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Equinox Evo Support

Launch the Equinox Suite from Noah, OtoAccess® or standalone.

Click on the AUD tab on the upper right-hand side of the screen. Perform audiometry before the ANL test as this determines the start level for the test.
Click on Menu, Tests and then select ANL.
Once in the ANL test screen, you will see that there are four different conditions which you can choose to measure (Table 1).
Table 1: The four conditions of the ANL test.
It is not essential to perform MCL High and MCL Low for the ANL test, but these are also good indicators of the patient’s comfortable hearing range.
Click on the MCL High icon and click play. This will loop your speech material.
Increase and decrease the stimulus intensity to match the patient’s loudest MCL.

For this test, the patient is instructed to increase the loudness of the speech until it is too loud.

For this test, the patient is instructed to decrease the loudness of speech until it is too low. In this example, the MCL High is 65 dB and the MCL Low is 45 dB. Thus, as a midpoint between the MCL High and MCL Low, the predicted MCL Real is 55 dB.

For this test, the patient is instructed to increase or decrease the loudness of speech until it is at a comfortable listening level.

For this test, the patient is instructed to turn up the background noise level until it is too loud. Then turn down the background noise level until the speech material is very clear. Finally, turn up the background noise level until the patient reaches the maximum level that they would be willing to put up with for a long time while following the speech material. In this example, the patient’s ANL value is 10 dB and the patient’s performance prediction with amplification is 39%.

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