[chris2922]

My dad has a condition called Tinitus and finds watching tv quite difficult if he cant see the mouths of the people having a conversation, or if those pesky american actors whisper or dont annunciate.

Usually subtitles fix this and he and my mom can watch tv quite happily, but recently they've decided to watch 'heroes' on sci-fi and no subtitles are provided via cable tv. This is just one example.

They have a Marantz SR4200 amp and Kef 'egg' speaker system so ive tried boosting the centre 'dialogue' channel but it hasnt helped. They gave up and switched Tivo off last night.

Is there a headset or headphones that might help my dad out?

Maybe something that carries only the dialogue?

Its a shame he cant just enjoy tv like the rest of us.

[chris2922]

Oh, and its not good if the solution to this problem prevents my dad from hearing and therefore talking to my mom. They watch tv together, so talking to one-another is obviously something they do.

Hope someone can help.

Ive been tempted to buy some 'open' headphones for a while now, for late night tv, so buying 2 sets wouldnt be a problem.

[GBDG1]

You can run a pair of headphones from the headphone out of the amp. Alternatively you can buy some wireless ones and again run them from the headphone out of the amp.

If he has hearing problems then he should probably be looking into a hearing aid.

[Knox]

I recently purchased Ultrasone 2200 headphone for just this problem !

The 2200's are the 'entertainers' of the Ultrasone range

I chose Ultrasone's for their safety features, I don't want to lose any more of my hearing !

I would recomend getting your Dad a set of these !

[Knox]

Well !

What did you get your Dad ?

[Begadoc]

Some answers are already here but somewhat dated. ANy updates please?
Flat panel TV (Panasonic TX-L32V10B) has a great picture but sound is very poor. Problem is compounded by my hearing – left ear very poor from about 2KHz, though hearing aid boosts it a bit. Right ear better but still some loss above around 4KHz. If use my headphones (Bose) I can make out most of the dialogue but then my wife complains as I don't hear any comments she makes! Straight from TV I struggle, partly due to modern tendency of having (often strange) music in the background even in documentaries when not required, as in films, to aid the action (but that’s another issue!).
How can I best improve the sound quality? External amplifier and speakers or open up TV, by-pass internal speakers and connect them to decent ones outside the TV, or some other solution, bearing in mind that my wife doesn’t have a problem hearing it so I don’t want to create unnecessary control complications for her.