Budget for listening assist?

[blueeyesdesigns]

The listening assist system in my primary venue is on its last leg (original to when the building opened ~20 years ago) and I'd like to budget to replace it in the next few years. Unfortunately I don't have a frame of reference for how much to expect it to cost. Has anyone done a loop install lately and have dollar amounts they wouldn't mind sharing?

Our current system is IR, and has all the pitfalls you'd expect (poor reception, dark spots, etc). I'd love to provide a better experience for our patrons and to that end I'm thinking about switching to a loop system. I have some experience with them from previous gigs, but they're much smaller venues with much simpler systems than I think I'd need here. I've got a 440 seat auditorium with a steeply raked main section and a mezzanine off to each side.

 

[FMEng]

How many receivers do you need?

Loops are great in new buildings or remodels, otherwise proper installation can be quite challenging. The upside is more hearing aids are compatible with it these days, so some users don't even need to ask for a receiver.

The problem with a loop system is most large auditoriums require several loops to meet signal strength standards. That may mean exposed, visible foil tape on the floor, or tearing up floor coverings. Beware of inexperienced or untrained installers that do not show a scale drawing and design approved by the equipment manufacturer, don't have a signal meter to proof the installation, or try to do it with just a perimeter loop simply for ease of installation. Just because seat of the pants design worked in a modest sized hotel meeting room doesn't mean it will in a theater. The signal strength has to be good to work reliably with all hearing aids and receivers.

In my opinion FM is probably the way to go in an existing space. It is much easier to get good coverage, and site lines are not an issue. The downside is that the user has to use a receiver with headphones, ear buds, or a loop around their neck. Some people shun being seen using such devices.

 

[josh88]

We updated our FM system 2 years ago for a 900 seat venue. The new transmitter worked with the old units we had so we were able to keep about 12 in stock and buy fewer new to meet the ADA requirements. We looked at loops but it was going to be cost prohibitive in our venue after the fact.

24 receivers (and case and charger and earbuds), 1 transmitter and the 9 neck loops we needed to be compliant t-coil hearing aids ran us $4700.



for 440 seats you're looking at needing 2 +16.5 (17) for a total of 19 receivers and 4.75 (5) hearing aid compatible neck loops to be compliant.

 

[Ben Stiegler]

Avoid loops in your situation ... not portable, really disruptive to install (need many sub loops, have to find places to throw the null lobes, etc.), and more costly. fm my first choice, IR second.

 

[Van]

When I built our new blackbox back when I did that sort of thing... I got in touch with the folks at Listen Tech. I have had nothing but glowing praise for their Customer service and product.
I agree with what has been stated already FM is your best bet. Listen gear is compatible with Hearing technology and it's super easy set up.
https://www.listentech.com/assistive-listening/listenrf/

 

[halenono]

If you are interested in exploring a hearing loop, I have a recommendation for you to check out. Dave at DRS Sound http://www.drssound.com/ located in Kiel, Wisconsin. I see you are in Northwest Chicago. You are probably close to the edge of his range, but according to his website he has done installs in your neck of the woods. DRS Sound installed a loop in our theater about 8 years ago. They did a fabulous job - you literally can't see where they installed the wires. My theater was probably a simpler layout than what you have, so the complexity and ease of install will vary a lot. I have a 900 seat theater with about 700 of the seats on a main floor with a moderate slope and no steps and then a balcony with tiered seating. We only looped the main floor. He was able to do the entire thing with one loop in a figure-eight pattern. Only thing we have had to do to it in the 8 years was get the LED's replaced on the driver unit.
Edited to add budget: our project was about $6,700 in 2013. The loop, driver and install was about $5,600 and we purchased a handful of stand alone receivers for about $1000.

 

[TimMc]

My experience - loop sytems work well when properly engineered and *installed at the time of construction* or remodel. The rest of time the accesss to where the loop wires need to be will be either difficult or impossible.

The Williams or Listen RF systems are easy to install and use. Contact them.

 

[Calc]

I'll second Van's recommendation for Listen. We had a transmitter here that failed after sitting in a rack powered 24/7/365 in a classroom for ten years. The model was discontinued, long out of warranty. They fixed it for the cost of shipping, no questions asked.

 

[aeh20s]

I worked in a theater that had a loop, and it was generally great until guitar pickups started picking up the loop and we had to figure out why the guitar was feeding back for no reason. I don't know how much of an issue that would be in your space, but something to keep in mind.

 

[Kristi R-C]

Talk with Arrow AV Group in Appleton, Wi. They’ve installed hundreds of them in theaters and houses of worship all over the midwest and a few coast-to-coast. (Full disclosure - I work for them and do the quality checks for the loop installs.) Ask for Terry - (920) 731-4888 - tell him I sent you.

If you can’t install the loop in the building, which is sometimes the case in historic venues or those with a great deal of metal in the construction, there are personal loop models. The user wears the device like a necklace so it works with their t-coil enabled hearing aid just as if the loop were in the floor. A lot of Deaf/HH folks don’t like them because it’s a much more visibly obvious to others than simply turning on the t-coil, but it’ll keep you legal.


Side note... one of the best days I’ve had in my life was at a loop check. A business installed one in the ceiling of a basement conference room. They have one deaf employee and had been using a portable solution that was obvious, awkward, and just a PITA, so when they renovated their AV system they added a loop. I did the system quality check and then trained the folks on how to use it. Turned on the loop and the employee who needed it began to cry, and then the boss did and in a few minutes everyone else in the room did, too. Yeah - technology changing lives for the better... pretty amazing things we can do with our theater magic!

 

[BillESC]

I've installed a lot of Oval Window Inductive Loop Systems. One system can cover a 75' x 75' room or up to 300' of circumference. A system with four receivers for those without hearing aids runs under $ 2000.

 

[ACTSTech]

We're researching this right now. A lot of help came from people on here, but you might as well accept that loop systems are on their way out and look at the FM technology. I have a demo set up (the salesman is driving in from Michigan because no one in a 3 hour radius was interested in talking) for the Listen technology as well as some newer bluetooth systems that he said are almost no latency. I'll believe the latter once I hear it, but if it integrates with the FM system seamlessly, I'll report back.

 

[halenono]

you might as well accept that loop systems are on their way out

I'm curious as to why you assert this. I certainly don't have the experience of many of the individuals on this forum, and some have provided some good examples of why loops may not be the best choice in some circumstances, but I did some searching and frankly can't find any information that suggests loop systems are a bad choice because they are on their way out. I did find a lot of articles and information specifically countering that position and providing multiple reasons why hearing loops are often the best solution. I don't intend to be confrontational, but am truly interested if you have some evidence that loops are not a good choice moving forward.

 

[sk8rsdad]

When we purchased several years ago all the vendors were steering us toward either IR or FM. At the time, there weren't many T-coil equipped hearing aids in our location, or in North America for that matter. Apparently, that has changed as more hearing aid vendors have incorporated the feature into their products. IR made more sense for our venue. As an added bonus, the transmitters do double duty as a light source for our low-light camera.

Loops have the advantage of convenience for patrons who happen to have compatible hearing aids. In most other respects, FM and IR have an advantage. FM and IR cost less to install. They're also easier to amend or upgrade as technology evolves. All require an inventory of receivers, along with the maintenance and front-of-house management overhead. In some cases, like simultaneous translation, only FM and IR can handle multiple channels.

It's very much a YMMV situation that depends on your typical patrons and how you score the relative strength and weakness of any given feature. For instance, if most of your patrons who would use a hearing assist system already have T-coil hearing aids, the convenience and reduced inventory of receivers might tip the scales in favour of a loop.

ListenTech provides a pretty good high-level comparison.

Blog Home - Listen Technologies

Listen Technologies Blog

www.listentech.com

 

[TimMc]

I'm curious as to why you assert this. I certainly don't have the experience of many of the individuals on this forum, and some have provided some good examples of why loops may not be the best choice in some circumstances, but I did some searching and frankly can't find any information that suggests loop systems are a bad choice because they are on their way out. I did find a lot of articles and information specifically countering that position and providing multiple reasons why hearing loops are often the best solution. I don't intend to be confrontational, but am truly interested if you have some evidence that loops are not a good choice moving forward.

Is one better than the other? From the fundamental standpoint of providing listening assistance, not significantly. It's the practical aspects of installation and use that tend to move the needle.

 

[ACTSTech]

I'm curious as to why you assert this. I certainly don't have the experience of many of the individuals on this forum, and some have provided some good examples of why loops may not be the best choice in some circumstances, but I did some searching and frankly can't find any information that suggests loop systems are a bad choice because they are on their way out. I did find a lot of articles and information specifically countering that position and providing multiple reasons why hearing loops are often the best solution. I don't intend to be confrontational, but am truly interested if you have some evidence that loops are not a good choice moving forward.

so I just did an indepth training on this, which I recommend highly. I thought I knew enough about loop systems ... wrong. Techniques for managing interference into adjacent spaces. Optimal angles to get even B-field strength across a space. Techniques for applying 90 phase shift to manage nulls. Escher-like topologies for better performance that go far beyond running a perimeter loop. It took 90 mins, plus there's a 15 item quiz to get level 1 certification. Even if you don't use or sell this brand, it was a very good training, and totally worth my time. Contacts to get the on-demand version of it:

Marketing & Training Coordinator - [email protected] 801.542.7771
Sales Engineering - [email protected] 801-542-7713

Ironically, when I reached out to Listen Technologies, they said they were moving away from the loop systems and concentrating on BlueTooth and WiFi instead.

That was from January of this year when I asked Listen Technologies for a quote and inquired about their free training on loop systems. I'll admit I have no experience with loop systems, but at my budget point, I can't find any systems that are loop. As we cannot affix anything to the floor or walls, the 25' ceiling would be the best area as long as we're not covering up any of the artwork or architectural features. I just can't see how the cost of installation would justify the purchase when an FM system, in my case, would work much better.

I'm not trying to persuade anyone out of a loop system. It's not for me.

 

[FMEng]

I have to say I'm very skeptical about wifi and bluetooth systems as well. There's no getting around the latency. How does hearing everything twice help the user?

 

[macsound]

I have to say I'm very skeptical about wifi and bluetooth systems as well. There's no getting around the latency. How does hearing everything twice help the user?

I was just reading an article that said iOS based assisted listening devices add between 60 and 120ms of latency. Probably something that would work in a museum or amphitheater, but not a smaller space.

 

[DrewE]

I was just reading an article that said iOS based assisted listening devices add between 60 and 120ms of latency. Probably something that would work in a museum or amphitheater, but not a smaller space.

The speed of sound works out to roughly 1 foot per ms, as I suspect you're well aware. For the lower end of the range, if you're at least 50' or so from the performers, it should sound just fine. In smaller (but not tiny) spaces, in the back portion it could be acceptable but the front sections would be increasingly less so. I'm pretty sure the ADA would not be sufficiently well served if one insisted that anyone requiring assisted listening devices be seated only in the rear half of the house.

One foot per ms is a handy rule of thumb for sound, off by about 10%. The equivalent rule of thumb for electronic signals propagating in a wire (and also for the speed of light) is one foot per ns.

 

[macsound]

That's more or less what I was getting at with the natural delay aligning with the digital delay.

But also realizing that the larger the space, the higher the chance there will be delay speakers. So even though you're 100' away from the performers, you're only 20' away from the delay speaker, reintroducing the "echo".

But places like amphitheaters are ruckus with crazy echos, so I presume you'd maybe not notice.