Hybrid cochlear implants for adults
Sometimes, hearing aids aren’t enough. Hybrid cochlear implants may help you hear better, which improves your ability to hear music, conversations and all the highs and lows of life.

What you'll find on this page
- Why high-frequency sounds are important.
- The benefits of hybrid cochlear hearing.
- Whether hybrid cochlear hearing may be able to help you.
Why high-frequency sounds matter
If you have high-frequency hearing loss, you may be able to hear some sounds, but not others.
High-frequency sounds include consonants, which help distinguish between words and detect emotion. Without them, words can merge, making what you hear jumbled and sometimes difficult to understand.
These sounds are important for understanding speech. Without them, it can be difficult to talk on the phone or hear higher pitch sounds like a bird singing or a child's voice.
And because high-frequency sounds often hold the emotion in a conversation or make a moment special, you may find you're missing out on so much.
Get back the sounds you're missing
Hybrid cochlear implants – also known as electro-acoustic hearing – may help if you have low-frequency hearing but miss high-frequency sounds.
This hearing solution combines hearing aid and cochlear implant technologies to enhance your hearing experience and provide access to the sounds you're missing.
How does it help?
Cochlear™ Hybrid™ Hearing is designed for those that need improvements in:1
hearing performance in quiet and noisy situations (“I avoid noisy, group settings because I know I won’t be able to follow the conversation”)
understanding speech (“It seems like people mumble all the time”)
sound quality (“I can hear, but I can’t understand, even with my hearing aids”)
music appreciation.
Do you qualify for hybrid cochlear implants?
If you experience ski-slope hearing – where you have normal to moderate low-frequency hearing loss, but severe to profound high-frequency hearing loss – Cochlear™ Nucleus® Hybrid™ Hearing may be a solution.
A hearing specialist will know if this solution may help you. In the meantime, take a short online quiz to help understand more about your hearing loss.
Take a hearing quiz
Find out if you may have hearing loss and discover treatment options that could help.
Find a hearing health professional near you
There are no clinics close to you.
You can search for clinics in a different location, or contact Cochlear to understand what the next steps for you would be.