One of the complaints I hear most from people is that they have trouble hearing their televisions. People with hearing loss always blame their loss or their hearing aids for not hearing clearly. The truth is most TVs, especially flat screens, position their audio speakers on the back facing the wall or sometimes on the sides, but facing away from the front. Since the sound is directed away from the listener, the signal is weak and often distorted. And my little rant is that they are always improving the picture quality, but never the sound.
The most common way to improve this is to get external speakers or a soundbar that faces front. There is also a product called HyperSound which hooks up to the TV and angles improved speech to the listener with hearing loss. Most of the newer hearing aids have Bluetooth connectivity to stream directly from the TVs to your hearing aids and that’s a nice feature as well.
Another issue is that the stations are inconsistent with sound quality and loudness levels. When surfing through the different channels you hear a range of volume and clarity. And don’t forget how loud the ads are! They are all supposed to be consistent, but well….obviously that is not enforced. Unfortunately, there’s not too much to be done about that.
Don’t forget about captioning on the TV. You can access the words scrolling along the bottom of the picture for just about all shows and movies, even those on Netflix, Hulu and others. This is available on all televisions and I find I use them all the time.
Hope this is helpful in finding an enjoyable way to listen to your favorite programs and movies.
Ellen