TV audio improvement for a slightly deaf person

[Dave Plowman (News)]

All you need to do is listen to the same voice on TV and radio. TV are far more interested in looks than what it sounds like - even with a news presenter.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Must be one of your famed amplifiers if it is generating sounds on those frequencies from speech.

[Josh Nack]

That's just one of the sources of sound from the TV it can use.

which meant he had to disconnect the

Why does he want to run them both at once ?

[Steve Walker]

House of Lords style speaker in the back of the seat?

SteveW

[Bill]

In message , Josh Nack writes

I'm not sure, but the instructions say to use toslink if possible. His wife's hearing is normal, his is not, so I assume they want a soundbar plus this device for him.

I now think, after another call from him that the other toslink device is a Sony Soundbase, which is also pcm over toslink, so swapping them over should work, but doesn't.

Not sure why he can't use the headphone or line out jack or what his TV has.

Anyway, I've been persuaded to drive over and give a verdict tomorrow before he returns it to the supplier.

[Martin Brown]

His point still stands though that for someone with hearing difficulties you want something approximating the telephone line passband 300-3kHz for the best chance of them understanding the spoken word.

TV programs do have a lot of high and low frequency components for explosions and background music which kills speech intelligibility for anyone whose hearing is marginal using an aid.

Subtitles if available make a big difference (as does some basic lip reading training if the speaker on the TV is facing the camera).

[DerbyBorn]

Are the "tone" controls set to suit her hearing? Does she need the Treble turned up and the Bass down? ?Many people apply the wrong instinct on this and turn up the Bass

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Depends what you mean by passband. Ruler flat from 300 - 3k then dropping sharply outside that would be OK. But practical sound systems ain't designed like that.

Background noise on drama etc a totally different issue.

My SIL needs those. Very distracting for others. I'd rather experiment with headphones.

[Bill]

In message , Bill writes

So, re the Sony SRS-LSR100, I've been to look at it.

We got it working well, but he is going to try to send it back.

He is quite deaf, and suffers from tinnitus in the worst ear. His wife's hearing is normal. His TV setup is basically as follows:

LG TV that just shows the pictures.

Panasonic thing that records, and receives pictures and audio from satellite. The pictures go from the Panasonic to the TV via hdmi and the audio from the Panasonic goes by toslink to the sound bar, which is the preferred sound source that they always use.

If he turns on the TV sound and the soundbar sound, there is an echo.

With the setup as is, with just soundbar audio, there is a very slight sync issue between the audio and the picture. This is small enough that neither his wife or he had noticed it, but they agreed it was there once pointed out. I just hope that, having seen this, it doesn't come to annoy them.

Without any way of splitting the toslink feed from the Panasonic, we had to take sound to the Sony device from the toslink output on the TV. This output had a large delay - the echo noticed earlier between the TV and the Panasonic audio. This made the whole setup unusable.

The decision was made to return the Sony because of this sync problem and hope that the supplier will accept it back. It is likely that some sort of toslink splitter might have solved this, but delivery of the one he ordered at the same time as the Sony is predicted as being weeks away.

My impression of the Sony SRS-LSR100 was that it did work well for its intended main use in bringing sensibly contoured sound close to someone with hearing difficulties and with a basic TV. Its remote control features seem limited and he and I thought that having yet another remote control was just a step too far. It is very expensive. We didn't manage to get the analogue audio input working, but that was probably down to his general setup and exhaustion.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The TV set itself should compensate for any delays. Provided both sound and vision from an external source like a PVR are fed through it. Taking the sound direct from the PVR etc is likely to introduce a sync error.

A sound bar should be exactly in sync with the built in TV speakers. Although it wouldn't surprise me if some ain't.

BTW, two TVs showing the same prog can be out of sync.

[WeeBob]

A bluetooth audio transmitter in the back of the TV and a bluetooth receiver close to where she sits.

The transmitter should be cheapish, lots on ebay for less than a tenner.

The receiver could be a mobile phone. Or again lots of cheap speakers out there.

2p

[Max Demian]

Sounds like a good idea. Does the TV delay the vision when Bluetooth is activated, to ensure lip-sync?

[Max Demian]

Oh, and what happens to the sound from the TV speakers that other people in the room will be using? Can they really avoid the echo effect with the Bluetooth speaker, especially as the latency would be partly determined by the speaker?

(Personally I favour FM or UHF for wireless subsidiary sound as there is no latency (apart from the speed of light and sound).)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think it is imnportant to understand that HDMI inputs to a TV will result in delayed sound *and* vision.

The ONLY way to get audio in sync is to take it FROM the TV sound output. Not 'before it goes in'

[whisky-dave]

Has anyone noticed that the SD & HD channels are out of sync by about 3-4 words. when I change channels from SD to HD I seem to hear the same 4 words I heard on SD being repeated when I switch to HD.

I get the same here too, I keep getting your shit has been shovled were it belongs, and you couldn't lie your way out of a wet paper bag.

But I've narrowed it down to a nut lose on the keyboard, a few 1000s of miles away so I can't really do much about it.

[Max Demian]

Err.. Who mentioned HDMI (or any) *inputs* to the TV?

[The Natural Philosopher]

At some pint someonemen tioned taling sound from an STB and that was 'out of sync' with the TV picture...

[Chris Hogg]

Yup, and a few words missed when you switch the other way. I presume it takes longer to decode HD signals compared to analogue, so HD lags behind SD.

[David Woolley]

As I pointed out before hearing aids should be providing the optimum correction for this already. The only thing left to correct would be the frequency response of the TV itself.

[David Woolley]

Digital hearing aids will limit you to something like this, anyway, although some more up market newer ones have wider ranges.

(Those for age related mild to moderate losses tend to have an acousitc bypass for lower frequencies, but the person in question is supposedly relatively young, and may not have typical deafness.)