Advice on compensating for hearing loss


Here's a puzzle: I'm an 84-year-old music/movie lover with considerable hearing loss (especially upper register), helped to some extent by high-end Oticon hearing aids.  Current system is an Arcam AVR300 receiver and a pair of Von Schweikert  VR-1 bookshelf speakers, old but still working well. What kind of additions/ improvements can I make that would at least  help with dialogue and lyrics and possibly even make music (classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, rock) more enjoyable? A center speaker?  Which ones (since the Von Schweikert's can't be matched I've been considering everything from Polk CD10 to Elac C5 to Aperion 5C)? Would a subwoofer help? Anything else? I'm not much interested in surround per se unless it helps with the issue. I'm sure I'm not the only senior grappling with these and similar questions. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

jessleo
Jessleo, I have those speakers paired with VonSchweikert's VS1 sub, a perfect match IMO
  • Thanks. Do you have a center speaker?  I 'im sure the VS sub is a great match but  would it help with dialog, lyrics, etc.?
For movie/tv I would definitely suggest a center channel speaker. If you run an auto calibration go in manually and bump up the center channel until you get the effect you want.

My dad is now 83. Several years ago he was complaining about not being able to watch TV because he couldn't make out the dialog over the soundtrack. He was just using the TV speakers so I set him up with a soundbar that allowed for adjusting the 'Center Channel' level and it was a huge improvement.