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View Full Version : Cannot understand dialogue on TV--------what to buy



tom coleman
10-01-2018, 3:53 AM
My hearing is deteriorating and I have trouble watching movies on TV.......should I buy a soundbar........or something else

Ralph Boumenot
10-01-2018, 4:02 AM
I've lost over half of my hearing so I feel your pain. Sound bars will raise the volume so you can hear but it makes it uncomfortable for those who can still hear. Look for a Blue tooth
capability for headphones for you. You can hear and the people around aren't annoyed with a loud volume.

Donald Cole
10-01-2018, 5:58 AM
I agree with Ralph, headphones are a good way to go. You have lots of good choices to set them up. I am considering a Rouku device that lets you use headphones, provides you with lots of tv channels and costs far less than most sound bars.

Frederick Skelly
10-01-2018, 6:27 AM
Well, I was trying to find a link to the "TV Ears" product I'd seen on TV. But oddly, a number of BBB complaints came up for that one. I'd go with headphones too.

Malcolm Schweizer
10-01-2018, 8:24 AM
Get the Bose noise cancelling headphones. The noise cancelling is amazing. My issue is different- my hearing is so good that outside noise makes it difficult for me to hear phone conversations. I can hear a pin drop 100 feet away- which is great, but when on the phone I hear every outside sound over the person talking. I bought a set of noise cancelling headphones and was in love with them. I decided to get a more quality set and got the Dr. Dre Beats headphones with noise cancelling. I hated them. Next I got Bose and oh my- like night and day to the other two. I fly a lot on prop planes from small cessnas to turbo prop Saab and Fokkers (extremely loud) and I put on the headsets without connecting them to anything- just to cancel out the noise. They are also very comfortable to wear.

Agreeing with above replies- a headset lets you tailor the sound for you without interrupting others.

roger wiegand
10-01-2018, 8:30 AM
These (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0036Z82PQ/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1) are expensive, but work like a champ. The RF has much better range and robustness than bluetooth or infrared versions we've tried. Sound quality is excellent. They are pretty much everything "TV Ears" are not.

I no longer have to retreat to far corners of the house when DW is watching the TV, we can actually be in the same room, which is nice!

glenn bradley
10-01-2018, 8:30 AM
Mom and dad finally found relief with wireless, full cup headphones. Unfortunately the only ones still around that we can find are some Sony's. The headphones are fine but, the ear pads only last a couple of years. The replacement pads are almost as much as the headphones. I think they have bought 4 over the last decade. At their age and the usefulness they get out of them, we figure it is worth $200 every couple-a-three years.

Some Bose headphones costing twice as much did not offer near the isolation or sound quality (to their declining hearing) as the Sony. To me, the Bose sound great. They are only "adequate" as far as blocking outside noise which was their prime problem in getting clarity from TV soundtracks.

Steve Jenkins
10-01-2018, 8:31 AM
We have a set of Sennheiser wireless headphones from Amazon. They work really well

Gail Ludwig
10-01-2018, 8:51 AM
I used the closed captioning option on the TV—especially for British shows. It is pretty easy to turn on and off and makes understanding the dialogue much easier. When I decide to get hearing aids—which might be soon, I am going to get the ones that link to the TV. I have heard that they work very well.

Bruce Page
10-01-2018, 11:14 AM
I also feel your pain. I have trouble hearing/understanding high frequency voices (Bernadette on Big Band Theory). This is the setup I use. Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones coupled with a Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into the TV headphone jack. The transmitter will allow pairing with 2 Bluetooth headphones at once.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076H63ZK7/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KXIKCSI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

David Bassett
10-01-2018, 12:53 PM
My hearing is deteriorating and I have trouble watching movies on TV.......should I buy a soundbar........or something else

Two problems with hearing the dialog. The first, having enough volume while suppressing other noise, has been covered well. (And I'm saving the links! :) ) But there's another problem, especially with movies (DVD / BluRay), where the dialog is buried down in the mix. (The theory is, in a big room, e.g. a movie theater, the volume is high enough the dialog is "normal" and we tolerate (/enjoy) the very loud explosions etc. but at home we turn down the maximum volume due to a smaller room or desire to not bother others and that leaves the dialog very low.) This is the problem I have.

I've done some research and there are AVR with amps that *claim* to process the sound so dialog is reduced less as you turn down the volume. (As a percentage of the mix, it becomes greater, more pronounced.) Since these are fairly expensive solutions I haven't experimented with this myself. (Yet at least.)

PS- some TV speakers are absolute garbage, in that case a good sound bar would be a huge improvement and might be enough for now.

Art Mann
10-01-2018, 1:23 PM
My wife and I were having the same problem. We bought a sound bar with sub woofer and adjusted the sound profile so that dialogue is emphasized. The product wasn't very expensive - maybe $150 or so. That pretty much solved the problem for us.

Wade Lippman
10-01-2018, 1:35 PM
I used the closed captioning option on the TV—especially for British shows. It is pretty easy to turn on and off and makes understanding the dialogue much easier. When I decide to get hearing aids—which might be soon, I am going to get the ones that link to the TV. I have heard that they work very well.

That's what I do. My wife hates it, but less than she hates me turning the volume up.

Nike Nihiser
10-01-2018, 4:36 PM
Make sure you do your homework and make sure any headphones you get are compatible with your tv. I wear hearing aids and had a pair of Sony headphones that worked via bluetooth from a box plugged into the back of the Spectrum cable box. I decided to get rid of the cable and go to a streaming service (direct tv now in my case, but doesn't matter which one you have). I found there was no jack to plug the Sony headphone box on the back of my 2 year old Samsung tv, So I had to get a set of headphones to pair up directly to the bluetooth ready Samsung. It was easy to do, but then I discovered that on the Samsung you could either have the headphones on or the tv speaker but not both at the same time. Luckily, I was in the market for a new tv and found that the Sony Bravia (which I bought) can be set to both headphones and the external speaker. I also use closed captioning for most viewing, but it's not available for everything. Hope this helps

Paul Brinkmeyer
10-01-2018, 6:14 PM
My SO uses various types of ear things to help with hearing, being if it is music or TV.
The problem we have, is we can no longer talk about the show/movie, or anything else for that matter while she is wearing them.
Slowly we just quit watching anything together.
Just thought I would point that out so you are know of a new issue it might bring up.

Andrew Joiner
10-01-2018, 8:21 PM
I also feel your pain. I have trouble hearing/understanding high frequency voices (Bernadette on Big Band Theory). This is the setup I use. Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones coupled with a Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into the TV headphone jack. The transmitter will allow pairing with 2 Bluetooth headphones at once.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076H63ZK7/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01KXIKCSI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Thanks Bruce. We have been looking for this.
Can you use this on a non-bluetooth TV? Can you use headphones and still use the TV speakers with no echo effect? I like to use headphones while my wife listens to the speakers at the same time. Thanks for your post.

Bruce Page
10-01-2018, 8:35 PM
Andrew, you can use the Bluetooth transmitter with anything that has a headphone jack. It works fine with my dumb 2004 Sony LCD. I can't say if it will shut off the TV speakers, it depends on the TV, you could plug in some headphones into yours and check. I haven't noticed any echo effect with my setup.

Bruce Wrenn
10-01-2018, 9:26 PM
Another option is a FM transmitter from Walmart (less than $10) plugged into head phone jack, and a pair of "Work Tunes" ear muffs. I use this set up in my shop to listen to you tube music.

Tom Stenzel
10-01-2018, 9:29 PM
I used the closed captioning option on the TV—especially for British shows. It is pretty easy to turn on and off and makes understanding the dialogue much easier. When I decide to get hearing aids—which might be soon, I am going to get the ones that link to the TV. I have heard that they work very well.

I turn on the CCs when I watch TV late at night and turn down the sound so everyone else can sleep. In our 1000 square foot mansion, a radio or television playing anywhere on the main floor is heard throughout the house. The problem is the quality of the CCs on many shows is absolutely abysmal. You do miss things in the show too. I've threatened to use headphones but probably would stop watching first.

-Tom

Ken Fitzgerald
10-01-2018, 9:36 PM
Tom,

I am deaf. Since 2011 I use a cochlear implant to hear. Even with the implant, I have to use an aid of some sort to hear television audio due to it's typically poor quality. I used a set of wireless Sennheiser headphones. They come with a base which you plug into your television or stereo. Then you can adjust the volume at both the base station and on the headphones. They work well.

These allow my wife to set the volume on the television to suit her and I can then adjust the volume on the headphones to suit me. It results in both of us being happy.

Wayne Lomman
10-01-2018, 10:33 PM
My wife is profoundly deaf. We always have the captions turned on. Both myself and our daughter are fine with this. We can all converse about the show and there is a whole new level of entertainment comparing what was said with what gets written on the screen. If it doesn't have captions, none of us watch it.

This is a low tech approach but necessary. Deafness takes many forms and money/technology cannot solve all the issues nor can it keep up with changing deafness which is where my wife sits in the spectrum. Our best solution has been to adapt our lives to suit the disability, same as we have gotten rid of steps etc to assist with mobility. Cheers

Keith Outten
10-02-2018, 10:30 AM
I am also a big fan of the Bose noise cancelling products. I currently use the wireless QC30 earbuds for everything from my CNC Router in my shop to lawn mowing and bush hogging on my tractor. Most of the time I listen to music from my phone but there are times when I use them just for the noise cancelling capability.

Chris Parks
10-03-2018, 2:30 AM
I am also a big fan of the Bose noise cancelling products. I currently use the wireless QC30 earbuds for everything from my CNC Router in my shop to lawn mowing and bush hogging on my tractor. Most of the time I listen to music from my phone but there are times when I use them just for the noise cancelling capability.

I have always wondered how noise cancelling headphones work, if I am wearing a set and turn on my tablesaw do I not hear the saw and thus work in silence?

Keith Outten
10-03-2018, 9:11 AM
You will still here a faint hum from machines running unless you are listening to music. I expect the volume is relative to how well you can hear, for an old set of ears like mine background noises are faint. My tractor is a 40 hp diesel and my lawn mower is a 25 hp Kohler that is right behind the seat and both are much more comfortable riding with noise cancelling earbuds. I have a fairly nice set of Peltor hearing protectors and the earbuds are far superior. I have a very old 15" planer that is so loud it will wake up the dead so I wear the Peltor headset on top of my earbuds when I am planning lumber.

I also trail ride in the mountains on an ATV and most of the time I wear my earbuds which reduces the whining motor noise and I get to enjoy my own music on long rides. I have also used both the Bose wired and wireless models and I found the wired ones reduce more noise.

Al Launier
10-03-2018, 10:43 AM
I find the thread to be interesting. Frankly I hadn't thought much about noise cancellation as a remedy for better understanding of dialogue.
In my situation the loss of hearing is very significant, the left ear being much worse than the right, whereby I must use hearing aids. I have difficulty understanding people with higher frequency voices, usually women, (sometimes that's a blessing in disguise with my wife) and it's almost impossible to understand what is being said on DVDs and theater movies where the background music is so loud that it dominates everything. Increasing the volume to hear the dialogue only worsens the situation. As a result I watch very few of these shows.
So, are you all saying that noise cancelling devices will solve that problem?

Nick Decker
10-03-2018, 11:36 AM
This is something I've struggled with for quite a while and have spent a lot of money on. I have quite a bit of high freq. hearing loss. It's especially bad for watching movies, and the reasons for this have been noted earlier.

Everybody is different, of course, and is at a different stage of deterioration, so what works for me might not work for you. I haven't tried Bose, so can't comment on them. I have tried several different Sennheiser units with varying degrees of success. The SET840 linked to earlier didn't work well for me at all, so I returned them. The ones I've been using for the last two years are these.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SJ4INFI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yup, they're expensive. You'll have to decide if they're worth it to you.

The best thing about them is customization, both at the headphone and at the base unit. That means they're more likely to remain useful to you as your hearing gets worse. Customization at the headphones means you won't have to get up to change settings if you change the source audio. If none of the settings work for you, I'd say you probably need to look into hearing aids.

A couple of things I don't care for: They pretty much cancel out ambient noise, which means I likely won't hear the phone or someone knocking at the door. Also, if you don't turn the speaker down on the TV you'll get a bit of an echo effect. I live alone, so not a big deal for me.

If you buy from someone (like Amazon Prime) with a liberal return policy your journey will, of course, be less expensive.

Al Launier
10-03-2018, 11:50 AM
This is something I've struggled with for quite a while and have spent a lot of money on. I have quite a bit of high freq. hearing loss. It's especially bad for watching movies, and the reasons for this have been noted earlier.

Everybody is different, of course, and is at a different stage of deterioration, so what works for me might not work for you. I haven't tried Bose, so can't comment on them. I have tried several different Sennheiser units with varying degrees of success. The SET840 linked to earlier didn't work well for me at all, so I returned them. The ones I've been using for the last two years are these.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SJ4INFI/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yup, they're expensive. You'll have to decide if they're worth it to you.

The best thing about them is customization, both at the headphone and at the base unit. That means they're more likely to remain useful to you as your hearing gets worse. Customization at the headphones means you won't have to get up to change settings if you change the source audio. If none of the settings work for you, I'd say you probably need to look into hearing aids.

A couple of things I don't care for: They pretty much cancel out ambient noise, which means I likely won't hear the phone or someone knocking at the door. Also, if you don't turn the speaker down on the TV you'll get a bit of an echo effect. I live alone, so not a big deal for me.

If you buy from someone (like Amazon Prime) with a liberal return policy your journey will, of course, be less expensive.

Good info Nick. Would it be advisable to have a hearing evaluation by an audiologist to determine which model would be best suite for oneself, os is this not needed?

Nick Decker
10-03-2018, 12:18 PM
Al, the problem with a lot of audiologists is that they work for hearing aid companies. I'd avoid them if that's the case. Mine work for the VA, so I trust they're not profit motivated.

I did try a couple of other units from Amazon before buying the ones I use. Just sent the first ones back, no problem.

If you try the 195 units that I linked to, take the time to experiment with them and get to know the controls. The controls at the base unit interact in a fairly complex way with the settings you can make at the headphones. By that I mean that adjusting the base unit gives you a quite different result at the headphones, which will then need to be readjusted to suit.

Overall, it's possible to set them up so that voices are almost the only thing you hear, but it sounds pretty muted and distracting. Somewhere between that extreme and the raw audio is probably something you can live with. I find myself switching the settings fairly often at the headphones to accomodate different audio settings in a movie, i.e., someone having a normal conversation in a quiet room vs. someone talking in a noisy crowd scene.

Aaron Conway
10-03-2018, 1:44 PM
You could get a Sonos Playbar or Beam which have a "speech enhancement" feature that works really well.

Jon Nuckles
10-04-2018, 1:33 PM
As televisions have gotten thinner, TV speakers have gotten worse. If you have a stereo setup in the room and don't have your tv hooked up to it, doing that might be good enough to help some people who don't have bad hearing problems. I am about to do this myself.

I was told while tv shopping recently that a 4K tv would not be compatible with a stereo receiver more than a couple of years old. Running the cable to the receiver and then on to the tv would sacrifice the higher definition picture, while running the cable to each device separately might result in problems syncing the picture with the sound. After learning this, I decided to hang on to the old tv for a while longer!

Michael Weber
10-04-2018, 3:52 PM
Like Ken, I am also deaf. Have needed closed captions for 30 years or more. I just wish people came with captioning. Like the comics :)

Ken Fitzgerald
10-04-2018, 3:56 PM
Like Ken, I am also deaf. Have needed closed captions for 30 years or more. I just wish people came with captioning. Like the comics :)

You too? :eek::rolleyes:;):D

Rick Potter
10-05-2018, 3:05 AM
We are starting to have the problem, and it is interesting that others have problems with British shows. We watch a couple British cop shows, and find we have to turn them up much louder to be able to understand the dialog.

I like to watch old movies and western TV shows like Gunsmoke. I turn the TV volume to 25 or less for them, about 35-40 for new shows, and over 50 for British.

It is pretty obvious that the new shows use an awful lot more background music than older ones, which wipes out the dialog for me. I have almost no higher range hearing, from sitting next to sirens for 34 years.

Nick Decker
10-05-2018, 8:22 AM
Rick, I've had problems hearing British accents for quite a while, although I don't remember it being a problem when I was younger.

I'm not a lip reader, but it does help to be able to watch someone's mouth when they're talking. Maybe it has to do with the British accent causing them to hold/move their lips differently than what we're used to?

Michael Weber
10-05-2018, 7:05 PM
Oddly enough I understand British dialog better than American shows. Not sure why. Maybe its lack of background noise. I have thought of myself as "hard of hearing" or the nicer "hearing impaired" for the last 50 years. It wasn't until my failed cochlear implant a few years ago that I considered myself as deaf.

Dan Jansen
10-06-2018, 8:57 PM
My wife has always watched TV with the captions even when dating and I eventually got used to it and starting using them at my parents who then got used to them. They are very distracting at first but I can’t imagine watching TV without them on. It’s critical with movies where the sounds fluctuate so much. I’d recommend turning them on with a 60 day commitment to suck it up. After that you will love it. Except live sports and news. That will always be awful.

And like Wayne said, it is fun to catch the mistakes and jokes that get cut off.

Bill Adamsen
10-06-2018, 10:19 PM
I too have significant hearing loss and a volume that works for me is often uncomfortable for others. My hearing aids are complicated though they do have bluetooth, I can never get it to work right if I am with somebody. So for instance, in the car it either captures the phone or the phone broadcasts into the car's handsfree. Fortunately my spouse and daughter watch captioned movies and that helps at least with movies.

I like the Bose noise cancellation headsets, especially for airplane travel. While they sound good in the shop I have been told they are not really effective at blocking high decibel sounds. I find the "bones" type headsets are effective for listening and especially in the car for audiobooks. With "over the ear" placement they can be problematic if one wears glasses as I do. They are very popular with the "running" crowd. They don't block out enough (any) background noise so they are not effective for the shop or say ... mowing the lawn.

I wear the 3M Peltor X5 in the shop and would love their 3M Peltor WS Protac XP. They are pricey. Has anyone found a reasonably priced alternative?

julian abram
10-06-2018, 11:17 PM
Tom,

I am deaf. Since 2011 I use a cochlear implant to hear. Even with the implant, I have to use an aid of some sort to hear television audio due to it's typically poor quality. I used a set of wireless Sennheiser headphones. They come with a base which you plug into your television or stereo. Then you can adjust the volume at both the base station and on the headphones. They work well.

These allow my wife to set the volume on the television to suit her and I can then adjust the volume on the headphones to suit me. It results in both of us being happy.

Ken you probably are aware of Phonak TV Link/ Compilot. After I got my Cochlear I switched from wireless Sennheiser headphones to TV Link/Compilot. The signal is transmitted directly to your Cochlear processor so no distortion, it's the best "almost normal" hearing I have all day. Just like your headphones, you can mute the TV and still hear the audio through your compilot signalling your Cochlear. Also you have volume control in the compilot.

Gordon Eyre
10-15-2018, 9:19 PM
I too have very poor hearing and use bluetooth headphones. The beauty of headphones is the clarity that they provide not to mention the increased volume. I use Sony headphones and like them a lot. They are less expensive than the Bose noise canceling headphones and if you get the over the ear type they pretty well cancel out the extranious noise. When my wife and I watch tv together she uses the regular speakers and I watch with my earphones. We are both happy and of course we both like to have the printed words on as well. Actually watching with a headset has really increased my pleasure for watching movies on tv. I hear almost everything perfectly.

Ken Fitzgerald
10-15-2018, 10:02 PM
Ken you probably are aware of Phonak TV Link/ Compilot. After I got my Cochlear I switched from wireless Sennheiser headphones to TV Link/Compilot. The signal is transmitted directly to your Cochlear processor so no distortion, it's the best "almost normal" hearing I have all day. Just like your headphones, you can mute the TV and still hear the audio through your compilot signalling your Cochlear. Also you have volume control in the compilot.

As a matter of fact, last year when I upgraded my sound processor and hearing aid to the AB Q-90 system, I got a compilot. I use it in the morning when listening to the news. I intend to try it listening to music and if it's as good as the television audio, I will buy a 2nd one to put in my shop just so I can listen to music while I am woodworking. It's amazing what getting rid of the acoustic environment effects does for your hearing when you are deaf like us!

I don't use my Sennheiser headphones anymore but they worked well before I got my Compilot. I was recommending them for someone who doesn't have a Ci.