Recommendation for Noise-Cancelling Headphones

Concerning hearing over the Iphone: I have found Apple Earpods to be the best. I admit that the set-up is a little bit of a challenge, but it was worth it. I suggest you have a tech savy person (in my cae, my son) facilitate the setup.

Do your hearing aids have telecoils? If so, you may want to try connecting to your computer with a neckloop. Zoom now has auto speech recognition captions available. While they are not perfect, they sure do help. Have you tried that? Another option may be BlueTooth streaming.

Thank you for the suggestion. I've had pretty gook with those, too (from an audio quality standpoint). However, they cram my hearing aids into my ear canal, which can be uncomfortable. How do you deal with that?

* good luck 🙂

Hi Julie-

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure if my hearing aids have telecoils; they are Widex (brand). I will check out zoom's close captioning!
Not sure what you mean by bluetooth streaming... streaming from what to what? Thanks!

I use them instead of my HAs. Even without the HAs, it is still superior sound.

But, funnily enough, the other day, I mistakenly put the Earpod in on top of my HA and it stayed in, but it did create a small feedback squeal at times.

I should add that I don't use the Earpods when I am walking around as they stay in my ear a bit precariously.

I'm going to attach a few documents that HLAA provides about telecoils, hearing loops, options on hearing aids, etc. Telecoils use induction technology to transmit directly from a source to hearing aids. It blocks the hearing aids microphone so all you hear is what is coming to you via an audio device. One document explains hearing loops. I mentioned a 'neckloop', which is a personal hearing loop you can wear around your neck that plugs into personal audio devices. I use it on my cell phone, laptop, and other small devices. Streaming is a more sophisticated technology that requires an intermediary device like a streamer. I know some Widex aids have this technology, but no all of them.

I've been using hearing aids for decades. The telecoil is the most valuable option I've ever had. Yet, the providers often don't promote it or even explain it. Ask your provider if you have them. If not, be sure to insist on them next time you buy hearing aids. Funniest thing....telecoils add less than $10 in cost to a hearing aid. BlueTooth adds at least $1000.Guess which they promote. Here's a link are to information from The Hearing Loss Assn. of America, Inc. I hope this is helpful.

The HLAA website is: http://www.hearingloss.org

About Zoom's auto captioning. It has to be set up by the host of the meeting and can be set up permanently in the advanced settings. People who want to see the captions can click on the icon on the bottom right. Those who don't want them don't have to have them. It's good to know they can be dragged to the top or side of the screen if they cover information.

@jmdavis I see that Julie has mentioned some good options and that you do have hearing aids. I see many people wearing headsets during Zoom calls so I know there must be some good ones out there. I know that I've heard good things about the Jabra Evolve 40 but I didn't research to see if its the noise cancellation type. I do not use a headset because of the feedback produced when putting headphones over the ears. You'll do the best if you listen using your hearing aids (if you can prevent the feedback) as opposed to using only the headphones. If your Widex aids do not have a telecoil, you can get the streamer device, the Mdex, which has a telecoil inside of it. You'll be able to use that in venues that have an induction loop system installed. Streaming your audio from your phone, computer or any other audio source is the absolute best way of understanding speech since it puts the sound directly into your hearing aids. Personally, I have Resound aids and use their transmitter that attaches to the TV. Their streamer is about $250 but I found one on eBay for $85. I do not stream from my computer since my computer does not have Bluetooth. However, I can easily move the Resound TV streamer from my TV and connect it to my computer. Instead, I rely on captions when using my computer. As Julie mentioned, Zoom has captions but they have to first be enabled by the host. To get around that issue, you can use speech to text technology to get automatic captions. I use an Android phone, that is placed near my computer speaker, running the Live Transcribe app. There are a lot of options.
Tony in Michigan