LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Re: How to Hear Better in the Car by Peter Stelmacovich
There is another alternative that works really well and depending on how much a person wants or needs to hear other passengers, this is well worth considering for a number of reason.
Microphones are problematic at the best of times and while it is impossible to capture voice that feeds the sound pressure to the hearing aid with any other device, the closer one gets the microphone to the persons speaking, the less noise is induced.
Most of the times there is seldom more than 4 people in the car. There are lots of 12 volt powered mixers available and the can run from a few dollars to very expensive. A mixer for about $100 or so should do the trick. You then supply an over the ear cardiode microphone for each person that gets connected to the mixer.
You then connect the output of the mixer to a small loop amplifier that runs off of 12 volts that has a loop pad. The loop pad is placed under the hard of hearing person and then set the hearing aid to the “t” position. When the hearing aid is in the “t” position, the internal microphones of the hearing aids are turned off and as the head set microphone can be a very direction type, the signal to noise of the person speaking is greatly improved.
There are a number of products that can achieve this and this works well for any t coil equipped hearing aid.
There are many other applications where t coils can be used and there is no other system on the market that has the same signal to noise levels than a properly set up audio frequency induction loop system.
Respectfully,
Lee Ramsdell, Vice President, Canadian Hard of Hearing Association - Edmonton Branch