HELLO,
Looking for help much appreciated.
i have signia prompt p hearing aid for my father, we have just recently bought w found it is not amplifying tv sound?
so basically to generalize how do we select hearing aid for human and tv sound also.
and where can we get information on this.
I wear a different brand of hearing aid but many brands offer what’s called a “TV Streamer.” The streamer takes audio input from the TV and sends it directly to the listener’s hearing aids. It involves additional expense to purchase the streamer but if you can afford it and it’s offered for your make and model of hearing aid, it has several decided advantages.
A main advantage for the aid listener is the pure audio from the TV is directly reproduced in the listener’s ears. Room noises and reverberations of the TV sound in the room are greatly reduced. The user can control the amount of streaming vs. the amount of surrounding sound he/she hears from within the room via the external mics on the HA bodies. Another advantage for the HA listener and normal-hearing people in the room is that the TV audio can be split, so some goes to the normal TV speakers whereas a separate channel goes to the HA listener’s ears via the streamer. This allows the normal hearing room listeners to adjust the room speakers to a volume more to their own liking; same for the stream going to the HA listener. In my case, the audio came out of the TV and went to an amplifier via a TOSLINK digital audio cable. I bought a powered TOSLINK splitter on Amazon and some additional TOSLINK cable so one branch from the splitter goes to my TV Streamer, the other branch goes to the amplifier same as the original single output cable. My adventures in setting up my streamer are described in the following thread: Does It Make Much Difference What Type of Audio Output Is Used for TV Streaming? - Analog vs. Coaxial vs. TOSLINK S/PDIF? Other folks on the forum have had similar experiences. Most people love the streamer and think it’s worth the money and effort to set it up, especially if there are other people who want to listen to the TV at the same time.
Perhaps someone can weigh in on Signia hearing aids. It should be possible with a reasonable seating arrangement and good room audio characteristics to get decent TV sound direct to your father’s HA’s without investing in a streamer. For me, though, I do find speech decidedly clearer to understand from the TV when using a streamer as opposed to listening to TV sound directly with some of it bouncing around the room. Does the TV audio sound great and crystal clear to normal hearing folks, too?
The Signia Prompt P is part of Signia’s Lotus line so it won’t have a lot of the fancy features spoken about on the forum. 1) Did you buy from somebody that can adjust it? If so, return to them and share your father’s issue. 2) If not and your on your own, I’d try turning up the volume on the hearing aids. The aids should amplify TV sound as well as regular speech. TV is often hard to hear even for normal hearing people.
Theres seem to be some problem about information provided to us by hearing aid professional, this was first time we were buying hearing aid without much prior knowledge.
So i am taking up with hearing aid professional who offerd signia P hearing aid.
I would like to know aboyut when it comes to television that what are the options? IS the TV streamer only the option.
I have gone through all hearing aids provided by Siemens just from price perspective and found that they have wide variety starting from low price goes to thousand.
I also noted that The one with TV streamer is exorbitant price may be in dollers around 1000 or more
So my question is what about all the hearing aids below this price do they amplyfy TV sound? How do we can check in product data sheet ? Are we looking at certain frequency response suitability ? IS it about number of channels?
Can you Please help, as the product info of siemens product does not talk about it , and i could not see machine suitability w.r.t frequency range?
I think that MDB hit the nail on the head. If you bought the hearing aids through a hearing care provider, hopefully that person or company could advise you on how to set up the hearing aids to listen to TV or perhaps even create a specific program for TV listening. Have you tried the Signia website support for the Prompt P? Sometimes it helps to mention what country you are in as there might be a forum member who happens to be in the same country and can advise you where to best get help (admittedly not too likely but you never know).
I found the following description of possibilities for using hearing aids with a TV. Most of it is high-tech and perhaps beyond the capabilities of basic hearing aids.
One possibility might be wired (or wireless) headphones worn over the hearing aids if the TV speakers and the room acoustics are not good for direct listening to the sound from the TV.
Another possibility that might involve extra expense is that since Signia Prompt P hearing aids are equipped with telecoil is to set up telecoil transmission from your father’s TV - as I originally outlined for Bluetooth-like technology, that might provide pure audio transmission directly to your father’s hearing aids (abbreviated on this forum as “HA’s”) and avoid problems with the quality of the TV speaker or room acoustics.
Here is an old (2015) possibly out-of-date overview of ways to improve TV viewing intended to SELL stuff. The telecoil option is mentioned towards the end and the cost of an assistive telecoil device may be more than you paid for the Signia HA’s for your father, unfortunately. The last suggestion is for a soundbar for the TV to improved the quality of audio output.
Another web page suggested that if you got the HA’s through a hearing care professional and wanted to try any assistive device is to ask for a trial rental option to see if the device actually works before buying it outright and ask to have the rental cost deducted from the purchase cost of the assistive device.
Lastly, undoubtedly involving extra expense, under number 7 on the following product description, it says that the battery doors of Signia Prompt P hearing aids can be changed out and the hearing aid device fitted with an audio shoe that allows remote transmission from a remote microphone. If a distant microphone can work to transmit sound to the HA’s, a similar wireless transmission ought to be able to be set up from the TV. (see #7 down the brochure page)
The brochure also mentions switching hearing aid programs by pressing buttons on the device. Hopefully, your father’s HA’s came with a user guide (in the U.S. HA’s are classified as “medical devices” and there are requirements for providing information with the physical devices when sold). You might want to look in the user manual and see what programs are provided usually by default and how the user tells what program for the HA’s they have active (usually by beeping tones the user hears in the ear when the program-changing button is pressed). The manual also says that one of the programs allows listening to be focused in the forward direction. That program, if it’s available in the HA’s as received, might be the best program for your father to use when facing the TV.
P.S. I can’t find a user manual for the Signia Prompt P online but if when the user is listening via a particular program in the HA’s there is an option for varying treble and bass tones, that sometimes helps with speech clarity. In difficult listening situations there is often bass noise or reverberations. Sometimes increasing treble volume slightly and decreasing bass volume helps speech understanding. The voices heard may sound a bit unnaturally of higher frequency, “tinnier,” i.e., more metallic, but the volume of confusing noise can be slightly reduced and the volume of higher pitch sounds from which our brains often get important speech recognition cues, can be relatively increased. One has to look for the way to reset the basic audio settings for the HA to their normal values, too, as after adjusting for a specific situation, you don’t want to continue listening to the rest of the world in an “altered state.” A good hearing care professional should educate you and your father on the best way to use your HA’s and what all the possibilities are.
P.P.S. The following Healthy Hearing webpage (a link from the one referenced above) has a good run-down of features to expect in advanced and basic hearing aids - a pretty good overview of 2020 technology, I think:
Thank you for your time. I had sent a query to Siemen and looking for information from them.
The truth is this hearing aid signia prompt P is not amplifying TV sound, but they works best for human sound.
But they have not clearly indicated in there website about it that it can not amplify the TV sound.
On talking with another Hearing aid professional i found that amplifying TV sound is not on priority when company design device, I think it must be involved with cost why its not in priority.
I bought Signia P hearing aid for 28 K Indian rupees a pair. , on discussion with other hearing aid professional they said that the model(i dont know) but a single hearing aid which cost 30 k INR ( 60 k A par) will provide a TV amplification sound.
But they are just mouth words based on experience, it cant be checked in data sheet or anyhing like that…
My options are changed to this 60 k pair probably 16 channels… and based on experience level of hearing aid professional.
So any one of you can suggest which are siemens models at lower price range can be used wfor TV sound.
help much appreciated.
I’m no audio expert but sound is sound. There is nothing special about TV sound. It’s the quality of reproduction of the sound from the TV and the acoustics of the room that are most important.
The other thing about TV is that many programs and movies come with “sound effects” that you don’t have to deal with in normal person-to-person conversation, e.g., the background noise and music in a movie, the live (or canned) audience reaction in a TV show, etc.
There is actually a critical listening distance. The closer that your father sits to the TV the more direct sound your father hears and the less reverberations. Simply because of physical distance from a sound source, the quality of sound decays the further away you are from that sound source because the relatively weaker the direct sound is in volume and the relatively stronger the reverberations from other parts of the room are that come to join the sound to your ear at the greater distance you are from the source.
Some TV setups have multiple speakers. For reasons of “dimensionality,” the speech, which may be a separate audio track can be sent to several speakers. Much of the speech usually comes out of a middle front speaker and I believe in TV’s with multiple speaker options, there may be an option to direct speech primarily or exclusively to the front center speaker channel at the cost of possible stereo or higher dimensional sound effects (I vaguely remember trying this before I got the TV streamer-but my memory may be wrong).
Here is a U.S. Consumer Reports article that in the beginning deals with some of the TV tuning options. Perhaps your father’s TV has some of these options and it can help improve the sound that comes out of a TV.
P.S. My hearing aids are ReSound Quattro’s, issued in late 2018. They are premium hearing aids and we have a high-quality Sony TV set. But that still does not cure problems with TV sound. The TV is in a very large room with a lot of bare wall and the sound comes out of multiple speakers with the “environmental noise” of whatever I’m listening to coming from speakers all around the room. So I know first hand that getting a more premium hearing aid does not solve the TV listening problem. Perhaps with a very basic hearing aid, advancing up the technology scale might help but you might save money by investigating the TV output options and the room setting first. I guess with all of this, if you’re not around all the time, your father’s ability to deal with various possible solutions is a very, very important consideration, too. Sorry for all the blather but I personally did have a lot of trouble listening to TV as my hearing deteriorated so I know what it’s like and I hope there’s a great, easy, inexpensive fix for your father.
Agree with @jim_lewis that there is nothing special about TV sound. I’m guessing he hears TV newscasts pretty well? Options: 1) The Prompt P has a telecoil. If you could find an establishment that sells equipment to do “loops” that work with a telecoil, it would be possible to install one in the home. I have no idea of availability in India, but it is a simple and reliable technology. 2) See if the current hearing aids can be adjusted better. 3)Get hearing aids that allow streaming. I’m not familiar with the hearing aids available in India. I found this: Best Hearing Aid Price In India: Huge Discount On Top Brands
but the models are largely not familiar to me and the ones that are are expensive compared to what you mention.
1 Like
Based on the Consumer Report article that I cited in my post just above, it might help to also check the TV settings if the TV is one that is programmable. The person who wrote the article had experience with a father who couldn’t hear a TV very well and mentions possible settings that can affect TV output and the possibility, too, of using the TV equalizer (base/treble adjustment in the TV) if that’s inconvenient to adjust in the hearing aids themselves, if a base/treble adjustment would help. The nice thing about adjusting just the TV sound output would be that the hearing aids still retain their normal settings for use everywhere else. Working on the TV attacks the source of the problem directly rather than trying to change the hearing aids specifically for the TV. Perhaps your father or someone else in the family previously changed some settings and that’s the source of the TV problem?