Best of Hearing Aids for deaf Audiophiles? Huh???

Mejames, I hear you...pun intended! I find that I can follow ANY sound in a recorded mix, be it a microphone opening on the control board, or even a door closing in the studio. But I do sometimes have trouble following an individual conversation with a lot of background noise, especially if the background noise consists of multiple conversations going on at once (party or nightclub setting).

I believe that hearing aides are non-linear. They emphasize the human speech vocal range especially between 1 and 2 kHz. Please correct me if this last statement is in error, though.

Today, I found the following bit of information stored and almost forgotten on my hard drive:

Background Noises Can Scramble the Brain

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (United Press International via COMTEX 10/03/2004) -- U.S. researchers said background noises actually may scramble brain activity as well as make conversations more difficult.

The discovery could explain why even perfectly loud speech can be difficult to understand in a noisy room, University of Florida researchers said.

The researchers studied how alert rats' brain cells responded to specific sounds while one of three standardized noises played in the background. They discovered that brain activity actually decreased in the presence of background noise.

Background noise did not simply cover up sounds, they said. It interfered with the brain's ability to process or interpret information about a sound, even though the sound was heard. Essentially, they said, the brain could not understand what the ear was telling it.

The phenomenon could play a role in an auditory processing disorder first noticed in children in the 1970s. The lack of coordination between the ear and brain that characterizes the disorder is thought to be widespread, although it is difficult to diagnose.

The findings could influence the design of hearing devices, MP3 music players and virtually any audio transmission technology, the researchers said.