In some ways they're good. I can hear sounds well, and sometimes notice sounds that other people don't. But as far as filtering out something specific from a jumble of noises, they fail horribly.. I can't hear people over a surrounding crowd well at all.. At work i pick up enough to get by, since it's usually not too crowded and people are generally spread out enough... so that it doesn't usually create a big people-talking-all-around-you noise cloud. But, even when there isn't a lot of surrounding noise, if someone has a really deep voice, is speaking softly or in a whisper, a certain accent, or whatever, their words seem to all flow together and i can only pick out a few. I can hear very well that there is sound coming out of their mouth, but it turns into a meaningless flow of speech-noise i can't understand. There are a few people i work with, even a couple managers, who i just kind of nod along and say "uhhh huhhh..." to, and try to avoid talking to if i can, because i usually can't understand them well when they speak to me. If i'm around someone more i can get more used to understanding how they speak, though. I can usually understand my family well, even with my grandparents who have southern accents, because i hear them a lot. I think everyone experiences this to some degree with people who have heavy foreign accents or if noise gets to a certain level, but i seem to have more trouble with it than others i know and it kinda causes a bunch of extra problems and confusion for me.