by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Donna contacted me about how to help her mother-in-law, Lois, better hear her TV. I explained about the wonders of loop systems. Then her husband Sam phoned me to ask how to best loop her bedroom.
As we talked, I explained there were three ways he could hook the loop up for his mom. The first way was to loop the whole room, but since there was no easy way to hide the loop wires, he rejected that. The second way was to use a loop pad. The down side of the loop pad is you need to be directly over the loop pad in order to get the best signal. This meant Lois would need to stay in one place in the bed whenever she watched her TV. I suggested a third alternative—to loop the bed itself and have a small area carpet at the foot of the bed to hide the wires going from the bed to the TV.
Sam liked this idea the best. I explained how he could plug one end of the loop wire into the back of the loop amplifier, run it around the wooden legs of the bed three times to make a 3-turn loop, and then run it back to the loop amplifier, trim it to length and plug it in—as simple as that.
By looping the bed, Lois could be anywhere on the bed and still hear her TV wonderfully well.
The upshot of this was they ordered the Univox DLS-50 (now replaced by the Contacta HLD3) loop amplifier and a 100′ roll of wire. A week or two later, I received an email from Donna. It speaks for itself. Here it is.
Donna wrote,
At Jerry’s suggestion, my husband Sam and I contacted Neil Bauman (neil@hearinglosshelp.com ) and purchased a room loop system for my mother-in-law’s TV. This past weekend, we looped the wires around her bed as Neil suggested, attached the wires to the TV—and a miracle occurred.
We turned all the volume off on the TV. Sam and I did not have to ask Lois if she could hear the television—there was such a look of wonder and joy on her face! I’m sorry we did not video it! Lois is delighted with the quality of the sound.
For the first time in years, she can hear the television. She told us that she has never watched any of the shows that have caught the public imagination, like Mad Men or Downton Abbey, since she couldn’t hear the dialogue and the captions did not capture the nuances of the programs. Now she can be part of the mainstream once again. Lois spent hours that night feasting on television, but is tearing herself away in order to check out looped venues at museums, etc.
So thank you Neil! The device was easy to set up and was very reasonable, in fact, priceless.
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If you’d like to do the same thing and hear beautiful, clear sound from your TV, all you need to do is order the HLD3 loop amplifier and a roll of wire (black or white—your choice).
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The Contacta HLD3 is only $249.00 and the roll of wire is $11.99. Priority shipping is $11.40 so the grand total is $272.39 (excluding state tax if you are in PA). Not a bad price for a “priceless” device.
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