The prospective, matched-pair study comparing users of the Clarion system and the Nucleus system seems to indicate that the patients using the Clarion system are obtaining open-set speech understanding at a faster rate than Nucleus patients. The sample size in this study is very small at present, but with increasing numbers of Clarion patients, we will carry on with this study. Further, it remains to be seen whether or not the observed advantage will continue for the Clarion users in the longer term.