Wireless audio distribution - microphone to earphones.

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Hope some of you audio buffs out there will find this an interesting
challenge. Looking to put a non hearing-aid based listening system
together for a nice old lady who is more than a bit on the deaf side.

Had her over to my place this weekend and we did rather well using a
wirless lavalier mic into a small mixing board and a 35 watt home audio
amp (cranked all the way up as it happens) pumping into the ear-bud
type headphones she normally uses to listen to TV and radio at her
home.

What I'd like to do is duplicate this system on a more practical and
portable basis. Either having all the components be either DC based
(preferably via batteries) or having at least the microphone and
earphones (in-ear style much prefered) be wireless.

As with most elderly folks, price of the components will be a fairly
big issue, though performance (being able to hear well) is of equal
importance I think.

Off the top of my head, for I'm just starting to research this myself,
the biggest hang-ups right now would seem to be getting the mic level
audio to line level, hopefully without the use of a complicated mixing
board, and then getting the earphones to be portable and still have
them be the in-ear type.

[Todd H.]

writes:
> Hope some of you audio buffs out there will find this an interesting
> challenge. Looking to put a non hearing-aid based listening system
> together for a nice old lady who is more than a bit on the deaf side.
>
> Had her over to my place this weekend and we did rather well using a
> wirless lavalier mic into a small mixing board and a 35 watt home audio
> amp (cranked all the way up as it happens) pumping into the ear-bud
> type headphones she normally uses to listen to TV and radio at her
> home.
>
> What I'd like to do is duplicate this system on a more practical and
> portable basis. Either having all the components be either DC based
> (preferably via batteries) or having at least the microphone and
> earphones (in-ear style much prefered) be wireless.
>
> As with most elderly folks, price of the components will be a fairly
> big issue, though performance (being able to hear well) is of equal
> importance I think.
>
> Off the top of my head, for I'm just starting to research this myself,
> the biggest hang-ups right now would seem to be getting the mic level
> audio to line level, hopefully without the use of a complicated mixing
> board, and then getting the earphones to be portable and still have
> them be the in-ear type.

Kudos on your altruistic help for your friend!

If you google "assistive listening devices" and you'll find that there
are lots of folks playing in this space with battery powered systems
that do just what you seek, assuming a microphone location on the
person.

You spec a wireless microphone though... which makes it unclear
whether you have a novel twist on the stuff that's already out there.
With the microphone separate from the person, what you have is then
not terribly different than spy surveillance sort of listening
devices.

In the audio realm, in-ear monitor systems do the job of wirelessly
getting you from point A to B with line-level to headphone level
gain. Could that with a battery power preamplified microphone (I
mention one at http://toddh.net/music/njb/ ) and you have your
system that's both wireless and needn't rely on wall power.

Not being sure entirely what your goals are, maybe these pieces add
some value to your destination...or maybe not. 8-)

Best Regards,
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Todd H
\ / | http://www.toddh.net/
X Promoting good netiquette | http://triplethreatband.com/
/ \ http://www.toddh.net/netiquette/ | "4 lines suffice."

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Ah yes, locating both the microphone and the listening device on the
person. I hadn't really thought in those terms, considering instead
that the microphone would be directly adjacent to the person doing the
speaking. I think this lady is so far towards deaf that optimizing the
clarity of the sound entering whatever device is used would be of
paramount importance. Moving the microphone, especially an
omnidirectional type, any distance from the sound source would likely
introduce unwelcome background noise.

Thanks for the link to the the powered preamped microphone, that is
definitely along the lines of what I was thinking. Since this post I've
also found a bargain line in small preamps that would do the trick,
though this does complicate matters by introducing an additional piece
of equipment into the chain.

I also though also back to my days as a kid, when battery powered FM
wireless microphones operating on radio wavelength FM frequencies
(typically 89-95mhz) were somewhat the rage. A decent enough one of
these and a Walkman type radio could be the most simplistic approach of
all. Unforunately, they seem to be somewhat thin on the ground these
days.

Still looking though, and it's early days yet.