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RE: Surround sound for the hard of hearing

Posted by David Aiken (A) on December 22, 2008 at 13:09:40

In Reply to: Surround sound for the hard of hearing posted by bob24 on December 22, 2008 at 07:59:20:

I think part of your answer is really in your comment that "they either have to sit right in front of the tv to hear". It sounds to me as if they don't always sit in the same place and that's a problem for surround which has to be set up around a definite listening position. It's easier to allow for changes in position if you're running stereo or mono than surround.

While I can understand Joe Murphy's comment, I'm not certain that I completely agree with him.

I'm 61, with reasonably good hearing still for my age, but I do have a small dip in the 3-4 kHz range which is probably noise induced hearing loss and which may be related to my occasional difficulty with speech comprehension on some soundtracks.

BUT I found that adding a centre speaker to a 4.1 setup certainly helped me understand a lot of dialogue better when the sound track was getting messy. I suspect the reason for that was that a lot of dialogue is present solely in the centre channel so having a centre channel gives a mono source for that and improves clarity as a result so I would tend to recommend at least a 3 channel system with L, R and centre speakers.

I've also only moved into surround sound for movies in the last 3-4 years. I started off by setting up a stereo system for the TV and then started adding channels. I found having the surrounds tended to make the sound from the fronts a little clearer also and I've come to the conclusion that folding 2 or more channels into 1 tends to reduce clarity a little. Still, as far as dialogue goes, there's rarely dialogue in the surrounds. It tends to occur mostly in the centre channel, sometimes in the front L and R channels, and rarely elsewhere.

I also suspect that the best answer probably depends heavily on the amount and nature of the hearing deterioration and that as hearing deteriorates, reducing channels may help in some ways, even though I do think that folding channels into a single channel introduces some lack of clarity.

If your parents already had a surround system and were having problems, my first suggestion would be to either slightly increase the trim level for the centre channel or slightly reduce the trim for the surround channels in order to boost the bulk of the dialogue a little. My next step if that wasn't enough would be to remove the surrounds and try running things with only the L, R and centre speakers. I think I'd prefer to keep a centre rather than go to stereo only, and I'd even consider boosting the trim on that a little. From what you've said, I think that's the setup I'd recommend you try.

I've got mixed feelings about suggesting running a sub but I think on balance letting a sub handle the bass frequencies will probably keep the sound from the main speakers a little clearer. Running the crossover frequency at 80 Hz will keep the bulk of the bass out of the centre speaker which may help keep speech a little clearer, and even raising the crossover a little, say to 120 Hz, may help, but you wouldn't want to raise it to the point where the sub is reproducing the bottom of most male voices and the bottom of the baritone range is around 110 Hz so I wouldn't try a higher crossover than 120 Hz. Even there, the bottom octave of the male bass range is going to be handled by the sub but that's not likely to be an issue with a lot of TV and movie fare.

I think going to mono only, while it sounds tempting, isn't a good idea because you lose total control over the level of the individual channels that are mixed down to mono and you're left with no way at all to raise the dialogue level without raising the level of everything else. I think the ability to do just that is the best argument for ensuring a separate centre channel with whatever number of other speakers you choose to go with.

I do wonder whether a receiver with room EQ functionality like Audyssey would also help improve clarity for them, though you'd probably have to do the setup for them. Another possibility is manual EQ with a bit of a boost through the voice range in order to make the voices stand out a little more.

Depending on their age and tastes, you may also have to consider just how complex a setup they're prepared to live with and while you can set things up so that it really is easy enough for them to control the system, no matter how challenged they think they are, by using a universal remote like the Harmony there's still the issue of their perceptions and whether they're willing to give things a try or not. That may well depend on their age which you did not state, and you may get a different response if they're closer to 70 than to 90 and/or if they have or don't have personal experience with component audio systems.




David Aiken

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