Audio from TV and Hearing Aid Transmitter at the same time

I use this for my Roger/soundbar output- and it works fine.

Glad you got there, only just seen this thread and this is exactly what I do and it works a charm.

There is no volume over Optical which is why you need your soundbar / Phonak base station to modulate.

I bought a second base station also for the TV in the study and just move the Roger between them when I want to watch.

Life is Good

Hi,

I sure wish I had known this informtion before I spent a lot of time and money on things that did not work. I don’t really know anything about audeo and related devices so I am still a bit confused as to why two very expensive devices that were supposed to split the optical off of the HDMI ARC signal were unable to do so. Both device companies said that their devices would work. I wonder if it is something to do whith how LG TVs output audio?

Not sure how you have your setup configured but I use eARC to get sound from my Consoles (xbox and PS5) through my LG TV to my Apple TV and then onwards via Airplay to my stereo pair of HomePods.

So PS5/Xbox go to Hue Play device (which syncs the lights). Hue Play to LG TV.

From TV on ARC HDMI I connect to the Apple TV and the Apple TV connects to the HomePods using AirPlay

It works really well in that the Consoles can play via the AirPods through the Hue Sync and the TV.

You can’t have this on at the same time as the Optical Out to the Phonak tho as you hit exactly the same problem that you came across in that the LG does not do HMDI Arc out and Opt Out simultaneously.

Looking at the Vertex it looks like you want the to put the Cable / Satellite into your Vertex, on the Output side you want HDMI Sound into the Soundbar, SpDif into the Phonak and then the another HDMI lead to plug the Vertex into the TV for the picture (and you may also get TV Speaker sound too if you want to)

So basically you need something into the Vertex and then that outputs sound to the two devices. You are not using eARC on the TV then.

I am of course only guessing. An Audio Out splitter is much easier as you have found.

The only other way that you can do a SoundBar is to use a Bluetooth Soundbar and connect your hearing aids via Bluetooth to the TV too (you don’t use the Roger then). The TV can have two simultaneous Bluetooth connections so it powers both at the same time.

The downside to this is that the volume puts the volume up on both but you can always use the app on a phone to turn the hearing aids up or down independantly of the soundbar (or the soundbar remote of course).

Before I got my Roger this was the way I connected, hearing aids via bluetooth and my son connected his AirPods at the same time

That’s an interesting idea. I’ll have to give it a try.

I wonder just how hard it would have been for LG to pass sound to two differnt ports at the same time? More hardware or a software change?

My 5 year old LG will output to optical and internal speakers simultaneously; IDK if they’ve removed that feature. I wish it would do eARC/HDMI and optical simultaneously. . Fortunately, my wife doesn’t care about the quality of TV sound.

I sure wish that my TV would output eARC/HDMI at the same time. I’m not sure why it could not. Once again I am still looking for a splitter that would pass through the eARCH/HDMI to one output and strip out Octal through another output. I’m not up on audio output so I can’t say if this is possible or realistic. If anyone knows of a device that does this I would love to hear about it.

Hi. This is my first time posting, and this topic forum seem close to what I am trying to do. With a Samsung TV, a Spectrum cable box, and a Phonak TV Connector, is there any way to get the audio to stream the cable box audio via the TV Connector (which it is doing) as well as the audio when a streaming service such as Netflix (which it is not doing) is being used on the same TV? Of note, the TV does not have a digital optical port, but it does have an HDMI eARC port. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am not super tech savvy. Thanks in advance.

@PeterH said:

RogerOn and Roger Select, and I can’t get a stereo feed

I have had to reset my Roger on (v1) several times when it has lost the ability to do stereo. If this remains an issue for you, give it a try. Hold down the on/off and Bluetooth buttons simultaneously for more than 10 seconds. You’ll need to pair to aids again.

Best wishes…
WH

Interesting discussion. One thing I've noticed from talking with hearing aid users is that sometimes the biggest challenge isn't hearing the TV—it's getting all the devices to work together.

I'm the co-founder of Jabees, and we took a different approach with our HearLink Kit1. Instead of connecting directly to the TV, the HearLink microphone can simply be placed near the TV speaker and streams the sound to pre-paired bone conduction headphones.

That means no optical cables, HDMI extractors, TV pairing, or compatibility concerns. It's certainly not the perfect solution for every setup, but some users appreciate the simplicity, especially when dealing with older TVs, soundbars, or multiple audio devices.

I'd be curious whether anyone here has tried a microphone-based approach for TV listening.

Yes. Kind of. I've put my Android phone running Sound Amplifier under the TV and listened through my LE Audio hearing aids. Dialogue was understandable mostly but it sounded horrible compared to an Auracast stream.

That sounds like a simple solution, especially for older TVs. Avoiding cables and compatibility issues could make1 TV listening much easier for many users.