Loudness discomfort level(LDL) is measured in order to obtain data that is necessary for deciding the saturation sound pressure level(SSPL) of a hearing aid, and in audiometric procedure it is used as the loudness limit of masking noise or test signals to be delivered and as a method of loudness recruitment measurement. Unless the SSPL is properly prescribed, the wearer of a hearing aid, either gives up wearing it or reduces the volume of his aid to the extent that is impossible to discriminate speech. Hence it is crutial that the proper method be used in establishing the SSPL of hearing aids if one should expect the maximum benefit from his hearing aids. The purpose of present study is to obtain information regarding the appropriateness of using pure tones or speech signals in deciding the SSPL of hearing aids with LDLs for the population of presbycusic sensorineural hearing loss group for whom the only treatment for their hearing impairment would be proper prescription of hearing aids. Fifteen subjects or 22 ears with sensorineural hearing loss and of from 50 to 88 years of age were tested with pure tone and speech LDL measurements and the following results were obtained. 1) LDLs increased as frequency increased. And dynamic ranges, on the other hand, decreased as frequency increased since all of the subjects exhibited descending configurations on their audiograms. 2) The lowest LDL frequency was 1,000Hz of 64.0 percent, followed by 500-1,000Hz, 500Hz, 1,000-2,000Hz and 2,000Hz, indicating that the majority of the cases exhibited notch at the low and/or middle frequencies. 3) 73.0 percent of the cases showed LDL differences of 15 dB or more between the adjacent octave frequencies, suggesting the necessity of pure tone LDL measurement of SSPL prescription. 4) 36.3 percent of the cases exhibited second LDL notches but of less than 10dB between the adjacent octave frequencies. 5) The two speech LDLs which were obtained before and after the puretone LDLs were 103.6 dB SPL and 105.5dB SPL, respectively, indicating that the test retest reliability was good(t=1.9 ; df=21 ; p>0.05). 6) Speech LDLs(103.6 and 105.5 dB SPL) of present study were higher than the speech LDLs of cochler loss(90-100dB SPL) and was lower than the speech LDLs of neural or conductive loss(higher than 120dB SPL) reported in the literature. 7) The average of the total speech LDLs(104.6dB SPL) was 6.9dB greater than the average of pure tone LDLs(97.7 dB SPL) at the speech frequencies and was statistically significant(t=4.34 ; df=21 ; p<0.05). This suggests that there is no need to obtain speech LDLs for the prescription of hearing aids. 8) Closest pure tone LDL to speech LDL was 3,000 Hz(t=0.9 ; df=21 ; p>0.05). According to the above data, it was evident that while the measurement of speech LDLs is unnecessary, it is extremely important to measure the pure tone LDLs in SSPL decision. The SSPL in this population also need to be suppressed at the lower frequencies, as a result of which it will help prevent the effect of upward spread of masking which brings adverse effect against speech discrimination in noise.