if you have a surround sound sound bar and can set the levels on the various channels, elevate the center channel volume and turn down the others - that is where voices come from.
Also, simply turn down the bass and turn up the treble if you don't have a surround sound. This makes a huge difference for us.
I too have the T (all my life) and my wife has hearing issues. What we did is run a 3.5mm jack from our TV to right behind our sofa. When we are in Denver - we have a vizio sound bar right behind our heads on a sofa table. When we are in our cabin, we listen to TV on a simple speaker that rests on the sofa back right between us.
The bass/treble settings on the speaker are really the fix for us - kill the bass, enable the treble.
Have you considered a visit to an audiologist? The newest hearing aids are a lot better than the old ones. My husband uses captioning, which I find distracting, but he refuses to investigate anything that might help his hearing. Unfortunately, my hearing is quite a bit better than his and my ears are nearly blasted off when I turn the TV on after he has watched. Audiologists are hearing professionals and can offer the best advice available on how to maximize your listening experience.Being sequestered in these covid times, we find ourselves watching a bit more tv than previously. I suffer from some hearing loss and tinnitus. DW has excellent hearing. When watching movies on Netflix (or any channel for that matter) we both find it difficult to hear dialogue. Often there is a background music or noise that seems to overwhelm the human voice, particularly voices with accents. We have an inexpensive flat screen Vizio smart tv, and a vizio sound bar. I have monkeyed with both and still have trouble hearing the dialogue. Turning up the volume is not always helpful.
We are looking for an inexpensive solution ($300 range) that will improve the quality of human vocals. We don't intend it to be used to play music.
Anybody out there with similar problem that have found a solution, please discuss!
My kids in their late 20s also turn on captioning, they say it is brain stimulating. I guess they don't want to be 65 and struggle to retrieve the next ______ in the sentence.A few months ago we were going to watch a movie with our son (mid-20s, no hearing impairment) and he insisted on turned on closed captioning. We thought there was no reason for it and I thought it would be distracting. He routinely does it though. Anyway, we turned it on and it was such a revelation. It made the movie so much easier to watch. No more straining to hear something when someone didn't speak clearly or there was a lot of background noise. It wasn't distracting at all. Since then, I've been a believer for using it for all movies.
This. Yes. +1 We were missing so much.
I tried blue tooth headphones too but there is a delay and so an echo if I am watching with my wife, besides the voice sync being off.
I'm a GenX 50 year old who can't hear **** due to attending numerous punk rock shows in the 80s, just turn on the closed captioning!
On some TVs under 'audio', there are various presets that can be used. Often one of those presets is 'speech'. If you have that preset, use it - the speech will be much clearer. In addition, the background score will fade out a bit.
You are among a large audience here in the same situation I'm afraid. I find some stations really compress the highs and voice is difficult, if not impossible to discern. Especially in accents or slang that is not my norm. Funny thing is that the commercials almost always have the highs turned up (along with the overall volume!) Treble and Base on the soundbar are what I use to help. Also most modern TV's have similar equalizer presets deep in their menus. That might help too. I find movies have a very wide range of volume. If I set the volume to where I can hear, then the explosions or commercials are too loud. Even the auto volume leveling within the TV settings don;t help. I feel your pain.
Perhaps you could install a TIVO (or equivalent) to speed up the commercials in 2-1/2 seconds or less! I got so addicted to it that I won't see/listen to anything not taped to my TIVO. Aside of that, yes, i too have problem hearing and understanding dialog even in person. My vanity has made me live with the impairment but I feel I must soon find an "invisible" hearing aid so I can stop annoying people with my "Whats? lol!If I set the volume to where I can hear, then the explosions or commercials are too loud. Even the auto volume leveling within the TV settings don;t help.
I have an LG tv.
I found an Audio setting in my tv, and set it for "clear voice II" , it has levels for the clear voice.
It has really improved the speech of programs.
Closed Captioning.
You are among a large audience here in the same situation I'm afraid. I find some stations really compress the highs and voice is difficult, if not impossible to discern. Especially in accents or slang that is not my norm. Funny thing is that the commercials almost always have the highs turned up (along with the overall volume!) Treble and Base on the soundbar are what I use to help. Also most modern TV's have similar equalizer presets deep in their menus. That might help too. I find movies have a very wide range of volume. If I set the volume to where I can hear, then the explosions or commercials are too loud. Even the auto volume leveling within the TV settings don;t help.
I feel your pain.
Sonos Arc $800 USD.
Spend the money.
Cheaper than $6000 Danish hearing aids which is what my 34-year-old daughter wears.
+1. The CC'ing drives me nuts as it constantly distracts me. The rest of my family (DW, DS, DD) love using it though. If I happen to miss/misunderstand some dialogue, I will rewind the show and turn the CC on, then turn it off again.
I just looked at an Android app called
"Live Transcibe".
You talk to your phone and it transcribes everything on a black screen with white letters. I think this is a great app comunicating with a person with very poor hearing. This is a screen shot on my phone.
We have one fellow at our breakfast* that misses a lot of what we talk about, I think his phone transcribing the conversation would help.
*When we were having our breakfast!
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How can I tell if I have CC in my TV already (besides foreign movies?) Do I ask my server? Or Samsung? I'd start with the CC and if it doesn't help, ,,,,,
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