I can't offer any valuable advice, but I can relate to the idea and will be following this thread.

I was in the army in Vietnam and have had assorted exposures to loud sounds throughout my life (drag racing, rock n roll, motorcycles, etc). I noticed I have problems following conversations in crowded rooms. A few months ago I sent for a CD which was an example of how to mix audio and add FX for various environments. In some examples of "do this", "don't do this", I couldn't tell the difference.

So I'm pretty sure I have some low level of problem. The question is, can I do anything other than accept my limitations?

[Edit] P.S., Last fall, I went to the first ever reunion for my Vietnam Company. At one point, one guy asked, "How many of you have ringing in your ears?", almost everybody in the room raised their hands.

I recently suffered a punctured eardrum in a freak bicycle accident. (Bushes overhanging sidewalk, turned head to avoid eye injury from small sharp branches…) This totally sucked but forced me to learn what hearing impairment is about. So during my “down time” of several weeks, and while licking my wounds, I devised a test to keep tract of my progress. You can do something similar to try to correct your own sound perception discrepancy.
In Vegas, lay down a 1 kHz tone for about 10 seconds. You can use a 1 kHz beep and drag it out. Make several copies of it and velocity envelope them (without preserving pitch) to make them into other pure tones. 2k, 3k, 4k, 6k, 8k, 12k. You might have to render them in clever ways and velocity envelope them again to get them all. Or if you can get them from a keyboard or tone generator instead then you don’t have to do all this.
Once you have your tones you’ll be able to plot your hearing curve.
Next, find a small headphone amp and a graphic equalizer. (stereo) Go from the headphone out through the EQ and adjust it so that each tone sounds roughly the same volume. You might not hear 12k at all but it’s a horrible noise anyways. Also, each ear might be different, so plug one and test the other. The idea is to EQ only what YOU hear, and not what gets rendered out. 6-8k will be sounds like water spraying, crickets chirping, certain kinds of birds, and leaves crunching underfoot. During my injury period, I heard these things on one side and leaves sounded like munching cookies.
You can use this setup to watch movies as well. Hope it works.

Jack,
certainly some good ideas here BUT.....
A while ago we discovered that my wife is close to being clinically deaf. Not that she cannot hear but she has an extreme rolloff starting at around 2KHz which makes it difficult for her to comprehend speech, this isn't helped by her not having english as a first language.
Anyway in my discussion with the audiologist I learned that there's two parts to the problem. Firstly there's the ears ability to detect the sound and convert it to nerve impulses and secondly the ability of the brain to process the data. The danger is that when the ear stops sending a range of frequencies, over time the brain stops listening for them. So even if a hearing aid, whether it be a device as such or a pair of cans fed Eqed signals, can makeup for the losses in the ear, the brain may have just stopped processing that part of the spectrum.
Could I suggest you discuss all this with an expert. You may learn first that you really should be wearing a hearing aid all the time just to preserve what hearing you have. If he think cans and Eq will help get him to give you a response plot. You may find that conventional Eq is not enough for the task at hand, maybe he can suggest something suitable.
There's also an exercise technique which it's claimed can help restore hearing. The jury still seems to be out on whether it does any good or not but worth asking about, it's been a while since I had an update on its status.

Bob.

Thanks for the information and suggestions, everyone.

I'm seeing an audiologist next week and will take along your suggestions to talk over with him.

I'm not suffering panic at this point, but I do want to maximize what I have as long as possible. My impression is that methods of improving hearing have come a long way in the last 10-15 years, so I'm looking forward to seeing the audiologist and learning what can be done.

Jack