I have a hearing loss that has been tied to my military service and the VA supplies me with hearing aids.
Periodically VA audiologists give me a hearing test that tells a computer the volumes and frequencies where I can and can’t hear sounds and they give me hearing aids that deal with that loss pattern.
The latest set was the fourth set I’ve gotten from the VA. The first three helped a lot and I couldn’t have functioned without them, but there’s something different about the latest set.
The first sets were programmed to amplify the frequencies that the wearer couldn’t hear. It helped but not completely – some frequencies were undetectable no matter how loud.
The latest version doesn’t just amplify the frequencies I can’t hear – it changes them into something I might be able to hear, based on my hearing range.

With my old sets, I couldn’t distinguish between “sense” and “fence.”
With the new ones for some speakers “sense” sounds a bit like “shensh” and “fence” sounds a bit like “vensh” after some sounds have been bent to match my hearing range.
It took some adjustment but now I’ve adapted and I’m pleased with the new aids.

I realize that I’m not hearing what some speakers are saying – I’m hearing what a computer thinks I’ll be able to understand- , but I can understand more sentences than I could before.

I thought of Jack Nicholson’s classic “You can’t handle the truth.”
Well, I really can’t can I? I need to have it adjusted to meet my needs.

The Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic also came to mind – people were seeing shadows of truth projected on the wall of the Cave because only a few could handle the real thing.
Is a shadow better than nothing?
At one point I didn’t think so, but now I think shadows make a lot of shensh.