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I agree with the statement that hearing aids are not a one-size-fits-all solution. I tried several brands/types and they all failed for me the same way. Each provider told me that my hearing isn't bad enough yet for me to tolerate what their products did to me, not for me, and that I would be back when that changed. I've talked to many others since then who share my experience.

My hearing loss is probably damage from noise. It isn't clear where it came from. The symptoms for me is picking out consonants spoken by women in noisy environments. Occasionally, I can have trouble with men's voices in the same environment but mostly I can hear men and detect what they are saying, even when the background noise is significant. When the environment is quiet and the person speaking is fairly close (not much more than social distancing measurement), I have only an occasional word that I don't pick up in that condition.

The reason that I share this is my observation that many people that I know, perhaps 75% of them with hearing aides, don't use them. They probably have hearing loss like mine and are finding, as I did, that the specific appliance that they bought is, at best, a limited solution. The hearing aides that I tried amplified the background noise and not the speaker's voice range. I could hear women no more clearly with any of the settings that they gave me on the VERY expensive models that they allowed me to test. I have several friends with hearing aides that do use them and they seem to have some of the same problems that I do in the same environments with their appliances working.

I'm not suggesting that hearing aides don't work. I'm sure that they do. But I urge you to make sure that whatever decision you make actually meets your father's specific needs. Rather than focusing on the loss itself, I suggest trying to match the device to his symptoms. The bluetooth interface that many have for links to things like a phone is valuable, I believe. I know a couple of guys who really like that. But consider testing the device that they are offering in the specific circumstances that either you or your father has noticed the greatest need before you buy. Just my $.02 worth.