DIGITAL hearing aids can do wonders for faded hearing. But other devices can help, too, as audio technology adds new options to help people converse at a noisy restaurant, or talk quietly with a pharmacist at a crowded drugstore counter.

Richard Einhorn, a composer who suddenly lost much of his hearing two years ago, relies on his hearing aid, of course, for general use. But when he is meeting friends at a busy coffee shop — where his hearing aid is not always good at distinguishing their voices amid the clatter — he removes it. He has a better solution.

He pops on a pair of in-ear earphones and snaps a directional mike on his iPhone, which has an app to amplify and process sound.

“I put the iPhone on the table,” he said. “I point it at whoever’s talking, and I can have conversations with them. Soon we forget the iPhone is sitting there.”