Fig. 4.

Modification of the inclination of the eardrum within the ear canal. The anatomically normal position (Left). The same eardrum at 90° with a correspondingly enlarged ear canal (Center). The eardrum is also at 90°, but made smaller to fit in the normal ear canal (Right). (b) The middle ear pressure transfer function shows that the performance drops for the smaller eardrum. No loss occurs when the size of the eardrum is maintained. The advantage of inclination is that a given ear canal can fit a larger eardrum. The phase curves show little difference.