Hearing Aids and Television

Hearing Aids
#1

Hearing Aids and Television
I’m getting back to my quest of replacing my decade old hearing aids. Last year I purchased a pair of very expensive hearing aid. They had all sorts of great high tech features & functions. But I couldn’t get the features to works with their TV unit. On the cell-phone app. all the features were grayed out when I switched to the TV mode. By luck, I had the phone number to their trouble line. Their technician confirmed that they don’t work in the TV mode.

Television audio has some of the most demanding hearing situations imaginable. From a soprano reading the news, to a remote news feed, to a sports competition (in sports they have a 64 channel console, so they turn on as many microphones as possible).

Because about 95 percent of my meaningful hearing time is watching TV, if I can’t find hearing aids that work with TV, I’ll only be using the hearing aids a few hours per month!

Any thoughts?

#2

I don’t realy follow. I watch TV all the time with my HA in automatic mode, occasionally I will use the app to force them into TV mode which just changes the focus for voice. If i’m in the den with the TV playing thru the stereo i use the app to force them into music mode.

What are you trying to accomplish, it what are you missing?

#3

I have Oticon aids with a TV adapter that streams the TV audio to my aids. It enhances the voice over background sound.

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#4

Brand/model of TV, brand model of HAs, TV connector? What was grayed out?

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#5

I wear Oticon Real, and have Oticon More as my backup aids, the Oticon TV adapter and it works with any modern TV.

#6

It’s late and I’m struggling to express my meaning a bit but. . . all television sound is purposeful sound. There is nothing coming from the television that your hearing aids will consider something you do not want to hear, and they will not supress anything. Additionally, many of the features built in to modern hearing aids to boost speech and suppress noise depend on a three dimentional soundscape to function, and streamed television audio is, at best, stereo. Your hearing aids are functioning as intended when they indicate those features being “off” in the television streaming program and all hearing aids from all manufacturers will be the same in this regard. If a television program just happens to have very poor audio, your hearing aids will not be able to compensate for that.

That said, streaming directly from the television does typically increase clarity. I can’t see your audiogram so that makes it more difficult to know whether you might be struggling with a setting issue that your clinician could resolve or a limitation-of-ear-damage issue.

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#7

1] Set Top Box, analog L & R
2] Phonak Audeo Life
3] Phonak TV Connector
My Phonak App
What was grayed out?
It’s hard to remember, it was last May.
Maybe
NoiseBlock
SoundRelax
SoundRecover
Speech enhancer
Soft noise reduction
Dynamic noise reduction
(some of the above may only work with mic steering)

#8

You must view very different shows than I do.

Microphone steering will only work in a few situations.

That’s what I was afraid of. In that case, I’ll just stick with my headphones for TV watching and get some cheap hearing aids for a few hours a month use.

#9

A note on my Audiogram.
I have a serious inner ear problem in both ears. And along with that, I have Hyperacusis.
Which means I have a very narrow volume window between intelligibility and pain. So that means we can’t use a reciprocal of the Audiogram for equalization.
Also at age 82, I have presbycusis to deal with.

Last year, an audiologist demo’d some hearing aids, without bothering to read the ENT report (he was in the next office). She set the HAs up with volume and treble boost that almost took my head off.

#10

Let me;
Yes I got normal audio thru the TV connection. But the only adjustments that I could make were Volume, Balance and simple EQ.
But none of the features that I purchased the pricey HAs for.

#11

Yes, if you don’t engage in much communication with people or spend much time in noisy situations and your TV headset it working better than the hearing aids, its certainly reasonable to wear the TV headset for the TV and cheaper hearing aids the rest of the time.

That said, unless your hearing is just unaidable at certain frequencies, a good clinician will be able to adjust appropriately for your loss and take your hyperacusis into account and will be able to adjust the TV streaming program for you as well. Again, the hearing aids won’t clean poor TV signal, but they will certainly enable you to, for example, get more high frequency clarity that might be needed to understand speech properly.

Plus, I still don’t really know your ear history or your audiogram, but hyperacusis is often treatable. It’s also often aggravated by the type of auditory deprivation that results from not wearing ones hearing aids consistently day to day.

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#12

The features that you are talking about would not be for streaming, they are for dealing with background noise. As you are sitting in your front room you won’t have need for things like noise reduction unless you have loads of people chattering all at once. If that is the case then you can change the balance on the aids to reduce the external mics (note : its not left and right balance, its external and streaming sound).

Sadly Phonak do not allow you to use things like the music setting whilst connected to the streamer but a good audiologist should be able to tweak your TV setting to work better for you.

If you have a TV that allows a Bluetooth connection ditch the streamer and connect via Bluetooth, via Bluetooth the hearing aids should have a setting for speech and a setting for music. They should autosence between these settings but obs a lot of TV has Music running at the same time as speech so it’s not brilliant.

I agree it is frustrating that Phonak do not allow you to tinker more with TV settings from the app. I would have liked some form of equaliser / Speech Focus etc.

See if your Audiologist can optimise the Phonak receiver setting before giving up. They should be able to get them as good as headphones imho.

#13

If I can’t find hearing aids that do good things to TV audio, I’ll just go with cheaper hearing aids and use them a few hours per month.
But unfortunately headphones don’t do:
Impulse noise suppression
Volume compression
High frequency down shifting.

#14

Yes, mine is treatable. But it requires a neurosurgeon cut an inch in diameter hole in my skull so that the ENT can get in to repair the damage. Then there’s a 3 month recovery, before doing the other ear.
And it will probably make some of the symptoms worse.

#15

Ahh, bilateral SSCD? If so, yes that’s a tough one and the hyperacusis does not work the same as typical hyperacusis. If not SSCD, what do you have going on?

Most hearing aids have a budget version that will work just as well with the TV connector. Say you tried an Audeo L90 with the TV connector, you can probably pick up an Audeo P30 with a TV connector for a lot less and you’d still get the frequency shaping, lowering and the compression. They won’t be as shapeable, and they won’t be great out in the world if there’s much background noise, but if it is indeed SSCD I would expect that even the premium hearing aids weren’t great in that situation.

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#16

Yep:
Bilateral Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence
dehiscence is a small hole in an inner ear bone

The fourth ENT figured it out.

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#17

I have heard of a patient with a deformed tiny inner ear bone. They used a 3d printer to build a new bone for the ear.