Listening to speech in an auditorium

Agree with the comments about the assistive listening systems. You can also buy a personal assistive listening device called ClearCast PAL7 that has a remote microphone you can place near the person speaking so there is a high speech-to-noise ratio and no effect of distance or space harmonics or background noise. And you will hear clearly and understand everything that is being spoken.

I too have this problem in churches, particularly older high peaked ceiling churches. I found a solution that is quite helpful. I added an app called Live Transcribe on my iphone. It uses the mic in the phone to pick up the sound and the words are brought up on the phone screen. Live Transcribe works with out wifi and better with wifi. The first place I used it was in an older church for the funeral of a friend as the minister gave his talk at the start of the service. With just my hearing aid and implant - no luck comprehending the words. With the app turned on - magic on my screen - all her words with very few errors. I since use this app a lot. At a busy bank when talking to the bank teller - at noisy restaurants to hear the person beside you or across the table from you. Even on a backyard patio with 3 other friends last night, The app is not costly. It’s only drawback is it has a 5 hr time limit per month on use of the highest power setting. Hopefully as the company grows this will be improved. I just added the app to my ipad so I have this to add to my listening time capacity. Oh - and I just mention to people I am with why I am staring at my phone screen when they talk with me so they don’t think I am being rude.

I have the external mic made for ReSound/Jabra HAs, called MultiMic. I have used it as you describe with great success, ie, placing it up front before the event starts (even on the edge of the stage, or on/near the lectern). Best bet is to clip it to the speaker’s shirt, if the situation is informal enough to ask.