Many people talking at once, cant hear or understand.

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Thanks for all the answers so far.

Normally i dont have any problems, say if its quiet place and just one and one, not matter how fast or slow they talk.

But when im in a room with certain amount of people having conversations, im hearing all the voices at once, it becomes one giant mess inside my head.

I have the same problem. But I also have trouble understanding what just one person is saying, if they don't project their voice and enunciate very clearly, even family members whose voices I am very familiar with.

There isn't much I can do about it, other than asking people to repeat themselves. I just try to avoid situations where it might become a problem. I don't like being with a group of people who just chatter away at each other like I'm not there, and I look at that as a fundamental incompatibility between me and them...probably not unlike the way some deaf people don't especially enjoy hanging out with hearing people.

What's helped me is realizing that it's an auditory processing problem and it has nothing to do with my personality. Growing up I constantly had other people project on me that I was "shy" or deliberately ignoring them, and it confused me because I didn't understand what was actually going on. Now I know.

I'm not sure, but I think I also experience something similar to this. I have a normal hearing range as far as I know but often cannot pick up what people are saying when there are several people talking nearby even though people the same distance away seem to be able to. Not all the time though, mainly if there are other voices which are a similar loudness nearby.

I also "switch out" of conversations, like Eloa said, but I am not sure if this is an ASD-related thing for me (I am not diagnosed [yet?]).

I am not able to understand what anyone says when three or more people are talking at once.
I also can't understand people when they're talking fast, or have certain accents (particularly Indian, as well as several middle-eastern and African accents).

Have not found a workaround yet.

OP you are not alone at all.
Me to.

Try and get written instructions when at all possible.

Ever since i was really young I have had issues processing what people say. The most acute instances of this always occur when there are more than three voices or five random auditory stimuli. I did, however, find that after listening to complex music, eg high classical or really obnoxious techno remixes, I am able to comprehend better what people are sayingand most importantly what is being said to me.

As for the excuses I give when I haven't any clue what was said, I generally give a line about having been to too many concerts and have destroyed my hearing. The trouble comes in that i am sensitive to auditory stimuli and i can hear the music that is being played down the block at a perfectly reasonable volume while I am inside.

I know this too well, the cocktail party effect is just not very efficient.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect

It's Easy for me , Since I'am in a Family that is mostly Females I had to learn this Skill since a Young age , I never noticed this skill until 6th Grade during an argument between Stubborn Classmates who won't listen to reason without a Teacher in the room and the argument getting more heated and Violent, it seemed like an argument between my sisters during a date night for my parents , I just had to: Focus! Listen! Separate! Decipher! they all spoke at once and the numbers of the speakers grow and decreased randomly, it was between: 3-7 speakers , it was about a match or something like that, but threats were being fired and my friends were involved so I had to take action, I listened and deciphered the argument , When suddenly I noticed someone was lying, his Argument was not clicking with me. So I revealed his lie and I solved the problem.
The point being it's not about Skill. It's about Knowing the limit of Speakers you can understand.

I tend to have a hard time concentrating on a single voice when there is background noise or voices. I hate crowded areas for more than one reason, but this happens to be one of them. I also tend to get sidetracked and lost in thought and have to ask the person to repeat what they said so I can better digest the conversation.