Patent ID: 8284971

Claim:
A hearing assistance device, comprising: an input transducer; an output transducer; an audio amplifier having a gain, a gain control input, an input coupled to the input transducer and an output coupled to the output transducer, the audio amplifier generating an audio output signal on its output based on the audio amplifier gain; and a gain control circuit having an input coupled to the audio amplifier output and an output coupled to the audio amplifier gain control input, the gain control circuit having a gain measurement circuit having an input coupled to the audio amplifier output, an output, and a control input, the gain measurement circuit adapted to generate an attenuated output signal based on the audio amplifier gain and a control signal generator having a first input coupled to the audio amplifier output, a second input coupled to the gain measurement circuit output, a third input coupled to a threshold signal reference, and an output coupled to the audio amplifier gain control input and the gain measurement circuit control input, the control signal generator adapted to generate and output a gain control signal based on a threshold signal, the audio output signal and the attenuated output signal.