How do I stream TV sound to my HAs while spouse listens to TV at their volume?

@Sequoia_Woman said:

I’m finding that if the TV volume is higher - day during an action movie - the sound in my aids seem to get overshadowed.

LOL Sequoia_Woman! I have posted and lamented that VERY same issue over the past year. Yes, I can stream beautifully with my Phonak Marvels to the TV … but we have a soundbar on it to send volume ambiently to my DH sitting on the sofa next to me.

You nailed it! If the TV volume is up too high, it completely overrides what WE are streaming into our aids. I get a very annoying echo factor, cuz there is a nano-second of delay between what I hear in my aids and the ambient TV sound. You can ask your audi to turn ambient noise OFF, but then you will not be able to communicate with DH at all during any program you’re streaming.

I’ll be watching this post to see if anyone has a bright idea to circumvent all this competing audio we have to endure when watching TV.

I was given a Roger Select iN to trial a couple of weeks ago. It has an adapter that will plug it into a phone jack on the back of the TV. With that, I use the myPhonak app to adjust the volume I’m hearing from the Select against the volume my spouse has set from the TV itself.

I find that the streamed sound is an augmentation to the regular TV sound, but not a replacement. On the other hand, I’m not noticing any difference in sound-arrival times. It all sounds like whatever the TV is supplying, only I’m hearing some augmentation. When I mute the TV, I still get my feed. It’s just softer.

Were we more up to date, I gather that I could use some kind of fancy optical thingie to get TV sound to my Select. In theory, it might be a fuller sound. It appears to me that the phone jack thingie I have doesn’t do stereo, although I think it should. Perhaps the Select precludes that. The Phonak rep says she’ll send me an adapter that takes sound from RCA connectors, which in theory should then supply a fuller sound. We’ll know in about a week, just before I have to pony up the big bucks, which might mean I’ll have to adjust my wine budget to cover things.

Of course, I’m not considering the Select as an expensive TV streamer. That’s just something else it can do when it’s not needed for focusing in on speech in noisy places.

You can actually mute the surrounding sounds while streaming by :
#1opening the .phonak app and and tapping circle with 2 lines at bottom of screenand sliding adjuster to right or
#2. by holding the volume button on initial app screen for 2 seconds which also puts aids into mute of surrounding sounds.
hope this isn’t to confusing…

Totally get it! My hubs doesn’t wear a headset, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished he would! Same with laptop videos. He’ll watch shows on Youtube that compete with the volume of me streaming videos on my laptop. Augh! We done got OLD, and now we’re both needing a separate room to listen to the TV or watch videos on our laptops.

Ack. I don’t have any Phonak app on my Samsung cell phone. I just didn’t want any CLOUD somewhere keeping track of every single call made, what was said, etc. So … low tech solution is for me to jack the volume UP on my aids so the streaming audio is louder. Geez. At this rate, I’ll truly be deafer than a wooden clog.

That’s why mold without vent and occluded is best. So no outside noise comes in HA.

I think it’s also a function of getting ALL ambient sound “turned off” in the TV streaming program. My aids were initially set up that way, but then DEAR HUBS would ask me 10,000 questions during any TV show or movie. I’d spend the time taking my aids OUT of streaming, then cycling through all the programs to get them back IN to streaming. I finally gave up and had my audi turn up ambient sound just enough to mostly hear what hubs is saying. And the result of that is that I’m now picking up the ambient sound from the TV soundbar he has jacked up.

I TELL YA: We with hearing issues should be on our own planet where we all stream in blissful solitude. It’s the mix of hearing impaired and PERFECT hearing folks that make for some fireworks.

My wife now listens to TV at a higher volume than I find comfortable, and when I visit some relatives, that need aids and they can really crank the volume up. My solution is to use the app (like Signia’s myControl), to reduce the volume for myself until it is comfortable. I may also use the microphone focus to narrow the beam to include the TV and avoid some of the background noise. Works well for me. My preference is to avoid the complication of streaming boxes.

I don’t have a clip. My DH will just wear his headphones and that seems to work for us. Thanks all.

parth_p, I used to have a ConnectClip back in the day when I wore Oticon aids. It worked TIPTOP with both the TV and the phone. Now that I have Phonak Marvel aids, I can stream with the TV just as well with NO clip, no necklace, no pen, doodad or what-have-you. It’s completely wireless and - most times - works perfect! It’s just that my aids are set to pick up some ambient noise in addition to streaming the TV audio - and THAT is what needs changing. I need to turn all ambient noise OFF in the TV streaming program so I don’t get any echo-factor with the TV soundbar audio competing with my TV streaming audio.

Glad you got a solution that works for both of you! My hubs still has normal hearing and yet even he likes to turn the TV volume up till it’s competing with my streaming audio.

Did you ever think that maybe he doesn’t have “normal” hearing? Turning up the TV volume high could be a symptom…