definitely helpful
I am not hard of hearing, so I can't speak to the usefulness of this device for those folks, but this device worked well in all the areas in which I tried it out.<br /><br />I wore it around a grocery store and out in the woods, and found that it gave me considerable control over volume and assisted in hearing certain things.<br /><br />In the store, I could easily get it loud enough to be uncomfortable, and could hear softer sounds amplified with greater clarity. The use of some form(s) of sound processing was obvious, and anyone used to the "breathing" of poorly adjusted audio compression will know what I mean.<br /><br />Again, not being impaired (I actually test about 10db better than average for my age, except at one narrow frequency band, despite years of loud music and guitar playing in my youth), the effects were more annoying than useful to me, but I can easily see that this could be quite handy for people with certain kinds of hearing problems.<br /><br />The processing did seem able to help separate near field conversation from background noise, especially in the woods.<br /><br />As a wireless headset for media playback, I was quite pleased with the quality of the sound. The included earbuds were comfortable (different sized fittings for the earbuds are included), and the sound quality quite good for this kind of headset. (I have been spoiled by recording studio quality headsets, and Koss Pro4AAs were my headset of choice even for casual listening for a long time.)<br /><br />The earbuds provided quite good sound, and I watched many, many hours of video from YouTube and Amazon without fatigue or discomfort. It was nice to wander around the living room and even the kitchen without losing any audio quality or volume.<br /><br />I had no problems with signal or linking (the wireless is Bluetooth), and connections to the bas unit were easy and clear.<br /><br />I could get quite used to this system. If you are in the market for something to use for wireless audio and audio assistance in conversation or public places, I would definitely give this a shot. I think it could be very useful.
Rating: 4 stars