Using Oticon TV adapter 3.0

Hearing Aids
#1

Hello
I just picked up the TV adapter and it sounds much worse than my hearing aids which I’m still try to get used to very, very tinny. I love the concept but would I need to have the audiologist adjust it for my individual very bad hearing?
If so do I need to bring the adapter to the audiologist with me? She has one in the office.
Right now the hearing aids are adjusted way down so I can attempt to get used to them. I got them 2 years ago and this is the fir time I’ve worn them for a complete week. ( promised the wife I would give it a good try)

Thanks!

#2

I have the OPNS1 aids and the TV adapter and I love the sound. There are a number of reasons you can be getting bad sound. I will ask a few questions.
How do you have the adapter connected to the TV, I use the audio optical connection.
To have you gone into the TV settings to check to see if you have sound adjustments you can make. My TV allowed me to set the equalizer so I could get the best sound.
Also your Audi can do settings to give you better base while streaming.

#3

You don’t need to bring it to your audi, but you can ask your audi to set it up properly for you in the Genie 2 software on your HAs.

Below is the Genie 2 screenshot for the TV Adapter 3.0. To get more bass perception, set the Power Bass value to High. You can also opt to have the Sound Quality to be Fuller instead of Brighter, which may also help with the low frequency perception. If the volume is low for you, you can also adjust the Loudness setting on this page as well.

Remember that content also matters. If you’re watching TV content that has a tinny recording to begin with, then it’ll sound tinny no matter what you do. So double check your content to make sure it contains the full frequency audio that you expect the TV Adapter to deliver.

But in general, almost everyone I hear on the forum praises the TV Adapter 3.0 for its sound quality. So something must not be set properly in your setting. And again, the setting is stored in your HAs, not in the TV Adapter. So no need to bring it to the audi, but I don’t see why it would hurt. At least you can do an A/B comparison between yours and your audi’s to make sure they perform the same.

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#4

Great information. Thank you.
Unfortunately I don’t see her for 3 weeks

#5

It’s important to realize that when using the TV adapter, you are still hearing the bass sounds from the environment (assuming you have a typical hearing loss.) If you listen with both speakers and the TV adapter (using the fiber optic link), the sound is quite good. If you mute the TV speakers and listen through the TV adapter only, the bass will be lacking.

#6

Is the fiber optic link in the box it came in? Not exactly sure what that is

Thanks

#7

The optical cable that came with my TV Adapter 3 was in the box with the adapter. The optical cable was black and it was in a round coil. Be careful as the information is carried in a clear plastic core that is flexible but will break if bent more than a specified minimum bend radius. Each end will have a “connector” that has a D shape - the connector snaps into the receptacle in the TV (or other sound source) and the input of the Adapter. The Adapter also has an optical output to carry the signal on to another device if needed - I connect the TV to my Adapter and run another optical cable from the Adapter output to a sound bar.

The cables are inexpensive as they are made of plastic - higher quality glass core cables are more expensive but can be longer as the glass transmits better than plastic for a given length. You can see a picture of the “connector” here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK

#8

Thank you
I need to check if my pretty old receiver has an input

#9

You need to connect the Input of the TV Adaptor 3.0 to the Audio Output of your receiver.
most oldler receivers have optical out, and or analog audio out.
I made a big mistake 2 years ago when I bought a Denon AV receiver, and discovered the new breed of receivers have no Audio Outputs.

You don’t say if you have custom earmolds, or open domes, but the quality of sound is directly proportional to your acoustics .
The more open the fit, the poorer the streaming sound q.
As Volusiano mentioned, your fitter can attempt to up the gain, and bass.

#10

Thanks for the reply.
I do not have custom molds and use closed dome with my Oticon mini.
My appt is on the 16th so hopefully only need an adjustment

#11

Hi, I am new here, I am not sure if it’s best to reply to a related thread or create a new thread. Please forgive any unintended breach of forum etiquette.

My father has a pair of Oticon More 3 hearing aids. Today, we picked up the TV Adapter 3.0. I went to set it up. The system I am connecting to uses a Sony receiver for audio. The TV itself is just for the video output. The audio goes from the source (cable box, Apple TV, etc) to the receiver and from the receiver to the speakers.

I connected the TOSlink cable to the receiver optical out, and to the input on the TV Adapter box. I plugged the box to the wall (power). I powered his hearing aids off and back on and put them on top of the TV Adapter. Steady blue lights came on. I waited 30 seconds, and the blue lights changed to just one steady red light, which the manual says means “power on but not streaming.”

I tried th same thing, but using RCA instead of optical. Same result. I tried several times to see if I ever got lucky, but results were consistent.

I toggled the receiver’s audio mode, making sure it was on 2-channel stereo. This had no effect.

Any advice? Thanks!

#12

@kjordan1
Did you change the hearing aids program to the TV adapter. It can be done from the aids, the phone app, the remote control, the connect clip.

This is a link to the how to videos

This is the hearing aid instructions

It almost sounds like the aids were not set in the program for the TV. But I could be wrong.

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#13

Beside making sure that the Mores are in the TV Adapter program (cycle one program down from the default program via the button and confirm with the chime, or change it in the iPhone’s ON app or in the iPhone MFI menu which can be brought up via a triple tap of the Home button), like Chuck @ cvkemp said, you probably want to hook up the TV Adapter to something simpler first, instead of your receiver, just to confirm that you can get audio all the way through to the hearing aids. It’s possible that you don’t have the receiver set up properly to send Toslink or RCA audio signals to the TV Adapter.

You may want to use a pair of headphones to confirm that you actually get audio out of your receiver or another source (laptop or smartphone or whatever), then plug THIS source to the TV Adapter’s RCA audio inputs to confirm that you get that signal through to the hearing aids first. Then if you get nothing from the receiver, then you’d know that it’s a setup issue with the receiver not outputting the audio to the TV Adapter and it’s not the TV Adapter’s fault.

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#14

Thank you for the replies. I opened the Television tab in the connected app. I didn’t see a button labeled “switch to TV” or anything. The app showed a moving indicator bar that made me think it was waiting to connect. The volume slider didn’t fill in.

I think my problem is operator error / missing receiver features. When I first plugged it up, I didn’t have a good view of the back of the receiver. I saw an optical audio port and assumed it was an output, but looking more closely, I think it’s an input. And, the red/white audio is an output, but it’s specifically labeled “subwoofer”. So it would output nothing on 2-channel stereo, and even when it did output sound, it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for this use.

That leaves me a few options I see:

1 - I think there is a headphone audio out, standard AUX, on the front of the receiver. That might work.
2 - I could perhaps run the HDMI out into a splitter, and then send the audio to the TV Adapter somehow, and send the video to the TV. The TV set itself doesn’t use the audio (speakers always turned off). But I am not sure what splitter options exist and whether this would create any issues, such as excessive delay between video and audio.
3 - If I can get to it, I can run audio from the TV itself to the box, more or less using the TV as the splitter… But the way the TV is mounted, it may be major surgery to get there, and there’d be a cable dangling down the wall below the TV.
4 - Buy a receiver with better audio output options.

The first option is, of course, the simplest. But would audio quality be decent through a headphone jack? I suppose it’s good enough for headphones, which can sound great … so maybe? I’ll try that soon as I can find the right cables.

Thanks! My father is 80 years old and a good TV watching experience will improve his enjoyment of life.

#15

Bit of an update. I tried the headphone jack on the front of the receiver. The TV Adapter box lit up green. However, my dad reported no difference in sound. After some investigation, it turns out the headphone jack is not putting out any sound. I couldn’t find a menu setting in the receiver to activate it. I was able to plug to the TV’s headphone jack. Again, no sound, and again, I didn’t see a setting in the TV menu that made a difference. There is a “headphone” option in the TV menu, but it didn’t do anything we could notice. I plugged the headphone jack to my dad’s iPad AUX output. Ta-da, it works! So I just need to somehow get a sound signal from the TV or receiver, and we should be in business. Right now, we’re testing the same TV show streaming on his iPad vs on the TV, TV Adapter vs speakers, to see which is clearer or a better listening experience. Thanks again for all help, especially the “keep it simple” approach.

#16

Glad to hear that you got it working, especially through the iPad’s audio jack. Yeah, you want to keep it simple to verify the audio from a simple source all the way through first. This way you verified that the TV Adapter and the HA in the TV Adapter program work OK first. It makes it easier to know where to focus on next. Otherwise there are too many variables.

I got a feeling that it’s not that simple from the receiver and you’d have to play with the TV or receiver settings to get it to output to Toslink or the Audio/headphones jack properly. Getting audio out of the RCA from the receiver can be tricky, too. Just keep plugging away and hopefully you’ll get there.

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#17

The problem is the mfgs do not include an audio output analog or optical on any but the most high end AV receivers.
The only option is a RCA to 1/4" adapter plugged into the headphone jack, with the TV Adapter 's analog RCA cables connected to the adapter.
Of course, no one else will hear the audio.

Upon further investigation, because I’ want an answer as well, I found This little gadget
It might just do the trick.
I want to enjoy my surrounds & sub woofer, but be able to hear dialog through the H/A’s

2 Likes
#18

Well, the plot thickens. I bought a 1/4" headphone plug and RCA cable and we just tried that. It does work, but he only receives streaming audio to his left ear. Both hearing aids work for normal hearing, just not for streaming. In the On app, it looked like it should be working, but if I muted the right aid, there was no difference, if I muted the left aid, all audio ended. I disconnected and reconnected, turned the hearing aids off and back on several times, rebooted his phone, to no effect. I turned bluetooth off on his phone and connected with his iPad and had the same problem. I reversed the red and white plugs and it still streamed to only his left ear. I plugged his iPad up again as an audio source and again the same problem, left ear only. Which is interesting, because that’s a different audio source and even a different cable.

This would make sense to me if the right hearing aid wasn’t working at all, but it just isn’t working for streaming, so I’m a bit confounded. I guess I will call the audiologist tomorrow.

I ordered the splitter flashb1024 linked, so he can listen to streaming while others hear the speakers. Not sure if that will affect this issue (left ear only), though. Will report back with any updates in case it helps others.

#19

It’s entirely possible that one hearing aid can work via the mic but its streaming circuitry is broken. I remember hearing about a forum member here having a similar issue with his OPN (not the More) and had to have it replaced. I think it’s time to call your audi and bring the right HA in to have it checked out.

Were you able to get the right HA to stream in the beginning? Also, now it’s an issue with streaming on the right HA even from the iPhone, right? It has nothing to do with the TV Adapter streaming anymore.

#20

According to the ops post yesterday it was streaming both channels:

Strange, could it be the 3.5 to 1/4’ adapter?