Oticon OPN 1 and TV Streamer

Hearing Aids
#21

@piques46 I don’t have the Philips Hearlink 9030 but I did download its HearSuite software to verify some features before.

Below is the screenshot for the TV Adapter in the Philips HearSuite software. The first row -> TV Adapter level -> 0dB should be moved to the left to either -3 dB or -9 dB to in order to lower the volume coming out of the TV Adapter. You can also adjust the other ones to your liking as well.

Although this HearSuite page looks different than the Genie 2 page, the controls are basically really identical.

If your audi already had it to -9 dB and it still sounds too loud for you, then the next question is whether the audio level at the input to the TV Adapter from your TV or audio receiver is coming in too hot. You didn’t say whether you have Toslink or RCA level input from the TV into the TV Adapter. Usually these levels are “nominally fixed” but it’s not always so necessarily, depending on how the TV or the audio receiver is configured. Sometimes they can be varied and in that case, maybe yours is set to too high a level coming into the TV Adapter.

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#22

Good point, maybe he’s using the headphone out jack, which could be the issue.

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#23

There is no headphone out jack on my TV. I’m using the toslink.

#24

Thanks for your suggestions and for reproducing the fitting software screen. I did see that screen when my fitter lowered the TV Adapter level by -9db. Unfortunately, that made very little difference. But from the posts in the old thread and from trial and error using the HearLink app I found that by adjusting the mic/tv adapter level it affects the streamer level. Of course the Philips streamer, like its Oticon cousin (or at least I think so about the Oticon), won’t hold a user setting but reverts to default, so I will have to have my fitter try lowering the mic/tv adapter by -03db. I think that may do the trick.

I am using a toslink cable for the audio connection, and there is no volume adjustment for the digital audio out on my tv. It’s a Panasonic plasma set and has no RCA (analog) or headphone audio out. I am also adding a Roku streamer to that tv and have tried lowering the speaker volume all the way to zero with that, and of course I can also mute the speakers when I use the tv adapter. Neither setting seems to affect the tv adapter default volume.

My previous hearing instruments were ReSound Calas, with a TV Streamer 2 and I did not have any volume problems with that setup. The Streamer 2 does have hardware volume buttons, which I think made all the difference, though I set it up about five years ago and don’t remember for sure if I had to adjust that volume down, but I think so. Can’t make the hardware adjustment on the Philips because there is none, and I found the same problem when I trialed the Oticon Opn S and Oticon adapter last year.

Perhaps most troubling of all is the volume ‘spike’ that occurs on unmuting or when first entering the TVA program through the app. In order to avoid the worst of that the default would have to be extremely low, so it would need constant adjustment. Any ideas on what might be causing that or how it might be remedied? Those using Oticon More HAs might have the same problem with their TVAs. I’m curious to know…

#25

I have the OPN 1 and my Genie 2 TV Adapter volume is set to the middle (default) and I drive my TV Adapter 3.0 via Toslink (although mine is volume adjustable from an NVidia Shield TV) and I don’t really have any loudness issue that I’d have to mess around with my volume much right off the bat. I think there might have been a couple of folks on this forum who complained about their TV Adapter being too loud for them, but the majority of TV Adapter users don’t seem to have this issue. You may want to search for those users with the same issue as yours to see if they’ve found a solution for themselves.

First off, I’d do some basic trouble shooting to rule out some stuff. I’d find a source with a headphone jack (like maybe a laptop or a smartphone with a headphone jack) and plug my headphones in them to verify medium volume level, then drive this headphone jack into the TV Adapter RCA input to see if you have the loudness issue still or not.

If no, then it’s likely that your Toslink level is coming in too hot even though it’s a fixed level that you can’t control.

If yes, then it’s likely that your issue is on the receiving end (the HAs) and you may want to check your ON app (or the MFI interface on your iPhone via triple tapping the Home button and see what the volume slider for your TV Adapter/EducMic is set at. Maybe they’re stuck at the highest level for some reason.

#26

OK, so I tried your tests and, sure enough, the toslink seems too hot because the miniplug to RCA from my computer headphone jack results in a moderate (actually a little low) TVA default volume. Since I can’t adjust the toslink (and tried a different toslink cable with no improvement), it sounds as if I can only make this work by getting a TV with either a headphone or RCA analog outputs. One other question: How about a digital to analog audio converter? So I’d use the toslink but run it through the converter and then drive the TVA with the RCA signal. Do you think that would work? Some of them even have a bass and volume adjustment.

As I see it, if that wouldn’t work and I don’t want to invest in a new TV the last recourse would be to adjust the default volume on the TVA to as low a signal as possible without making it undetectable. By the way, the accessibility screen shows the default volume on the TVA at 84.

#27

There are plenty of D to A converters on Amazon for as low as $12 to choose from. But the cheaper ones may not have a volume control on the output, so for those without the volume control, if your Toslink in is too hot, the RCA analog out may be just as hot. So I think it’s safer to get one with a volume control on the output, which may be a little more money.

#28

Great! I was just looking on Amazon and finding quite a few. Guess I’ll also want one with a USB power supply. (5V 1A). Thanks for all your help.

#29

BUT (big but) I am not finding a DAC on Amazon that works with Dolby/multichannel sound, only PCM, so the manufacturers are saying it will not carry streaming audio from Netflix or YouTube. Some users still say it works for them. My TV of course has no way to do anything at all with the digital audio output, advising only that ATSC signals will be carried in multichannel audio and NTSC signals in PCM. Now I’m totally uncertain whether a DAC will serve my purpose if it will limit the channels I can stream.

#30

Toslink aka S/PDIF supports the following formats:

  1. Single channel PCM (Mono)
  2. Dual channel PCM (Stereo)
  3. Compressed bitstreams (sometimes referred to as RAW) up to 48Khz/16bps using AC3 (Dolby Digital) or DTS encoding mechanisms. But this means that the device that receives the Toslink signal must have an AC3 or DTS decoder built into it to decode this raw data.

Most TVs let you choose how to deliver the SPDIF data, either as PCM or RAW. You may want to check the menus on your TV for this option. If you find it, set it to PCM and you’re all set. It’d be very hard pressed to find a TV that doesn’t give you this SPDIF option. If they have the Toslink out, they almost always would have this option for you to select.

The cheap DAC converters on Amazon usually only support PCM because they can’t afford to pay to license the Dolby or DTS decoder on their low priced units. They expect the source device to be able to deliver the PCM option to them always. And there’s no point in putting a pricey AC3 and/or DTS decoder into a converter just to decode the multi channels just to condense it to send out analog stereo audio only.

The TV Adapter, on the other hand, has the Dolby encoder built-in. It doesn’t say explicitly whether it supports DTS or not in the manual, but it probably does. Most contents I watch are usually Dolby Digital AC3 anyway.

Another option if your TV has HDMI is to buy something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T2WSY3D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and use either the Toslink output or the analog audio out from it to the TV Adapter. This way, the source of the Toslink is the HDMI signal from the TV and not the Toslink output directly from the TV. So hopefully this HDMI-generated Toslink is not as hot and you can use it for your TV Adapter. If still too hot, then you can use the stereo RCA out.

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#31

The only menu option on my TV pertaining to audio format is a toggle between surround sound and no surround sound. Presumably choosing no would default to stereo or even mono PCM but, as you say,
that should enable an audible signal to the TVA through the analog output of the DAC. I will go ahead and order the DAC with volume control and try it. From reviews and comments on Amazon, the worst outcome would be a problem with certain certain services like Netflix or YouTube–or YouTube TV, which is what I stream through my Roku Ultra. If it doesn’t work it is relatively easy to return the item.

#32

I hadn’t noticed the last part of your message with the option regarding the HDMI switch with audio extractor. Is HDMI always 2-way or is it either in or out? My TV has two HDMI ports,and right now my Roku Ultra is connected to one of them for streaming via wifi. If I purchase something like this, could I run the HDMI cable from the empty port to the extractor and then connect the output to the TVA as you describe? If so, would I set my TV input the same way I have it (HDMI/Satellite) or differently? One other thing about this unit is, I notice it has no volume control. I’m wondering if trying the optical or else the RCA connection should give me a comfortable volume to avoid too hot a signal to the TVA. I say this because I did find an affordable DAC converter with DTS (Amazon.com: PROZOR Digital to Analog Audio Converter Support Dolby/DTS Decoder, Optical Out to RCA DAC Decoder, Optical to 3.5mm Converter, Optical/SPDIF/Toslink/Coaxial/DTS/PCM/5.1CH to 2CH Analog Stereo : Industrial & Scientific) that does have a volume control. Of course it does not have the HDMI connection. Just wondering which might be best to try, in your opinion. Thank for spending so much time on this!

#33

HDMI ports are not 2-way, they’re either IN or OUT. But some HDMI port that is an input port may have an audio return channel (ARC) feature that returns the audio portion of the signal back to an audio device like a receiver for processing.

The HDMI ports on a TV are probably mostly just input ports, but you can check to see if yours may have an HDMI out or not. It just depends on how they’re configured. So I guess I might have mis-spoke when I suggested earlier that an option might be to use an HDMI out from your TV to drive that HDMI switched device that has a Toslink out.

The HDMI from your Roku (or in my case, my NVidia Shield TV, or in other cases, a BlueRay DVD player for example) is an output port. Now if the content you watch on your TV is exclusively from your Roku, then you can drive the HDMI out from the Roku into an HDMI in of switcher I mentioned, then use that device’s Toslink or audio out to drive the TV Adapter, and feed that device’s HDMI out to your TV. But if you also watch other non-Roku content from your TV, like over-the-air TV channels or other contents from wifi that your smart TV supports, or other device(s) that may come in to your TV like a DVD player or something, then the approach above would not work.

That DAC with Dolby/DTS decoding that you mentioned you just found would be perfect for your Oticon TV Adapter, though. Then whatever you watch from your TV, either the Roku or the OTA TV channels or other smart TV contents from your TV, will be heard through the TV Toslink.

The only concern I may have is whether that DAC’s volume level is remembered or not if you power cycle it each time. If not, then you may have to keep it powered on 24/7 so you will always get the right preset volume level that you like going into the Oticon TV Adapter. It may not be a big deal because it’s really not a high drain device anyway.

One little quirk about the Oticon TV Adapter that I ought to mention to you, though, is that if the analog audio level coming into it is low enough (below a predetermined threshold), it may still work fine, but after so many minutes, it will go into stand-by because it assumes that there’s no audio activity at the input. So you will need to set it at a volume level high enough to keep it detecting above-threshold audio to keep operating. But since your already have your Genie 2 program turned down to -9 dB, you should be able to set the audio in to the TV Adapter hot enough to keep it from going into stand-by.

Philips Hearlink first Impressions
#34

I ordered the Dolby/DTS-decoding DAC. When it arrives next week I’ll give it a try on RCA analog and post about it. Meanwhile, the current setup with toslink to TVA seems a little better. I switched to a sturdier toslink cable I had on hand, so wondering if it’s a little less hot for some reason. Or maybe I’m just getting used to the default volume and adjusting it as it stabilizes after the initial spike. Any ideas about why it would start out louder and then settle down? It’s almost as if there’s a buildup or bottleneck of audio that was dammed up and gets released when the DVR stream or live feed is resumed after a pause.

#35

I don’t really think a better quality Toslink cable would change the volume level. If anything, it’d just be less crackles and pops or whatever distortion you may get from the poorer quality Toslink cable.

I don’t think it’s the TV that makes it less loud over time. It’d be more likely that the TV Adapter sees that its input is too hot and may try to clamp it down a little, within reason, if they put the smart in the design to do that. But it’s just conjecture on our part.

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