Hearing loss (HL) has multifaceted negative consequences for individuals of all age groups. Despite individual fitting based on clinical assessment, consequent usage of hearing aids (HAs) as a remedy is often discouraged due to unsatisfactory HA performance. Consequently, the methodological complexity in the development of HA algorithms has been increased by employing virtual acoustic environments, allowing simulation of indoor scenarios with plausible room acoustics. Inspired by the research question of how to make such environments accessible for HA users while maintaining complete signal control, a novel concept addressing combined perception via HAs and residual hearing is proposed. The specific system implementations employ a master HA and research HAs for aided signal provision, and loudspeaker-based spatial audio methods for external sound field reproduction. Selected aspects of the system and its performance were analysed in various objective evaluations. Perceptual investigations involving adults with normal hearing revealed that the characteristics of the used research HAs primarily affect sound localisation performance, while still allowing comparable egocentric auditory distance estimates as observed in loudspeaker-based reproduction. To demonstrate the applicability of the system, school-age children with HL fitted with research HAs were tested for speech-in-noise perception in a virtual classroom and showed similar speech reception thresholds as a comparison group using commercial HAs, supporting the validity of the HA simulation. The inability to perform spatial unmasking of speech compared to their peers with normal hearing implies that reverberation times above 0.4 s have extensive disruptive effects on spatial processing in children with HL. Collectively, the results from evaluation and application indicate that the proposed systems satisfy core criteria towards their use in HA research.

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