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Improve flat screen TV sound.

David Aungier

Sep 4, 2017
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Hi, I am looking for a way to improve the sound quality of my flat screen TV so that I can hear and understand the dialogue over the background noise including music. I have a degree of frequency deafness which fellow sufferers will know, creates a problem with respect to understanding speech. I have calibrated hearing aids which are supposed to help but frankly they don't . I have thought about an all round sound bar but am not sure if it would be suitable and would need some tech advice. One way or another I think I would need to be able to adjust bass and treble, I suspect I would need to lower the bass and raise the treble to suit my hearing. If anyone can help me with info or advice on this matter I would be extremely grateful,regards Onja.
 

Audioguru

Sep 24, 2016
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The sound from most TVs sounds awful. For my TV's I have the line level stereo outputs driving my home-made amplifier and speakers on one TV and I use a stereo sound system I bought for the other TV.
My slightly modified clock radio with home-made eternal speaker also sounds great.

I have normal-for-my-age high (75) frequency hearing loss and my hearing aids fix it perfectly, plus have a button to add noise reduction, compression, extra sensitivity or muting. The hearing aids can also switch to hear best from one of 4 directions. They play sounds from a telephone handset in both ears.
 

Technomaniac

Oct 31, 2020
100
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Oct 31, 2020
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Hi. When I was still at primary school an Australian Electronics Magazine included a project called a "TV Aid". I built one inside a single GPO box. I ran only two turns of wire around the edge of the living room and connected the loop through an electric cooker switch "High, Medium and Low" on the stove but labelled "Speaker, Loop and Both" on the back of the TV. My hearing was good at that time, but the TV Aid allowed me to watch tv late at night when the rest of the family had gone to bed... Now I am 73 years old and may need to repeat the exercise. I had a church approach me about 20 years ago wanting some of the receivers. The church already had a loop in use. So I built up a batch of three of the pocket units, about half the size of my original 1960 model, but the same idea. Its a ferrite aerial rod from a transistor radio, but you need to wind about 600 turns and then its just into an audio amp into an earpiece.
There is a commercially available pair of stereo headphones which receives the radiation from a little box on top of the TV. I sold one of these to the widow of an M.D. and a year later she was happy with it. There was another chap for whom I set up a remote speaker in a little box, with a volume control and an optional earphone socket. He had found that he didn't need more VOLUME, he just needed to be closer. to the speaker.
TVaidFoilSide.png TVaidCompSide.png This is the third of the three I made for the church. They bought only two. The white plastic box has yellowed over the twenty years. And I notice that I have marked 800 on the coil, so I was wrong about the 600. But either will work OK. The loop around the room (which I think was meant to be more than two turns, probablu four or six, best if DC resistance is 8 ohms), can be made from multi-core cable, such as 10-pair telephone cable, and you just make the appropriate connections between the colours at the join, to turn it into a multi-turn coil.
 
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Bluejets

Oct 5, 2014
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Hi. When I was still at primary school an Australian Electronics Magazine included a project called a "TV Aid". I built one inside a single GPO box. I ran only two turns of wire around the edge of the living room

Used to install these systems into school rooms back in the 90's but the idea there was to use powered headphones to pick up the "speaker coil" around the room.
We used to run 4 loops of figure 8 flex inside a conduit under the floor and make the appropriate connections at the ends so the cabling became one coil of 8 turns.
Don't know if that would help much here unless there was some form of pickup bass treble control.
Idea there was to reduce effects of outside noise and listen to a certain program without "annoying the neighbours" from having an amp on high volume.
Also added advantage of being able to move freely around the room without the previous "trailing lead". Headphones from memory ran on a 9v smoke alarm battery.
Teachers in other rooms used to be quite loud in those days.:eek:

Some detail here...... https://www.williamssound.com/resou...uides/design_guide_induction_loop_systems.pdf

Also reference to a Silicon Chip project .......
1/IA/26 Induction Loop Pickup for Headphones 95il10 Oct 95

https://www.jameco.com/Jameco/workshop/diy/magnetic.html
 
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Technomaniac

Oct 31, 2020
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Oct 31, 2020
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The TV probably has tone controls, (IF you can find them in the menu system ! ) but in any case, most oldies need treble boost and that can be added to whatever remote device is used. Maybe just getting the sound closer and more accurately pointed towards an ear may suffice. Carpets absorb lots of the highs. Perhaps a pair of little boxes (with tweeters and woofers) either side of the boss' armchair..
 

Technomaniac

Oct 31, 2020
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The Telephone Coil does not make a real good pickup compared to the ferrite rod, but if you are LAZY.... If you had a good pair of oldfashioned headphones such as were suitable for a crystal set, maybe the amplifier wouldn't be necessary. That Jameco circuit is about the same as the one I used. Probably straight out of the chip data book. Those pickup coils with the suction cups probably don't work on a modern telephone and they were probably dead stock. I think I have a couple somewhere.
 

David Aungier

Sep 4, 2017
31
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Hi Techno, plenty of ideas and info there to think on, thank you. Clearly you are a 'master' of the subject and I have to say that most of your expertise is beyond me. I am particularly interested in your view regarding getting close to the sound source. I have thought of acquiring a pair of small speakers sited in the corner where I sit and linking them to the TV speakers -either directly or through mini microphones- and see if that makes any improvement. Probably not wireless to keep things simple. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on this.
 

bertus

Moderator
Nov 8, 2019
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Hello,

Wich brand and type is your TV?
Perhaps there are some adjustments that can be done through the menus of the TV.
When we know the brand and type, we can also see the connectivity of the TV.

Bertus
 

David Aungier

Sep 4, 2017
31
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Sep 4, 2017
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31
Hello,

Wich brand and type is your TV?
Perhaps there are some adjustments that can be done through the menus of the TV.
When we know the brand and type, we can also see the connectivity of the TV.

Bertus
Hi, I have adjusted the audio settings to find the best set up for my individual needs and found -as I expected - that something more 'drastic' is required. Ideally, I would like to set up a system that picked up the TV sound and relayed it to speakers close to where I sit and have the facility of volume and base/treble control at hand whilst still retaining the original TV speakers for others in the room who don't have hearing difficulties. If such a system could be practicable, I would be capable of setting it up but would need a detailed diagram instructions that a layman from Mars could understand! I have seen on line, small 'audio control units' with bass/treble control etc and ref to woofers and the like which appears to me like it could be incorporated as a starting point priced around £40 ?
 

Audioguru

Sep 24, 2016
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Modern hearing aids play Bluetooth and can pickup the Bluetooth sound from a modern smart TV.
My older hearing aids have a Bluetooth booster that radios to my nearby hearing aids but with no low frequencies. Vents in my hearing aid earmolds provide low frequencies that is normal with my hearing but it does not work properly so I don't use it. My TVs have a hifi sound system that sounds fine in my hearing aids.
 

Dieter2

Oct 12, 2020
9
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Oct 12, 2020
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Hi, I have adjusted the audio settings to find the best set up for my individual needs and found -as I expected - that something more 'drastic' is required. Ideally, I would like to set up a system that picked up the TV sound and relayed it to speakers close to where I sit and have the facility of volume and base/treble control at hand whilst still retaining the original TV speakers for others in the room who don't have hearing difficulties. If such a system could be practicable, I would be capable of setting it up but would need a detailed diagram instructions that a layman from Mars could understand! I have seen on line, small 'audio control units' with bass/treble control etc and ref to woofers and the like which appears to me like it could be incorporated as a starting point priced around £40 ?

I would visit this forum:

https://www.avsforum.com/

Best army of audio people on the planet.
 

Technomaniac

Oct 31, 2020
100
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Oct 31, 2020
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The little boxes that were used with computers, that have a built-in amplifier in the speaker could be worth a go, preferably the mains powered ones, the battery ones use C or D cells and are a bit heavy on the batteries. I feel that the ones you are talking about for 40 quid may not have a built-in amp, and I think for a tone control of any sort to work, you need extra gain as can be supplied only by an amplifier. SOME of those have treble boost switches and controls.
Years ago, when I was still an apprentice, I bought myself a pair of (newly released) Sennheiser stereo headphones. Everyone who listened to them was amazed. The model, as I recall, was HD414. My brother was newly working for the only local commercial AM radio station, and when he showed them to his management they were so impressed, within six months every radio station in the network and probably the country had standardised on them. They were a bit vulnerable in the plugin cables, but they used coarse texture foam rubber earpads, so you could still hear what was happening around you. I recently excitedly bought a wireless pair of the same brand at a garage sale but I was VERY disappointed, they seemed to be a VERY poor pair of headphones with a receiver added. The radio station later bought HD424, a later model, I didn't like them so much. I always made sure I had a spare pair of foam rubber pads and a spare cable for mine - if you tripped over the lead it would have been history. There was a connector into each earphone (with gold plated pins) but the cables were something like what we called "tinsel flex" - like a fthin flat-section wire wrapped around a piece of string. Makes it extremely flexible but a bit vulnerable. With our hot summers in Rockhampton, the foam rubber pads would let you down without much warning.
 

crewcab24

Mar 14, 2021
1
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Mar 14, 2021
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I too have hearing problems though i do have hearing aids and the soundbar does not do much for me . My flat screen smart tv has a tv out hookup so went to a Salvation Army store and bought some used comp. speakers with a amp. in it and a head set hookup works great.
 

hevans1944

Hop - AC8NS
Jun 21, 2012
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Jun 21, 2012
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The little boxes that were used with computers, that have a built-in amplifier in the speaker could be worth a go, preferably the mains powered ones, the battery ones use C or D cells and are a bit heavy on the batteries. I feel that the ones you are talking about for 40 quid may not have a built-in amp, and I think for a tone control of any sort to work, you need extra gain as can be supplied only by an amplifier. SOME of those have treble boost switches and controls.
Years ago, when I was still an apprentice, I bought myself a pair of (newly released) Sennheiser stereo headphones. Everyone who listened to them was amazed. The model, as I recall, was HD414. My brother was newly working for the only local commercial AM radio station, and when he showed them to his management they were so impressed, within six months every radio station in the network and probably the country had standardised on them. They were a bit vulnerable in the plugin cables, but they used coarse texture foam rubber earpads, so you could still hear what was happening around you. I recently excitedly bought a wireless pair of the same brand at a garage sale but I was VERY disappointed, they seemed to be a VERY poor pair of headphones with a receiver added. The radio station later bought HD424, a later model, I didn't like them so much. I always made sure I had a spare pair of foam rubber pads and a spare cable for mine - if you tripped over the lead it would have been history. There was a connector into each earphone (with gold plated pins) but the cables were something like what we called "tinsel flex" - like a fthin flat-section wire wrapped around a piece of string. Makes it extremely flexible but a bit vulnerable. With our hot summers in Rockhampton, the foam rubber pads would let you down without much warning.
Looks like you have been victimized by the owners of the Electronics Point website who "translated" your Sennheiser earphone model numbers into webpage links to their All About Electronics website. If this is their way of getting more "hits" on that webpage, I think it sucks. @Harald Kapp has already pointed out this new "feature" so I won't rant anymore about it. Point is, beware that you may be getting gratuitous embedded links to pages that have NOTHING to do with your text discussion. Other EP members have noted some workaround steps you can take to prevent the hijacking of your text, but the best solution would be for the website owners of Electronics Point to just abandon this new marketing practice.

BTW, here is a REAL link to an e-bay page selling rare and obsolete HD414 Sennheiser headphones made in Germany.
 

Technomaniac

Oct 31, 2020
100
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Oct 31, 2020
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100
If buying second hand,better see if new cables are still available anywhere,I think. AND foam earpads.
 
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