by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A man asked,
Is there a way to let people who do not have t-coils in their hearing aids listen to a room loop? At my retirement center, we could install a Univox CLS-1 (formerly DLS-50) loop system in a section of our conference room and have enough space for all the hearing aid users, but most don’t have t-coils. If there is a way to use ear phones without having to purchase streamers for their hearing aids. It would save them a good deal of money.
You have two different groups of people here. For people that do not have hearing aids, they can plug headphones or earbuds into a personal loop receiver and hear that way. Typically, loop receivers come with headphones or earbuds and cost about $150.00.
For people that have hearing aids without t-coils, unless they have remotes/streamers with audio input jacks, they are out of luck when wanting to listen to a loop system via their hearing aids. (This is one very good reason to never purchase hearing aids unless they have good t-coils in them. Note: having t-coils in your hearing aids doesn’t cost you or your dispenser a penny more so its “stupid” not to get them whether you have a use for them at the time you buy your hearing aids or not.)
All is not lost however. if they do not have t-coils in their hearing aids, they can take their hearing aids off and use loop receivers just like the people in the first group do.
The loop receiver I recommend has lots of power so pretty well everyone could hear it without their hearing aids. I can certainly hear it without turning the volume up much at all.
You can get the ET/LR loop receiver and headphones here for just $149.00.
One exception would be a Widex’s non loop equipped wireless hearing aids i.e. Passion RIC/CIC’s which can stream the loop via Bluetooth via an M-Dex remote control.
I hope this helps.
Matthew Pearson