How To Make Your TV Clearer Not Just Louder
Are you having difficulties hearing what is bein said on the TV? When your family visit, do they ever mention that the TV is really loud? We look at how to make your tv clearer in this post.
It can seem like the only way to understand someone talking on a TV programme is to turn the TV up. Unfortunately by increasing the overall sound you are also increasing background sounds you may not wish to make louder, such as music and road noise in the background. We look at some top tips you can do to improve this situation.
Reduce Environmental Noise
If you are watching a television programme that your friends and family like, get them to sit and enjoy it with you. If you are all watching it at the same time, this means that there are less distractions as you'll all be focused on watching it together, rather than doing things around the TV.
If this isn’t the case and you want to watch something no one else wants to watch, this might create a lot of background noise; such as children running around your living rooom, lots of distracting conservations or music being played by others.
If the above is happening, a tv listener could be a good idea. We recommend a Geemarc CL7300, they have fantastic reviews online and our older family members use these when friends and family are around who don't have hearing issues.
If you don't know what a TV listener is, it's a headset with ear buds that connects wirelessly to your television. This will cut out background noise and allow your TVs sound and audio to go straight to your ears, causing no distraction or frustration to other family members. Some TV listeners have a intergrated microphone to allow you to switch from listening to the TV to listening to a conversation at the click of a button. Why not take a look at other recommened TV listeners on Amazon.
Change Your TV Settings
Within all digital TV’s you will find options specific to hearing.
Access the main menu and find the ‘settings’ section. Clicking on this section should allow you to find a further ‘sound’ or ‘audio’ menu. You may find a number of options which you can try such as changing from surround sound to stereo or normal sound. There should also be a ‘night mode’ on your TV this is designed to be able to watch TV at low volume whilst other family members have gone to bed. Its ability to reduce volume for loud sounds but still increase the loudness and clarity of dialogue, makes it a worthy setting to try to improve sound quality on your TV.
Lastly look at an ‘Equalizer’ setting which will give you the option to change the loudness depending on certain frequencies, having a play around with this will mean you can concentrate the frequency which best suits you and what you are watching. You may find that it helps with films by turning down the surrounding volume but keeps the important parts high so you can understand the film and not have to listen to every explosion that happens.
Try Out a Phone App
Apps are a great way to trouble shoot everyday life problems in today's society. One particular app you should look at is Tunity. This is an app that allows you to hear a muted TV used in a public place such as while waiting at the doctors, in the hospital, at the gym or at a bar all you need is a smart phone, the app and some headphones.
This is a good replacement or test for the TV listener idea. Because you could have friends and family around and tune in to your TV using your phone and headphones and still be able to listen to the TV with one of your earbuds in.
Improve the Physical Sound Production With A Sound Bar
With TV’s becoming larger but thinner and some are almost paper thin, this means it affects the dimmensions of your TV speakers and you are more likely to hear a tinny sound in comparison to a rich quality from a good quality speaker.
We recommend you look in to a sound bar, it's a slim long speaker that is placed next to the base of your TV. It contains better speakers to provide surround or stereo sound. To provide yourself with further deep and low frequency sounds using a sub woofer along side will enhance the overall picture of the sound. It is also worth looking for one that has a dialogue enhancement setting that helps to boost the frequency range most found in speech.
We recommend the Zvox Accuvoice AV200 sound bar, it will easily sound better than your in-built speaker system and has a couple of fantastic features, especially for those of hard of hearing and with hearing aids.
This sound bar gets 4.5/5 on amazon.com with over 900+ reviews, so it is highly recommended. It's main selling point is for "clear voice reproduction" and high quality sound. "Can't hear dialogue on TV? ZVOX can fix that! The AccuVoice AV200 uses hearing aid technology to make voices crystal-clear, even at low volumes. ZVOX's proprietary technology literally lifts voices out of the sound track - and then modifies the voices to make them understandable. You'll hear every word, even on poorly mixed programs."
It sounds absolutely perfect for anyone who has their TV volume turned up loud just to hear people speaking. It is very easy to fit, a family member could help you if needs be with the single wire that fits in to the back of your current TV and it is very easy to operate and comes with full instructions.
Improving a TV With Your Hearing Aid
If you are having difficulty hearing your TV it is worth having your hearing tested to see whether you have hearing loss and require a hearing aid. The latest hearing aid technology has listening to TV in mind, able to reduce background noise depending on which way you are facing and the environment you are in. As a hearing aid user, having a loop setting on your hearing aid provides you with the option to connect to a room loop meaning you can stream the sound direct to your hearing aid without disturbing other people, this allows you to increase the volume on your hearing aid rather than the television which will help to increase only the sounds your need increasing.
We hope that at least one of these solutions can improve the quality of your life and those around you.