The arrangement of the speakers for the speech-in-noise testing is shown in figure 1. Both of the speech-in-noise tests were administered in a conference room (5.05 X 4.71 X 2.60 meters) with moderate reverberation (average reverberation time Rt60: 482 ms, measured for octave frequencies from 250 through 4000 Hz, under experimental conditions with 2 people in the room). Each subject was seated in the center of the room with an eight-speaker configuration for the presentation of the speech and noise stimuli. Speech will be presented from a point-source loudspeaker (Tannoy System 600, fused-concentric driver) at a 0º azimuth. Uncorrelated noise was delivered from the seven bipolar loudspeakers (Definitive Technologies BP-2X) spaced equally about the listener [approximately 25, 76, 128, 180, 232, 284, 335]. The use of bipolar loudspeakers allowed for a more diffuse source position in comparison to standard, front-firing loudspeakers. All speakers were equidistant (1.5m) from the subject's head. Speech and noise levels were controlled using a Pentium IV class computer and an eight-channel level controller (Ashly VCM-88).