Sound Waves

It was bound to happen--and it has. After President Clinton announced his hearing loss, it triggered a wave of interest in how Americans--particularly graying baby boomers--are adapting to their inability to hear as well as they once did.

Indeed, given that the boomers were the first generation raised on raucous rock 'n' roll--not to mention their sheer size as a generation--Clinton's peers are poised to drum up significant sales for the hearing-aid industry. "We've seen tremendous growth in hearing-aid sales since the president acquired his hearing aids," says Carole Rogin, president of the Hearing Industries Association in Alexandria, Virginia.

The good news for the more than 25 million afflicted Americans is that today's hearing aids are technologically and cosmetically superior to the veritable clunkers of old. All the better to listen to that raucous rock 'n' roll, we suppose.

This article was originally published in the May 1998 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Sound Waves.