Well, it varies in level and type of deafness. I had rapid degenerative hearing loss due to my mitochondrial myopathy. It was audioneural hearing loss. But I can tell you that with proper tunings and with the more advanced Cochlear Implants (the manufacture of my implants is Med-el) it can provide a lot of hearing restored.Some people may say that it doesn't sound the same way normal people here, but I've found that my right implant is much better than the left one, most likely because my right ear was marginally better than my left ear, which made the transition easier for that ear.It's basically a process that takes a long time where you have to 'train your brain' and get used to the way things sound, but it still requires quite a few follow-ups in order to go in for 're-tuning'. The re-tuning is quite tricky, as it requires a response from me, as to what tones would sound normal, they do it this with several pitches and frequencies along 12 different pitches or something like that. My mom is also deaf and she made the point to me that people with cochlear implants, music sounds like 'donald duck singing in Chinese'. I know from personal experience that this is completely false. Maybe they didn't have the right tuning or didn't give the implant enough time before making that statement. But I find that everything is much more clearer to me than it has ever been. With two of these implants (which is what I recommend, rather than just having one side implanted), the sound is more 'full'. I had the left one implanted in summer 2008 and the right one implanted in summer 2009. With both of these implants, I find that my life has gotten much easier. I'm able to carry on conversations without being restricted to pen and paper or laptop. Given quite a few recent ideas along deaf culture, I find that they'll say a lot of stuff to convince you that Cochlear implants are a bad thing. But to be honest, I'd rather be able to integrate into society as my own person, rather than be dependent on someone all the time to help me out.