I cannot understand the TV dialogue

[cbo111]

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!

 

[REWahoo]

Closed Captioning.

 

[iloveyoga]

Closed Captioning.

This. Yes. +1 We were missing so much.

 

[davebarnes]

Sonos Arc $800 USD.
Spend the money.
Cheaper than $6000 Danish hearing aids which is what my 34-year-old daughter wears.

 

[target2019]

The sound bar remote may have presets for selecting different EQ (equalizer) settings. I often switch these on my sound bar to enhance speech or music. Volume change may help too.

 

[audreyh1]

We’ve used closed captioning for years! Sure helps with all the weird accents.

 

[DenverGuy42]

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.

 

[CRLLS]

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.

 

[Souschef]

Before I broke down and got my hearing aids, I had a thing called TV ears. There are any number of designs. There are stethoscope designs, and headphone designs.
In fact, I have a set I do not use that I can send you

 

[zinger1457]

I had a soundbar hooked up to my LG OLED TV and also had issues with the dialogue. Purchased a Klipsch center channel speaker and connected it to my AV receiver with the existing speakers and the improvement in the clarity of dialogue for TV programming was impressive, and you don't have to crank up the volume to notice the benefits. The cost of the center channel speaker by itself falls within your budget but wouldn't be of much help unless you have the other AV components (receiver and speakers).

 

[camfused]

We use CC on the British shows, to translate into English

 

[CRLLS]

I cannot deal with CC. I find I cannot "see" the program when reading the words.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

With live TV it's difficult if you do not catch what is said the first time. Playing a video I try different things. My problem is CC is not always available. So when I have problems understanding what is said and it is not live, I try CC first if available, then I will try to play back the part I couldn't understand, if still no go, I will try to read lips. The last thing I will try is to understand what is said by the context. I will listen to what is said afterwards to try and piece it together.

If all that fails, I move on and just forget it.

 

[audreyh1]

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.

Not watching content with commercials certainly helps us!

 

[pb4uski]

Closed captioning or wireless headphones. I've had a couple sets that plug into the output for separate speakers and work well.

We have this Sharper Image model and they work well... but shop around... I bought a set for my mother from woot a while back for $33.

https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/st...CBGUVVhH7EGlr_tfgkRoChEEQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[DenverGuy42]

Closed captioning or wireless headphones. I've had a couple sets that plug into the output for separate speakers and work well.

if you live in a place with lots of wifi connections - beware the RF (radio frequency) headphones. They typically use the same 2.4ghz frequency as wireless routers do (true, newer 5ghz routers are more and more common, but they still broadcast on 2.4ghz since there are many devices that don't support the higher frequency yet)

I tried those in my condo downtown. At least 40 wifi names show up. They use the same frequencies as the RF headphones. You'll hear lots of interference - squealing, static, interference. The RF headphones were useless.

At the cabin where it is just our network - they work great, we use them when working out.

In the condo - we had to go with IR (infra-red) line of sight headphones. No chatter on the headphones at all. The RF headphones were useless with all of the wifi channels being used.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I would say closed captioning first, but I bought this hearing amplifier (pre-COVID) for my bad ear when I'm in a noisy environment (restaurant, busy street, etc.), so I can hear someone if they're on that side. It works great, even in very noisy environments, so I imagine it might help with TV dialogue, too. I suppose if it doesn't work well enough for you for the TV dialogue, you still have a pretty good hearing amplifier for post-COVID activities.

 

[statsman]

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.

I agree with this suggestion if the model allows for it. Any chance the OP can provide the sound bar Vizio model?

 

[MissMolly]

Closed captioning. Once you get used to it you will never be able to watch TV without it. I've been using it for years.

 

[georgemoe]

Same issue here. Have a pair of semi functional hearing aids but I hate wearing them and won't buy new ones. Even with the hearing aid in, clear audio from the TV for me was a challenge. I ended up buying a pair of Sony WH-L600 wireless headphones. Around $300 retail but I got them from somewhere for around $200. I also have a Vizio and hooked up to an audio line out. TV and headset volume work independently so we are both in our own audio heaven. Best $200 I've spent in a while.

 

[kevdude]

I cannot deal with CC. I find I cannot "see" the program when reading the words.

+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.

 

[audreyh1]

Closed captioning is really useful when learning a foreign language. I have the closed captioning on in the foreign language, and find it helps train my ear as well as help me detect new vocabulary.

I have run into a few situations where it’s was way off though, I guess on YouTube or something automated. Hilarious really - but I’ll be like “that’s not what they said!’ A particular cooking video from Spain comes to mind, lol!

 

[dadu007]

Search for TV Ears at Amazon; well under $300. Otherwise, hearing aids with a Bluetooth streamer that attaches to your TV and streams the sounds directly to your hearing aids wirelessly.

 

[Sunset]

OP - Our TV has some audio settings, there is one for clear sound - to emphasis the speech part of the sound.
Maybe your tv has a similar type setting

 

[jim584672]

A good headphone attached to a good receiver will greatly help.