Phil, it's really really good that you found aids that worked for you.  So 
many people have trouble finding the right aid, and then getting it 
programmed correctly.  Some of this is usually the inexperience or lack of 
care by the audiologist, or something pretending to be an audiologist lol.
But, it's also, especially in the case of seniors, the lack of willingness 
to either accept that they have a hearig loss, and accept the new sound they 
hear with the hearing aids.  Also, many seniors don't want to bother the 
audiologist so they never do get them set up properly and don't go back as 
many times as is needed to get them right.
I have been wearing high powered hearing aids since I was about 6 and ahalf 
years old.  so lets say 25 years or so.  They've really come a long way 
obviously in that time.  The newest pair I have are Phonac and are the 
highest power that are offered in that series.  They were around 2200 bucks 
a piece and are a couple models down from the most expensive in that line.
I have severe hearing loss, around 60 to 65 per cent in each ear give or 
take a few db at various frequencies...I hear the most in the high mids. 
Anyway, with the aids, my hearing is considered pretty average across the 
natural hearing spectrum, which is nice.
Mine don't have direct bluetooth connectivity, however, I do use a device 
called a com pilot which wirelessly conects to both aids, and has bluetooth 
in/out for cell phone use, or whatever you might want to use via bluetooth, 
as well as a direct audio connection via a 3.5MM jack...so I use it for the 
computer all the time to hear jaws.
It does require me to wear a loop around my neck with a small dongle looking 
thing hanging on my chest, but it does the trick very nicely...I also didn't 
have 4500 bucks a piece to spend on the models that had direct bluetooth 
connectivity with a smaller audio input device etc.
Anyway, I tend to function normally from a hearing perspective, and I can 
honestly say that these newest digital hearing aids I have are far supperior 
to my last digital pair, and certainly better at allot of things over the 
analogue type...although, the analogue aids did have better sound quality 
especially for music.  They did not deal well with allot of noise or kaotic 
noise conditions like a bar or busy mall or something.
These new ones have many different simaltanious processing channels shall we 
say, that allow the aid to pick up the noise and sort of create definition 
and pull closer sound sources out, if that's what you want...IE for 
conversation say across the table from someone at a noisy bar.
Mine have two mikes each, one directional mike, and one omni-directional 
mike.  These can be set individually, or blended or set up however the user 
wants.
For instance, I have a directional mike only setting, with a feature that is 
enhanced for speech frequencies so that if I am in a very noisy environment 
and trying to talk to someone, I can turn on that program, and most of the 
other sound will go away and I will hear only what I am facing towards and 
very little else.
Also, it took me literally 6 or 7 revisits to the audiologist to get these 
ones just right, and I've been wearing aids for 25 years so I'm no newbie. 
However, I know precisely what I need and want to hear, and that isn't 
always what comes in the presets.  I have been very lucky to have a couple 
extremely dedicated audiologists who listen to what I have to say and try to 
make it happen.  Also, there is different, and quite complex software for 
each one of these various brands and models of hearing aids.  A modern 
audiologist has to understand the software and how to dig down into various 
settings and change them to come up with the best sound for the client.
When I say I want no compression, it means I want no compression and 
sometimes that is a tall order with some of the new stuff where the 
compression is nearly impossible to turn off unless you know how to dig down 
into the software and get rid of it.
Also, the sound booth graph, which is actually fed into the hearing aid 
programming software, is seldom going to give you precisely what you need to 
hear.  That is only a general starting point and will need to be heavily 
tweaked to get the right sound.  And, of course, if you are wearing hearing 
aids for the first time, it does take probably 2 or 3 weeks to get used to 
the sound of a hearing aid and the feel of it, if you have to go with Behind 
the ear style with a mold in your ear.
Many people are actually quite turned off by being able to hear everything 
again, after not hearing allot of information for a long time and not 
knowing it.
anyway, these things aren't the terrible clunky squealing anoying pieces of 
crap our grampa had 30 years ago lol.  Yeah, if you get a 500 dollar hearing 
aid from costco and have some untrained person try to set them up, they're 
going to squeal and sound like crap and be utterly useless.

P.S. Phil, remember, other people will hear what is being fed into your 
hearing aids in a quiet environment, so be careful with the iron maden and 
slayer and so on...they will be heard similar to hearing music from someone 
with a set of head phones sitting next to you lol.

73
Colin, V A6BKX