Do you sometimes have trouble understanding other people?  One of the problems may be deposits of old wax in the ears.  When you clean with Q-tips, you remove wax from only the very front of the ear, and you most likely push some of the wax into more inaccessible parts of the ear canal.

There is a safer, more thorough, painless and effective ear cleaning procedure that anyone that hasn't had ear surgery can do.  The wax is drawn out by a barely noticeable suction-like effect through the use of bee wax candles.