Next try a conversation, preferably with your partner or a close relative or friend, still in a quiet room, and face to face so that you can lipread as you listen. (Editor: – so glad he said this – it’s crucial to use all engines.  You are probably a good lipreader without knowing it so continue to watch faces.  It’s a good “active listening” strategy, anyway.) Now is the time to turn up the volume a notch, and do not be afrraid to ask for a “tuning transmission” whilst you adjust the volume control. (Editor: If you are using Blamey & Saunders Hearing aids you won’t need to do this with the volume control, but you can actually use this technique  during the hearing aid set up stage when you personalise the aids  – it’s a pretty good way to set the volume actually, and is one of the benefits of setting up your hearing aids at home).  Do not turn it up more than necessary to hear the speakers’s voice at a comfortable level.  (Editor: If you do this during the programming, then this will ensure that your hearing aids are audible and comfortable.  You have already shaped the frequency output when you balance the chimes.  This would be just about impossible with a compression based hearing aid).  There is a natural tendency at this point to gaze abstractedly into the middle distance and concentrate upon the “hearing sense”, “Listening like mad”.   Get a hold on this; relax; watch the speakers’s face and lips, and hear what you hear, without struggling to listen.  The speaker might get to0ngue tied at this point, too; there is nothing, but nothing in the world so calculated to drive every thought out of one’s head as somebody saying “talk to me”.  If this happens you are stymied – try again after tea.  (Strangely, reading aloud is not a good substitute  – the intonation, or the “music of the speech “, is quite different from plain old talking).