Hearing status was assessed by means of audiometric pure-tone and speech recognition testing in a group of previous hearing aid users. Normal middle ear function was verified by means of immittance measures. All subjects exhibited absence of significant air-bone gap at any frequency (<10 dB) and normal tympanograms defined as compensated static admittance between 0.25 and 2.5 mmho measured from the positive tail with tympanometric peak pressure between -150 and +100 daPa. All subjects were service-connected veterans who are eligible for care and amplification through the VA Audiology service. All subjects were previous wearers of binaural hearing aids, with a minimum daily usage requirement of 4 hours/day. All subjects were previous users of output compression hearing aids from the same manufacturer.