Cochlear implant maker says hi-fi bionic ear will help the deaf hear music

• Cochlear implant celebrates 30th anniversary
• "Hi-fi" bionic ear will help deaf hear music
• Also enables users to discern specific voices

THREE decades ago Prof Graeme Clark made it possible for the deaf to hear. Now he is working on giving them music.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the world's first cochlear implant, Prof Clark unveiled a prototype of the next-generation "hi-fi" bionic ear he is now developing at La Trobe University.

The device will see the number of electrodes feeding information to the ear jump from 22 to 50, allowing users to discern music as well as specific voices in noisy rooms.

Prof Clark celebrated yesterday with Christine Zygmunt, whose father, Rod Saunders, the professor helped become the world's first bionic ear recipient.

"It was the most complex package of electronics ever put into a patient and I was told I could have killed my patient, so it was traumatic," Prof Clark said.

"When we did work it out almost exactly 30 years ago, I asked my audiologist to test to see if he could hear real speech, and when he did I stepped quietly into the room next door and burst into tears of joy."