In my case, distortion was greater with increasing loudness. To the point that at first testing my wrs was something like 30%@60db, 60%@80db and 40%@90db. I forgot the exact numbers.
However, after this long training (both passive when just streaming to both ears and active when I stream only into my bad ear and I’m highly focused - learning German vocab), I don’t have such sharp fall anymore.
And in some situations incresing the volume really helps with comprehension. Not always though.
Sound is still distorted but it doesn’t affect my comprehension as much as at the beginning of this new aids. Before this new aids I actually didn’t know/perceive that sound is distorted, since it was so low and useless anyway.
Which aids? Stick to the top manufacturers (phonak/unitron, oticon, resound, starkey and you’ll be fine). I’m reluctant about widex since it seems they do some things differently and following best fitting practices (namely rem based live speech mapping) might not yield the best results. However, my first/previous aid was widex, since that was the least horrible one, when every fitter only did what manufacturers propose, and not by following best practices.
Also, all but widex have accepted a new programming device which can be easily obtained on eBay for example. Check diy subforum for more details.
In quiet, all those brands, all their models (top and bottom ones), if properly fitted give the same result. Whoever tells you otherwise, lies.
Aids have limits. External microphones have limits. Depending on your loss and brain, you can get better results with external mic (and cheapest version of aids) than with top aids alone. And none of them will return your hearing to normal levels/remove distortion, but that part you already know.
No aids give real possibility for customers to really tweak them.
Yes, we can increase loudness, or maybe increase/decrease bass/treble, maybe mute mics and such for some situations but for proper changes that become new defaults, you need a fitter or go DIY route (like adding custom program, or changing the directionality of the mics in program x, changing the compression and so on).
More important than aid is to find a fitter who really knows and understands what they’re doing. Amount of incompetent sellers is huge.
Keep repeating - if they don’t provide value, you don’t pay them. So, best approach is to assume they are bad and let them convince you otherwise, than assuming they’re experts and believe whatever they say because huge chance is that you’ll get poor and expensive service.
That being said, I wouldn’t focus on diy now, but on finding the best possible fitter which ideally will be open that you spare him of appointments and just tweak some minor stuff alone while keeping him in the loop.
But most important is that they know how to properly fit your aids.
Oh yeah, brands are generally divided per which phone you use. All work with iphones without intermediary devices but only phonak/unitron work with all androids without intermediary devices. Work means being able to stream phone calls and media. Apps for remote control work in all combinations.
Some from the first group will support some new android phones as well, and those from the second group will have issues with some iphone models.
You did yourself huge favour by coming here before getting aids. 
But also, be aware that not even I who write a lot, cannot condense hundreds of hours spend on digging through stuff to figure things out - in a few posts. So, be ready to dig in, learn. This forum provides a great baseline. But be aware it’s huge and knowledge you need to really understand your loss and aid capabilities is huge, so it takes time. If you feel masochistic, you can start by reading through my posts 
That’s why starting with a great fitter is important and why great fitters are worth their weight in gold.
You aren’t supposed to dig so deeply, but unfortunately since so many of them focus on poor practice and own profit only, we have to become little experts in order to be able to sift through them and find the best one. And then we’ll probably be hooked on it and will want to dig in it ourselves
But it isn’t needed and shouldn’t be needed.
It’s sad that we cannot trust them without grilling them first, but that’s the world we live in - papers saying someone is expert are mostly worthless. And also, tons of reviews are useless, if only thing they say is ‘they’re nice’.
If you haven’t already, I suggest getting some basics through these two sources (this is less intense than digging through my posts)
best practices summarised by dr cliff
https://blog.valuehearing.com.au/news/must-hearing-aid-features
https://blog.valuehearing.com.au/news/do-i-really-need-expensive-hearing-aid
And they have article about listening in noise, also recommended to read.
Both sources have youtube channel if you like that media instead.
But those tests are important! Tonal audiogram is just one piece of cake but actually pretty useless for understanding the loss and your needs.
Yeah it can say - you lack low/high frequency, you need more/less amplification but that’s about it.
Wrs tells us if aids will work for you and what roughly can you expect from them. If your wrs says 70%, that means no aids in the world can give you 100. So you’re doomed.
Snr will tell us if you need more help in noise than aids are able to provide eg if you’d benefit from external mics (eg if snr is higher than 7-10, since limit of aids in ideal condition is around 9-10). Or if even they aren’t enough (they do up to 15 ideally, so if you need even more, yeah, you’re doomed).
But ‘doomed’ does not mean you won’t hear. It just means ‘there is no tech that can give you option to hear without straining so hard’. Because normal hearing person does not think about listening per se, does not spend extreme amount of energy to comprehend what is spoken.
Doomed means it won’t be easy and it probably will be hard. That means lip reading, subtitles, and whatever you can get in order to make it a bit easier. Doomed means listening in complex environments will exhaust you. But preparing yourself, taking breaks, will help with coping.
But yes, doomed means you’ll have to find a bunch of coping mechanisms unlike normal hearing people or those with high wrs (90+) and low snr (less than 5).
In that sense if you’re doomed, that means you’re going to think more about those coping methods and preparing yourself for listening than other people will.
But it’s doable.
I’m among doomed ones. Understanding limitations helped me to figure out coping mechanisms.
I started writing ‘but that’s not drug for hearing loss’ then it hit me 
), would my hearing went through the drop it did in last few years.