How to Hear Your Television Better

One of the first places that my patients report having difficulty with their hearing is while watching television. When I was a kid television certainly is not what it is now. I remember our black and white television with a tiny screen and rabbit ears. My kids would find this concept beyond foreign. My new tablet probably has a bigger screen than our old television. The sound produced by those old sets was also fairly poor even though some of them were built into those massive stereo systems that you might have considered big enough to bury someone in. Today’s televisions are huge with huge pictures connected to massive surround sound system and yet they can still be hard to hear. In actuality they may not be hard to hear but more specifically it may be hard to understand what is being said.

What we know about hearing loss is that for noise exposure as well as the aging process it is the high frequencies that deteriorate on us first. The high frequencies would be what we know as the treble sounds versus bass. With typical hearing loss we loose sharpness before volume. When we watch television with t hearing loss we often try to turn up the volume to help us understand speech better however it is the clarity that we struggle with and turning it louder does not make it any clearer and yet we still try. In reality turning it louder can potentially further distort the sound.

Beyond our hearing ability there are other variables that make television listening more difficult. In the “old days” the television shows we watched were more dialogue based with music and sound effects interspersed on a minimal level. What we watched were shows with people talking. Given the size of the sets we also sat closer to them. In todays world the television shows we watch are like watching action movies in the theater with sound effects constantly where dialogue is embedded in in competing noise making it so much harder to understand. Our television sets are so large that we sit in the back of our rooms to watch television. Our surround sound systems are wonderful for the sound and fury of the television shows but often the systems are not set up correctly to allow for a focus on speech.

Here are some things that can be done to help hear television better. While hearing testing and hearing aids may be the best solution here are a few other things that can be done as well. If you are watching a television set that has built in speakers go into the audio menu and turn up the treble and turn the bass down to create a clearer sound instead of a louder sound, this will be far more useful than volume. The same kind of approach should be taken in adjusting your surround sound system with a priority given to the center channel and the higher frequencies that make speech understandable. It may be a good idea to sit a little closer to your television as when you cut the distance in half you double the volume according to the physics of acoustics. Another great solution is a wireless set of earphones that give you a direct sound from your television without the ambient room noise and which you can control the volume for yourself independent of the others in the room.

As I have said before television is often one of those things that allow us to see the possibility of hearing loss, as we have to directly compare our sound levels with what others prefer. While the strategies I outlined are wonderful ideas to help compensate understanding your hearing needs and your hearing loss should be your starting point.