Captions

With some practice, you may be able to hear the TV just sitting on the couch!  But a small pair of speakers across the room aren’t the best listening situation.  It may help to turn up the volume a bit.  Even then, some shows have a lot of background noises or music, which makes it hard to understand the speech.

There’s nothing wrong with using the closed captions.  Even if you don’t rely on them, they are always there in case you miss something.  And they are a great way to practice, particularly if you watch live news broadcasts. Unlike pre-recorded programs, the captions lag the speech by a second or two.  This forces you to try and understand the speech without relying on the captions.  And if you miss something, or aren’t sure about something, the captions will come along to help you.

IR Headsets

Bluetooth

Some modern TVs have a Bluetooth A2DP audio streaming output. To listen to these TVs, you will need a Bluetooth receiver.  You may use the same Bluetooth Headset described for telephone use.  And the means to connect it to your processor are also the same.

Clearsounds makes a Bluetooth transmitter that plugs into a headphone jack and a neck loop receiver that you can wear around your neck.  Make sure to set your processor to use the telecoil.

CAUTION

The user manuals for all implants caution you to avoid using direct connect with any line-powered equipment.  If there is a lighting strike, or even an electrical fault, it is possible that your processor could be damaged.  Worse, the implant itself could be damaged.  Worse still, you could be damaged!

Maybe this is an abundance of caution, but we have several alternatives to connecting to line-powered equipment that it is better to be safe than sorry.

One grey area is the use of headphones.  People have been using headphones connected to line-powered equipment for as long as headphones have been available.  To be safe, it is best to look for alternatives.