Compressor

[dan slv-tech]

with the few loops ive installed, ampertronic are a pretty good make, always very helpful and most of their units have a compressor built-in.

Cheap ones however do not

 

 

Dan

[stop-the-noise]

JSB,

 

Thanks for your response....

 

Most of the "microphone over stage" type assisted listening systems I have tested and have had hearing aid users listen to, are worst than listening unaided!

 

The key issue is that those of us with normal hearing can easily decipher speech when extraneous noise and reverberation is present. Therefore we can selectively carry out a conversation in a noisy pub etc. and hear whatever is said on a show relay mic quite perfectly.

 

Those with hearing loss do not just suffer loss of acuity, but also have a loss of frequency selectivity – the ability to separate the different frequencies present in sound. This is compounded when hearing aids (with their indiscriminate, omnidirectional, relatively cheap microphones) are used.

 

If the microphone feeding the ALS is not close to the sound source, it will pick up noise from the reverberant field - which is the very noise we are trying to exclude! Therefore the same mic that is fine for normal people can be hard to understand for the dDeaf.

 

If the mixing desk does not feed the ALS, then the microphone picks up the sound out of the loudspeaker's coverage zone, and again delivers unintelligible results.

 

Of course, I'm generalising to a certain extent - I haven't seen your set up, or measured STI etc. - so please do not take this personally! However, the installation of many ALS leaves a lot to be desired, and the fact that they sound OK to the golden eared sound engineers doesn't help the people who actually use them !

 

[rantoff]

 

Simon Lewis

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I completely agree in that most people setting up loop systems for hearing aid users 'forget' to ask the opinion of the users! and if they do many times they forget to switch the loop systems on! I work as an audiologist and currently the range of hearing aids to the NHS has never been so diverse. We have a full digital and analogue range and the contrast between the two is so wide that you are unlikely to gain a situation where a loop sytem would sound great to all - add to that bianural fitting vs monoaural fitting and the gap widens further. In fact the Digital hearing aid users are tending to use loop systems less and relying on the programmable settings of the hearing aids - most can now support three different programmes such as general use, background noise and music. The directional microphones futher help to reduce background noise. Given the quality of some loops then I am not surprised when patients ask me to remove the function and give them a more useful program setting instead - and like you say, what sounds great isn't always whats required to gain the desired clarity.