60 to recover the loss of their spatial hearing. one such study showed that dichotic test scores for the left ear improved with daily training. related research into the plasticity of white-matter (see lövdén et al. for example) suggests some recovery may be possible. music training leads to superior understanding of speech in noise across age groups and musical experience protects against age-related degradation in neural timing. unlike speech (fast temporal information), music (pitch information) is primarily processed by areas of the brain in the right hemisphere. given that it seems likely that the right ear advantage (rea) for speech is present from birth, it would follow that a left ear advantage for music is also present from birth and that moc efferent inhibition (of the right ear) plays a similar role in creating this advantage. does greater exposure to music increase conscious control of cochlear gain and inhibition? further research is needed to explore the apparent ability of music to promote an enhanced capability of speech in noise recognition. bilateral digital hearing aids do not preserve localization cues (see, for example, van den bogaert et al., 2006) this means that audiologists when fitting hearing aids to patients (with a mild to moderate age related loss) risk negatively impacting their spatial hearing capability. with those patients who feel that their lack of understanding of speech in background noise is their primary hearing difficulty then hearing aids may simply make their problem even worse - their spatial hearing gain will be reduced by in the region of 10 db. although further research is needed, there is a growing number of studies which have shown that open-fit hearing aids are better able to preserve localisation cues (see, for example, alworth 2011)