Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Soundfield systems/induction loops: easier listening

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

The difficulty is that many sound systems are painful to people. It is
easy to have too much gain and sharpness to the sound.
And we rarely use the model of presenter and listeners.

I was hoping to hear that a loop system is the answer and am
disappointed to find out some hearing aids don't connect to them.
Mine do, but I've rarely been anywhere that has a system.

I know from my experience with my phone that having the sound in the
hearing aid, rather than amplified in the room provides a much higher
increase in my ability to discern different letter sounds.

-Liz
(The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
Join my email newsletter about how we can Act! Be Church Now in the
resistance. https://actbechurchnow.kit.com/posts
www.elizabethmaemagill.com
508-450-0431

On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 7:14 AM Laura Polich via Cohousing-L
<cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>
> I see that people are discussing how to improve the acoustics in meetings
> and other large and noisy rooms. Wonderful.
>
> I see some people here are advocating for induction loop systems. Looping a
> room is often a good idea and can improve ability of people to hear, BUT,
> you have to have a telecoil switch on hearing aids or another device to
> pick up the signal and get it into the listener's ears. The loop itself
> does not put out an acoustic signal. It sends out a magnetic signal which
> hearing aid telecoils can pick up and translate to acoustic energy that is
> processed by the hearing aid. The problem is that telecoils are not so
> common nowadays. You can usually order a telecoil program or a switch when
> buying hearing aids (or cochlear implants), but for some companies you have
> to choose between the telecoil and some other feature (can't have both
> features). Often people choose the other feature because they don't know
> how useful telecoils can be. So I hesitate to recommend loop systems
> because they might not be available to some hearing aid users and they do
> very little for people who could use some acoustic boost but are not yet at
> the stage of getting hearing aids.
>
> A better option (in my humble opinion) is a sound-field amplification
> system. This is a system that transfers the signal from a microphone to
> speaker(s) placed around the room. Just like loop systems, the speaker
> talks into a microphone but the sound is amplified for everyone (acoustic
> to acoustic, rather than magnetic to acoustic). The goal is simply to make
> the signal (what you want to hear) louder than the ambient noise (what you
> don't want to hear). It does not take that much volume to do that. A signal
> 5 dB louder than ambient noise (5 dB signal-to-noise ratio) will sound a
> bunch better, and a signal-to-noise ratio of +10 (signal is 10 dB louder
> than ambient noise) is usually sufficient for almost everyone to hear
> easily (people with severe hearing loss might need a higher signal-to-noise
> ratio). The amplified signal is available to everyone -- those with hearing
> aids, but also those not using hearing aids. Everyone in the room hears
> with less effort. These are recommended for classrooms which are rather
> noisy environments. Daybreak Cohousing has been using a sound-field
> amplification system for at least five years. At first we had many members
> who did not want to spend the money on the system because they felt that
> they personally did not need amplification so it would be a waste ("we hear
> just fine without an extra piece of equipment.") With persistence, we did
> get the system, and after a few weeks of using it, people kept coming up to
> me saying how much easier and less stressful it was to sit through meetings
> -- and they were the ones with "normal" hearing! The people with hearing
> loss were even more ecstatic. Now we use the soundfield system at every
> plenary, and we have also used it at many community functions, and even
> outside groups using our Common House use it, and it always gets rave
> reviews. It is portable, so it can even be taken to off-campus events.
>
> We bought a "Redcat" system from the Lightspeed company in Tualatin, Oregon
> (suburb of Portland) (https://lightspeed-tek.com/about/). The Redcat is
> easily set up, easily portable and easy to use. It is commonly used in
> elementary classrooms (where teachers want a trouble-free, easy-to-use
> system) and one of the people who benefits most is the teacher because they
> no longer have to shout to be heard by the students (a lot less fatigue at
> the end of the day). The loudspeaker plugs into an electrical outlet, but
> the microphones have to be charged with a charger. The biggest problem we
> have with the system is when someone forgets to charge the microphones
> before the meeting.  We chose Lightspeed because it was a company close to
> us so it would be easier to get troubleshooting or repair support, and it
> was less expensive. There are multiple good companies making soundfield
> amplification systems all over the US (and internationally) so there are
> many options to choose from.
>
> Laura Polich
> Daybreak Cohousing
> Portland, Oregon
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