by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
A man wrote:
With a room loop system, will I be able to understand people in the same room at the same time if I’m listening to the TV through my hearing aids telecoils?
The short answer is, “That depends”
There are two ways you can accomplish this if you so desire. One way is to have one of the memories in your hearing aids programmed to have both the microphone and t-coil on at the same time. When you want to hear both the TV and people talking in the room, simply switch to that memory.
Another way to accomplish the same thing, but leaving your hearing aids programmed to t-coil mode only is to plug in an external microphone to the microphone jack on the back of the Univox loop amplifier. Now you will hear the TV (via its audio outs and patch cord to the Univox loop amplifier the same as before, and you will hear anything that comes through that external microphone (people’s voices) as well. For best results, place the microphone close to the people talking so the TV’s sound track does not drown them out.
Personally, I’d never do either. I have so much trouble hearing that I want only one source of sound at a time. Trying to hear a person talking over the TV programming is just an exercise in futility (and vice versa). I wouldn’t be able to understand much either way.
My preference is to use the t-coil setting and listen exclusively to the TV. When people talk, I’d switch to the hearing aid’s microphones, and mute the TV so it wouldn’t interfere with my hearing their voices. (Of course, I’d also have the closed captions on—so everyone could still read what the TV is saying.)
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