Hearing aid gain is capped by loudness discomfort before full audibility restoration is achieved.

Evidence

An extra gain of 100 % would have restored normal audibility, but was impossible to achieve due to loudness discomfort. Given the sloping hearing loss, an increase in amplification mainly resulted in an increased high-frequency gain and thus in an increase in audible bandwidth. NH subjects were tested at the same audibility levels. This was realized by first applying attenuation filters that mimicked the average audiogram of the HI subjects and then applying the same gains as described above. No other aspects of hearing loss were considered. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1743

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the loudness recruitment / dynamic range compression literature in hearing aid fitting — limited usable gain constrains audibility restoration.