>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.

Yup, my dad used to have such, it's a glorified equilizer. And we even got a discount, second one was half price, so I treated him with full stereo. I just wish he'd have used it regularly and stuck it in fully - most of the time it was letting sound out on the side so it had feedback and he'd be beeping at around 2kHz. Everybody would be aware of that except him.

>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.

Now it's advanced towards a pitch bender. I like the way they think, it's a neat idea. I hope I won't be needing it. As Gregory Benford once wrote „deaf people come across as dumb because they do all kinds of funny things with their faces while straining to hear; blind people come across as wise because their faces don't move much“.