Not at all! I fully agree with you!

With all this technology Siemens and all the others are lightyears away from what a well functioning hearing does. A handful of hundreds of millions of neurons, perfectly matched to do what's needed, over millions of years of "development" is much more powerful than the best alien hamster technology. Unfortunately, I must say, for the people with a hearing problem...

Nevertheless, the modern digital hearing aids are indeed better than the old analog ones. Ask someone, who has tested it. All the efforts done in the algorithms seem to copy the capability of well functioning ear, namely to suppress "noise" during the occurence of speach. For this, first the existence of speach is to be detected, from a frequency analysis I think. Then, the noise appearing in different frequency bands must be suppressed. And finally, there must be an overall limiting of final sound pressure, in order not to hurt the proud owner of this goldworthy crutch...

I know from a professional musician in my circle of friends, who is rather deaf (nearly totally deaf if you ask me!) and additionally suffers from tinitus. He got a hearing aid from a specialist and reports on a huge improvement compared to everything else on the market (woodoo puppets included). He can even perform life music.

Kai