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Watching TV with ReSound Unite TV Streamer 2

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Edited

It’s the same low power bluetooth that is used between the iPhone and your MFI hearing aids. Very strong signal. You can walk a good 20 feet away and still hear the TV.

Jordan

In reply to @emjay_flowers

I had a similar question.
I just made an agreement with an audiologist and came to his office with a “3.5 jack - 3.5 jack” wire and listened to how the music sounds through a TV-streamer (connecting it to my smartphone).
Why take a wire? There is no such wire in the TV-streamer set, but you will need it.
The sound will be better than the speakers, but the TV-streamer costs about $ 200.
You can also try a MultiMic instead of a TV-streamer, because it can also be used as an additional microphone and has a built-in .

Thanks. I currently use TV Ears with success, but they become uncomfortable by the fourth quarter, hate wearing the apparatus, and they have little range. I’ll look into the MultiMic vs TV Streamer. Some of those are available for less $ in the resale market.

Edited
@emjay_flowers said:

I’ll look into the MultiMic vs TV Streamer.

The advantage of a ReSound TV Streamer 2 is that it’s -powered. You don’t have to worry about wearing out a Li-ion battery as you do with the Multi Mic. If I watched a lot of TV, I’d go for the TV Streamer 2. There is the aspect of having to hook and unhook the Multi Mic, too, all the time, so compared to the cost of the ’s themselves, it wasn’t a big deal for me to buy both. Perhaps someday all TV’s will come with LE audio built it and we won’t need accessories for our HA’s for TV streaming …

That sure would be nice. I actually watch little TV normally - just college football and the very occasional movie. I’m a book person mostly.

In reply to @jrowe582

If you will access the “Settings” menu (indicated by the gear wheel icon on your remote) scroll down to the audio section and you can select which audio outputs you wish to have active and which to mute.

I solved the TV problem by installing a loop in each of my living rooms using Echo Megaloop DAC. This has the option of an optical input which is great because even with the TV on mute I can still hear perfectly.

Edited

JordanK, got all the bits now, the main thing was getting a powered TOS-lrink splitter which I put in place of the non-powered one I was using. Got it from Amazon for about $22. It works. The layout schematic shows the circuit being completed, and staying complete (no red errors). And the streamed sound to my earpieces sounds great.

To all those who might want to make this change but are shying away because of the $400 price of the ReSound streamer, do a search on ebay, there are plenty available and for less than $100.

With my new Phonak aids, I got the TV connector device. Same awesome results. British accents so much easier to understand (not all). And, the music when I stream Pandora to the TV… just about equal to listening in the Bose store with the most expensive speakers.

So I have been using the Resound Unite TV Stream 2 for a week or so and have finally started enjoying TV again for the first time in a while. It’s not that I don’t like watching TV shows and movies. I just found missing 20-30% of the speech to be frustrating and I ultimately ended up focusing more on other activities like reading, etc.

Couple of observations. The Unite TV stream is excellent. Signal strength is so solid that I haven’t had a single drop off or glitch since I started using it. The controls within the iPhone app are really useful. I like the way a second volume sliding bar control is added to the app so that you can independently adjust the sound coming from the TV and the sound levels from the microphones of the hearing aids. This lets you adjust the TV to comfortable listening level but you can still (separately) turn down the microphones on the hearing aids (or turn them off completely) if there are other people in the next room making noise. It’s also nice to be able to adjust the bass/mid/treble frequencies within the Sound Enhancer in addition to the Bass Boost and Treble Boost buttons.

My only complaint is that you can get a very slight echo if you leave the TV volume on and have the hearing aid microphones on while listening through the streamer. This is caused by a very tiny (milliseconds) delay between the sound from the TV speakers and the sound from the Resound Unite TV Streamer. The user guide for the streamer explains how to adjust this but the sound is perfectly synced with the lips of the people speaking on the screen so I think the delay must be very tiny and not worth adjusting. It’s easier to just turn off the hearing aid microphones.

The one funny thing I will mention is that my wife and I haven’t watched TV in ages so there is literally years of Netflix and PrimeTV shows to catch up on during the pandemic. Some of our friends keep complaining that there is nothing to watch. Not the case in our house…haha. Stay safe everyone!

Jordan

@JordanK said:

My only complaint is that you can get a very slight echo if you leave the TV volume on and have the hearing aid microphones on while listening through the streamer. This is caused by a very tiny (milliseconds) delay between the sound from the TV speakers and the sound from the Resound Unite TV Streamer. The user guide for the streamer explains how to adjust this but the sound is perfectly synced with the lips of the people speaking on the screen so I think the delay must be very tiny and not worth adjusting. It’s easier to just turn off the hearing aid microphones.

That’s actually caused by the sound hitting your ears faster via the device than the actual sound wave arriving from the speaker. It’s a function of how far you are away and the comparative level plus the processing delay through the aid from the mics.

@Um_bongo said:

That’s actually caused by the sound hitting your ears faster via the device than the actual sound wave arriving from the speaker. It’s a function of how far you are away and the comparative level plus the processing delay through the aid from the mics.

I agree. It’s not really an echo. It actually sounds almost like the reverb you get from a sound system in a large banquet hall, etc.

Jordan

Thanks so much for this recommendation. I was a bit uncertain about spending $350 for this device, so bought a used one for $60 on eBay. Didn’t have the audio cable but that was not an issue (and if I didn’t have any they are about $10 on Amazon). But this really really makes watching TV so much better. Suddenly we don’t have to jack up the sound, and even those great British shows on PBS are easy to understand. I highly recommend these, especially since very functional used ones are so inexpensive!

Totally agree. The nicest thing about this solution is that you can be watching TV through the streamer with your hearing aid microphones muted and other people in the room can be listening normally through the TV speakers. I can even get up to get snacks (or use the men’s room) without missing anything. Worth the investment. Especially during these ongoing pandemic lockdowns.

Jordan

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