Oticon TV adapter ideas

Hearing Aids
#1

I have a pair of More 1 hearing aids and I’m considering buying a TV adapter and I’d like to hear from others their pros vs cons with this unit, mostly pros I’d guess🤔.

I have a sound bar hooked to the optional output and if I read correctly TV adapter 3.0 version will let me still utilize the optical output as opposed to RCA connections?

I feel I hear audio from the current setup quit well. Will there be a respectable difference receiving audio directly into the aids or is that subjective to the user?

My wife whom has real good hearing does not complain about my volume choice for the sound bar but sometimes I wonder if she’d choose a slightly different volume.
Will hearing sound from the sound bar and the TV adapter at the same time be a struggle since we watch TV together most of the time?

I see there is 2.0 and 3.0 version. Is there a remarkable difference between the 2? (I have the answer to this question)

TV adapter vs Connect clip. If the price is the same. Would a CC work equally as well as a TV adapter for TV? The literature I’m seeing suggest a CC can be used for TV but! It would seem you need something else to make CC work with TV streaming?
Thanks

#2

I now have More 1 aids with acrylic molds (OPN and OPN S 1 with vented domes previously) and a TV Adapter 3 that I’ve used for all three aid models. The TV Adapter 3 has an optical output port so you can insert the TV Adapter 3 between the TV optical output and the sound bar optical input. I don’t use the RCA connections.

For me, I understand most voice, especially accented, better using the Adapter 3 than listening directly with my aids and a Sonos Beam sound bar. I typically mute the hearing aid microphones - that reduces the background noise from various room sources such as the HVAC fan. Also that reduces any effects due to latency differences between the streamed sound from the adapter and the direct sound from sound bar. I don’t hear an echo but I do notice that things sound better to me without a mix from the two sources. Oticon specifies the latency (adapter input to the output of the hearing aid receiver) and it depends on the type of signal (analog or digital or Dolby digital). Note that the Adapter does NOT support fancy newer versions of Dolby over optical so you may have to change the settings of the TV output depending on what the default is.

You might check to ensure that the 2.0 version will work with the More aids.

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#3

From what I’ve read so far only version 3.0 will work with More aids.
That narrows my choice considerably.

I understand the reasons for muting the hearing aid mic based on your descriptions of usage, fan & AC noise etc. Carrying on conversations with someone about the TV show/movie your current watching would then become an issue🤔.

#4

From what I can remember, you’ll need the TV Adapter version 3.0 in order to work with the OPN and OPN S as well, not just with the More. The version 2.0 is very old and won’t work with the OPN/S/More.

If I remember correctly, I’ve tried using my TV Adapter 3.0 with the HAs’ mics on and the latency is not noticeable enough for me. The speaker sound and the stream sound seem to meld together. But @biggar is right that if you mute the HAs, the streamed sound alone seems to sound cleaner. But I think it’s more a matter of personal preference and you may be OK with hearing the combined sounds to be able to pick up the environmental sounds like talking with your wife. I also use the optical input to the TV Adapter, but I really doubt that using the RCA input would cause any further latency.

The ConnectClip would be an overall better choice in my opinion if your TV setup has a Bluetooth option, simply because you can use it with other BT support devices and are not limited to just using it with TVs only like with the TV Adapter. However, I think the price to pay would be the latency on the BT connection between the TV and the ConnectClip. If you plan to have the HAs mics on to pick up the environmental sounds, you may notice the lag on the ConnectClip more significantly than with a TV Adapter. But you may not either. It’s hard to say unless you try it because it depends on how fast the BT connection from your TV really is. I’ve once tried the ConnectClip with BT from my Android phone AND the Apple Airpods via BT to the same Android phone together because this phone supports dual BT connections, and I definitely notice a lag between the 2 sources. Of course I can’t tell which device is lagging the other, my ConnectClip or my Airpods, or perhaps it’s the Android phone that causes the delay if it sends out 2 consecutive BT signals to the 2 devices as opposed to 1 BT signal to both simultaneously. I admit that I don’t really know how the BT protocol works for dual BT connection (sending 1 BT signal or 2 consecutive BT signals one after another with the separate paired signatures).

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#5

According to the Oticon Technical Data Sheet for the TV Adapter 3, the latency (TV Adapter input to hearing aid speaker) is:

Analog: 25 ms
Digital (Stereo PCM over TOSLINK): 28 ms
Dolby Digital (TOSLINK): 45 ms

I just looked at the technical data sheet for the ConnectClip - there is no mention of latency. My guess is that the latency depends on the details of the Bluetooth implementation of the source device and how well that works with the classic Bluetooth (Version 4.2 + EDR) of the ConnectClip.

There is also some latency in the air path from the sound bar (or whatever generates the TV sound) to the ear. The speed of sound in room temperature air is about 1125 feet/sec so a listener 10 feet from the source would experience almost 9 ms of delay from just the distance :slight_smile:

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#6

My set up is like biggar. I will also confirm only TV Adapter 3
will work with More (OPN and newer). I only use Toslink.
I am a huge fan of the TV Adapter. I do not have a Connect Clip, so cannot offer a comparison. I actually have 2 Adapters on different TVs. The TV I watch mostly with my spouse, I do not mute the environment mics and I don’t find it horrible, but I prefer listening with the mics muted. Slight echo sometimes but nothing horrible.
In addition to independent volume changes for you and your wife, you have the ability to make adjustments for sound quality in Oticon’s Accessories Menu in Genie.
TV Adapters changed by life for TV watching. It is stress free. I highly recommend it.

#7

Thanks for this helpful info. I’m guessing that the TV Adapter converts either the Digital Stereo PCM or the Dolby Digital signals into analog before sending it to the HAs. So the 25 ms is the actual latency from the TV Adapter to the HAs (basically the latency of the RivieraWaves Bluetooth LE protocol that Oticon licensed from CEVA). If it were the Digital Stereo PCM, then it takes the TV Adapter an extra 3 ms to convert to analog first. For the Dolby Digital source, then it takes a bit longer (20 extra ms) to decode from Dolby Digital back to analog again, before it takes another 25 ms to reach the HAs.

What this is telling us is that if we can set it up from the TV, it’s better to send the Digital Stereo PCM data over to the TV Adapter via Toslink, instead of sending the encoded Dolby Digital signal to Toslink , only to be decoded back to stereo analog again by the TV Adapter to be sent out to the HAs. The HAs can only accept stereo sounds anyway so it’s not helpful to send Dolby Digital to the TV Adapter in the first place. The TV Adapter doesn’t have 5 Dolby Digital channels to send out to the HAs anyway, nor would the HAs know what to do with 5 channels since they can only accept a left or a right channel for each of the corresponding side.

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#8

I don’t have the technical expertise to offer you the in-depth reviews as some others have but I can say that watching tv using the 3.0 adapter has been great. The improvement in quality versus just listening with the sound bar has been wonderful. I use the optical connection and it works flawlessly. The improvement in sound quality has been so good that I got my wife a pair of inexpensive Bluetooth earbuds for tv that we paired to the sound bar than she loves.

#9

@lgbuck62 Now that’s the type of beta I clearly understand lol.
And thanks to @Volusiano for putting the technical replies from Magoo & Biggar is terms that were easier to digest.

I’ve been on the fence regarding the overall benefit of a TV adapter but I think I’ll buy one after my bricked hearing aid returns from the Ill fated 1.40 to 1.41 firmware update attempt…

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#10

Sorry to hear about your firmware problems. I still haven’t found a reason to upgrade from 1.3 You won’t be sorry moving to the TV 3.0 While we may have state of the art in hearing aids, there were still many times I couldn’t quite understand exactly what was being said during a show. The 3.0 eliminated that irritant.

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