Users of a single-channel intracochlear implant (CI, n = 10) (3M/House), a single-channel vibrotactile aid (V, n = 8) (Minivib 3/Special Instrument Ab) and acoustic hearing aids (HA, n = 9) were tested. The comparison was made after training and a minimum of 11 months' use of the devices. All subjects were considered profoundly deaf, but the HA group had some residual hearing. The HA group achieved the best mean test scores in all the tests given. The difference between the CI group and V group increased, in favour to the CI users, as the auditory task was changed from the level of simple signal analysis to the level of linguistic interpretation.