I haven't stayed current with hearing loss literature for decades, but the contention when i was studying auditory processing was that, absent noise-induced hearing loss, hearing loss with age is not expected. The evidence for this expectation was adduced from measurements among populations relatively free of noise exposure. Unfortunately, most of us are exposed to sufficient levels of noise to induce some hearing loss. The classic case is a notch around 4 kHz. Firearms are a major culprit.
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